The three papers in this session examine the intersection of motherhood, religious practice, and alternative frameworks of care through case studies spanning Islamic pilgrimage, Christian theology, and domestic religious formations. Moving beyond traditional understandings of maternal identity, the papers explore motherhood as a theological metaphor, a site of pedagogical transmission, and a source of ritual agency. The first paper examines the figure of Hajera in Islamic pilgrimage, uncovering feminist dimensions of maternal agency and ritual memory. The second paper investigates the Christian home as a pedagogical space where motherhood shapes religious futures through everyday domestic practice. The third paper reinterprets Jesus’s desire through the lens of the “good-enough mother,” reframing divine nourishment and mutual longing. Together, these papers expand the category of motherhood to encompass theological imagination, intergenerational formation, and embodied religious practice across traditions.
This paper examines the central role of motherhood in shaping religious ritual and collective memory through the story of the biblical figure Hagar . According to Islamic tradition, Hajera ran desperately between the mountains of Safa and Marwa searching for water to save her infant child. Her act of maternal survival later became institutionalized in the ritual of Sa’i, performed by millions of Muslims during the pilgrimage of Hajj. Through this ritual, a mother’s struggle becomes sacred practice and communal memory. Pilgrims—both men and women—reenact Hajera’s running, embodying the act through which she sought to secure the future generation. Yet while their bodies repeat her movement, ritual prayers often invoke Abraham rather than Hajera. Drawing on Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of the borderlands, this paper argues that Hajera’s story reveals how maternal agency, survival, and displacement become foundational to religious ritual even when women’s voices remain partially absent from formal religious memory.
Within many conservative Christian communities, motherhood is framed not only as a familial role but as a vocation tied to the transmission of religious identity and moral order across generations. This paper examines how maternal labor functions as a form of domestic pedagogy by focusing on everyday practices through which religious enculturation occurs within the home. Drawing on scholarship in lived religion and material religion, the study analyzes how domestic practices—including homeschooling, food preparation, household discipline, clothing norms, and family prayer routines—organize the home as a pedagogical environment in which children learn religious identity and moral authority. Homemaking discourse and social media maternal networks further circulate models of Christian domestic life across digital spaces. By examining the material and pedagogical dimensions of these practices, the paper argues that maternal labor within the Christian home plays a central role in shaping the religious futures cultivated within conservative Christian communities.
Jesus, the Thirsty Mother: Jesus’ Desire as a “Good-Enough Mother” to Nourish his Children While Simultaneously Thirsting for Them
This paper explores the paradox of Jesus, the thirsty mother in the Eucharist.
Julian of Norwich’s writings highlight the under-explored theme of divine, thirsty motherhood. The maternal Jesus wishes to nourish his/her children through the materiality of the Eucharist, while experiencing continuous thirst for them. To illumine this paradox, I draw on strands of medieval mystical literature, psychoanalysis and material practice. I bring together Julian’s writings with D.W. Winnicott’s “good-enough mother”, insights from the Brabant/Liege Vitae, and recent work by Hannah Lucas, to offer a fresh perspective on Jesus’ motherly role in the Eucharist. My paper benefits from the new awareness of Eucharistic loss gained during the COVID-19 pandemic, and investigates Julian’s understanding of a hope-filled, future fulfilment of Jesus’ thirsty desire and of his/her children’s longing for their divine mother.