When my mother brought out the appetizers, my siblings and I looked into the bowls. There they were-the radishes.

We each ate a single radish. And then we ran. We believed that if you eat a radish, the devil will come to eat you, and you need to run around the block three times in order to outrun him. Then, if the devil hasn't caught up with you, you're safe. It must have been that tangy, mouth-watering sting of the radish as well as its bright red color that created this superstition.

It was a fun game-until I would fall down and skin my knees. Then I would limp home crying, and my mother would take me inside, clean out the bits of dirt and pebbles stuck to my raw wound, and bandage it.  She was used to doing this, because it seems that I was a clumsy child. I fell down a lot, either playing chase or jumping too far in hopscotch, or just tripping over a crack in the sidewalk. And every time, my mother would patiently clean and bandage my wound as I cried. She must have had a bulk supply of gauze bandages in the medicine cabinet, so often did I fall. But she displayed a nurturing love that manifested itself for me most in the repeated, almost ritual bandaging of my skinned knees.

Julian of Norwich, whose feast day we celebrate on May 8, wrote about a God of nurturing love. She described the wonder of God who shows a motherly, nurturing care for us-a God for those who fall down often, who come to God with our spiritual skinned knees needing to be healed and comforted.

                It's spring, and the planet is busy nurturing new life. Christ is risen, and the God of life and love triumphs. As we move towards the day in which we celebrate our own mothers, and those who have shown us a mother's love, let us also celebrate the God of motherly love as Julian so movingly revealed to us.