A gift of grace in a Sunday sermon

I thought I'd found an opportunity to teach back to the hierarchy today, but as God is or surprises, I ended up learning. Today's Gospel was about the laborers in the vineyard--some hired for the full day, some for just an hour, but all paid the full day's wage. The priest used it to speak about the greatness and overabundance of God's love for us. He asked us to imagine, and some of us to remember, the joy that a mother feels when her child is placed in her arms. He went on to talk about how no matter how many children they have, parents love them all greatly, and then said, "Think back to the mother holding her newborn baby. God is that mother, and He loves us all that much." It was one of those weird linguistic moments our tradition sometimes causes. So I rolled my eyes, but I was still so pleased at the extended female metaphor. This is a perfect situation to use it, where God-as-Father would have different connotations for most people than a recently delivered mother delighting in her child. So I went up to the priest after Mass, which always makes me feel a bit like teacher's pet. For some reason, I never imagined that his female metaphor had been conscious; I guessed he'd seen it as simply the obvious choice, and expected puzzlement at my reaction. But when I said "I appreciated your feminine image for God--like to hear more of that," his eyes lit up in recognition and he said "Thank you." Shame on me for my smug assumptions. Praise God for what became a twofold gift of grace.