Augustine on Loving God as Our Father and the Church as Our Mother

A strong case could be made that the Roman Church is a heretical body displaying all the hallmarks of Donatism because it anathematized Constantinople and declared herself to be the Only True Church©. The charge could likewise be leveled at modern Protestants sects like the Protestant Reformed Church which was born in schism and itself has recently undergone a split by those within who claim to be the Only True Church©.

Regardless, the following observation from Augustine at the end of his commentary of Psalm 89 is rather insightful. The gist is you cannot say you honor God while you dishonor his Church and vice versa. To dishonor the Church and say it is impure or overrun by the devil is to repudiate the Body of Christ Himself. We must love God as our Father and the Church as our Mother.

41.  Let us love our Lord God, let us love His Church: Him as a Father, Her as a Mother: Him as a Lord, Her as His Handmaid, as we are ourselves the Handmaid's sons. But this marriage is held together by a bond of great love: no man offends the one, and wins favour of the other. Let no man say, I go indeed to the idols, I consult possessed ones and fortune-tellers: yet I abandon not God's Church; I am a Catholic. While you hold to your Mother, you have offended your Father. Another says, Far be it from me; I consult no sorcerer, I seek out no possessed one, I never ask advice by sacrilegiousdivination, I go not to worship idols, I bow not before stones; though I am in the party of Donatus. What does it profit you not to have offended your Father, if he avenges your offended Mother? What does it serve you, if you acknowledge the Lord, honour God, preach His name, acknowledge His Son, confess that He sits by His right hand; while you blaspheme His Church? Does not the analogy of human marriages convince you? Suppose you have some patron, whom you court every day, whose threshold you wear with your visits, whom you daily not only salute, but even worship, to whom you pay the most loyal courtesy; if you utter one calumny against his wife, could you re-enter his house? Hold then, most beloved, hold all with one mind to God the Father, and the Church our Mother. Celebrate with temperance the birthdays of the Saints, that we may imitate those who have gone before us, and that they who pray for you may rejoice over you; that the blessing of the Lord may abide on you for evermore. Amen and Amen.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801089.htm