Mary and childbirth

[debraran]

You will know one day in heaven and then it wont matter, but I feel men, not understanding what makes a woman "pure" etc. said things years ago out of ignorance. Mary was human, Jesus was human, there wasn't magic, "hocus-pocus" to make her not human. She was a pure soul, not sinning, but human. Everyone Jesus met and was with was human with human functions. Jesus was a real child, he ate, went to the bathroom, all the things that make us human. So did Mary. She was different in being holy, without sin, but to get into what happened when she gave birth, seems wrong to me and gives fodder to skeptics that say the whole thing didn't happen when you make it seem like he just "appeared". Why even have him born or go 9 months?He wasn't an alien and having Jesus wouldn't make her not a virgin, sleeping with a man would. How people thought of it many years ago, is different than now.
She will always be a perfect mother, but whether she bled or didn't bleed doesn't matter at all.
I might be wrong, but I think too much speculation on these things takes away from the miracle of his birth as God's son.

[Uzziah1]

Originally Posted by fred conty

I agree that it could have been bloody even tho miraculously virginal because the birth seemed normal in every other sense. In fact that would seem to emphasize how normal it was.

Just a thought.

Additionally, Fred, you did not address the main problem: Resolving a doctrine that says that Mary was a "closed box" PERPETUAL virgin with a doctrine that says that Jesus was fully God and FULLY man.

I.e., to get OUT of Mary's womb, Mary either "turned mystical" for a moment in time, so that solid Jesus could get OUT of the "closed box," in which case then Mary was NOT a "perpetual" virgin (because she stopped being "human like us" for at least a point on the time number line) or Jesus "turned mystical" for a moment in time, so that it can not be said that in His life He was ALWAYS "fully God AND fully man."

[BellsMom]

I think the teachings regarding Marys perpetual virginity and Jesus's birth are all based on ancient Jewish prejudices regarding sexual and biological purity.

Perfect women are meek and quiet and virginal. They are in no way sexual beings unless it's required of them in service to their husbands and then only for babies. Perfect women don't howl and scream in pain during childbirth. They don't gush out blood and amniotic fluid and baby pooh all over the floor.

It wouldn't be "fit" to have Jesus's mother be "impure" in any sense. She certainly couldn't be sexually impure. As for Jesus's birth, again it wouldn't be proper to have the son of God touched by a woman's impure blood and other icky body fluids.

I find it all rather sexist myself, like being a regular wife and mother wasn't good enough. It was okay to venerate an impossibly perfect version of a woman because she wasn't really a woman anymore.

I guess what I'm saying is that I think the Church's dogma regarding Mary is based on practicality and not truth.

[Mintaka]

Jewish ritual cleanliness didn't have zip zilch zero in common with sexual purity, the way you seem to be picturing it. It had a lot more in common with all the rest of the standard Indo-European, and even non-Indo-European, concepts of ritual cleanliness.

Basically, ritual cleanliness was a sort of ritual safety and normality. Approaching too close to life, death, birth, menstruation, or various other strong cosmic concepts, made you no longer ritually "safe" for those who were ritually clean, because you temporarily became similarly strongly part of these powerful concepts of life, death, etc.

For example, it's pretty standard throughout the world that women going through birth, men going through war, people cleaning the dead, etc. go past some kind of threshold that temporarily makes them not "safe". A lot of these folks are performing tasks which are regarded by their culture as totally morally good; they are just dangerous or different or closer to God than normal life. Some of these folks are just going through normal life events. Some of these folks become "unclean" from performing morally dubious or evil acts, but it's not the evilness that makes them unclean; it's going past that threshold of life and death and cosmic stuff.

Becoming the Ark of the Covenant, or serving as a priest, or doing a bunch of other very religious things, also made you ritually dangerous to be around.

And if you expect that a normal woman can give birth to God made Man, without any weird effects on time/space, or that God would go to all that trouble and not throw down signs left and right, you surely are an optimist but not much of an artist. And you weren't paying very close attention to the Gospels, because weird miraculous stuff was happening all the time!

I love you guys, but I totally don't understand the resistance to this thread. (And apparently Jesus ceased to be true God and true Man every time he did a miracle? Especially when He walked into the room without opening any doors or windows? The whole point of His Resurrection miracles was that He was true God and true Man....)

[Huiou Theou]

Originally Posted by Mintaka

Jewish ritual cleanliness didn't have zip zilch zero in common with sexual purity, the way you seem to be picturing it. It had a lot more in common with all the rest of the standard Indo-European, and even non-Indo-European, concepts of ritual cleanliness.

Basically, ritual cleanliness was a sort of ritual safety and normality. Approaching too close to life, death, birth, menstruation, or various other strong cosmic concepts, made you no longer ritually "safe" for those who were ritually clean, because you temporarily became similarly strongly part of these powerful concepts of life, death, etc.

For example, it's pretty standard throughout the world that women going through birth, men going through war, people cleaning the dead, etc. go past some kind of threshold that temporarily makes them not "safe". A lot of these folks are performing tasks which are regarded by their culture as totally morally good; they are just dangerous or different or closer to God than normal life. Some of these folks are just going through normal life events. Some of these folks become "unclean" from performing morally dubious or evil acts, but it's not the evilness that makes them unclean; it's going past that threshold of life and death and cosmic stuff.

Becoming the Ark of the Covenant, or serving as a priest, or doing a bunch of other very religious things, also made you ritually dangerous to be around.

And if you expect that a normal woman can give birth to God made Man, without any weird effects on time/space, or that God would go to all that trouble and not throw down signs left and right, you surely are an optimist but not much of an artist. And you weren't paying very close attention to the Gospels, because weird miraculous stuff was happening all the time!

I love you guys, but I totally don't understand the resistance to this thread. (And apparently Jesus ceased to be true God and true Man every time he did a miracle? Especially when He walked into the room without opening any doors or windows? The whole point of His Resurrection miracles was that He was true God and true Man....)

I'm impressed. I don't often see someone argue as well as you have been doing.

There is a couple of thoughts I'd like to add to your arsenal...

In Luke, it doesn't say Mary went in for "her" purification according to the law;
it says she, Joseph, and Jesus went in for "their" purification according to the law.

The sanctity of Jesus' blood was going to save the world, it would be interesting to consider what it means that a "normal" birth would cause that blood to be spilled willy nilly from the umbilical cord, and from the placenta.

We are told, that on the eighth day, Jesus was circumcised; and that is the day they gave him the name "Yeshua" or perhaps, homophonically, "Yuah - Shua";
"God (personal! name) -- saves". (AKA Joshua).

CCC:
499 The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary's real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man.154 In fact, Christ's birth "did not diminish his mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it."155 And so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos, the "Ever-virgin".156

The life is in the blood. And we are also told "The spirit (poss. breath) gives life".

The ancients did know about C-section, but the indications are that it was a desperate move and may have been more of something done if the mother dies or is going to die in order to save the child; and I haven't seen any statistics or history on how well it was performed. But it is something to note that Mary may have not been well endowed in the hips in order to have a child; I f so, the miraculous birth in the specific messianic psalm (22:9) by God drawing him forth can be seen to be done to protect the child.

8 "He committed his cause to the LORD; let him deliver him,
let him rescue him, for he delights in him!" [Says the crowd at the cross!]

9 Yet thou art he who took me from the womb;
thou didst keep me safe upon my mother's breasts.

10 Upon thee was I cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me thou hast been my God.

Many miracles in Jesus' life were to prevent him from being pre-maturely murdered. eg: as the synagog members decided to throw him off a cliff...
This theme continues when we look back at history....:

Sarah, the Wife of Abraham had a "dead womb". Isaac was drawn forth from this death for the first time in his mother's womb; much like Adam was pulled out of the slime of the earth at creation. It is because of the child appearing in a womb that couldn't support a child that Abraham was able to reason that God could even pull a child sacrificed from an altar -- back out of the grave.
There was only one Heir of Abraham, and the promise made all physical threats to him something that God would deal with. (But he didn't let Isaac suffer an un-necessary trial, rather he let an animal take it...)

One may attribute this mercy to God's favor toward Mary; or one may attribute it to his protective fatherhood of his son. There are mysteries here to probe.

Peace to you,
Your brother in Christ,
--Andrew.

[Bravo 6]

The Blessed Virgin Mary "gave birth" to our Lord in an ineffable manner.How can I explain this?It's like after the resurrection when Christ actually passed through a closed door or wall and stood amidst the Apostles.Almost like a beam of light penetrating through a cloth.This is how I understand it.

JMJ

[Lost and Found]

If Revelation 12:1 is referring to Our Blessed Mother as the Ark of the New Covenant, isn't Revelation 12:2 describing the birth of Jesus?

"2 She was pregnant, and in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth."

[Huiou Theou]

Originally Posted by Bravo 6

The Blessed Virgin Mary "gave birth" to our Lord in an ineffable manner.How can I explain this?It's like after the resurrection when Christ actually passed through a closed door or wall and stood amidst the Apostles.Almost like a beam of light penetrating through a cloth.This is how I understand it.

JMJ

[StLudmilla]

Originally Posted by Lost and Found

If Revelation 12:1 is referring to Our Blessed Mother as the Ark of the New Covenant, isn't Revelation 12:2 describing the birth of Jesus?

"2 She was pregnant, and in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth."

The woman in Revelation 12 is both an individual, Mary, and a collective symbol:

Isaiah 26:17 "17 Like a woman with child, who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near her time, so were we because of you, O Lord"

The faithful remnant of Israel crying out for redemption.