So I check my e-mail and I receive the following from a fellow TLM server down south with the name "dom preach":
Hello Julian,
I noticed on your blog that you made mention in passing that the Blessed Mother had pain in childbirth. That was not so. She was not affected by Original Sin like Eve and all other women. She is ever-virgin, meaning she did not have Our Lord in the way all other women have children. It is probably best put that Our Lady had Our Lord like the rays of the Sun pass through glass.
I hope you can correct that. Pray the Rosary and always stay under Our Lady's mantle.
In JMJ,
*Dom
* Name changed to protect identity.
This was in reply to this quote in the Post Christmas Mass report:
"On a second, theological level, the Marian vestments honour another important person in the Nativity: Jesus' earthly, yet Blessed Mother, the Theotokos (God-bearer in Greek), the Virgin Mary, who bore our Lord in likely painful childbirth. (I say painful as today a mother usually has the option of getting a drug known as an epidural, which numbs the lower body and reduces pain, making it bearable for the expecting mother. This modern convenience was certainly not present in Biblical times.)"
The one thing that will stand for sure, is there were no anasthesia drugs back then like at modern hospitals, so Mary wouldn't have had that option. As for the rest ...
Clearly this is something that's got to be discerned about and the true answer discovered. It'd be wise for any academic and theologically sound person to conduct some research on such an issue. I did whatever research I could do with whatever sources at my disposal in the following order of importance/theological weight:
- Central teachings of the Fatih: Catechism of the Catholic Church and Magisterial Documents
- Other Magisterial arms: e.g. Councils
- Writings of Popes and Theologians in a non-direct Magisterial capacity/Apologists/Lay people
Catechism and Magisterial Documents
I decided first to turn to the Catechism of the Catholic Church to see what the central teaching on Mary's experience during the Nativity of our Lord was and .... nothing. There were some passages about the sanctity of the birth, but nothing saying she delivered pain free or not.
My next destination was the encyclicals/apostolic exhortions/decrees, etc. using the Vatican's search engine. One result in particular came up: Ad Diem Illum Laetissium, ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS X
ON THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION TO THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS,
BISHOPS, AND OTHER ORDINARIES IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE. An encyclical, by the way, is a letter written by the Pope himself (or drafted and created by the pope with someone doing the typing/writing) to the whole Church on a major moral or theological concept or teaching, regardless of who its addressed to. Further, this pope in particular is heavily quoted with regards to the Traditional Latin Mass and traditional Catholicism (albeit a lot of the time misrepresented in a highly negative and detrimental context ... I'm not elaborating further here ...) In the encyclical was contained this items speaking about birth pains:
" 24. Leaving aside charity towards God, who can contemplate the
Immaculate Virgin without feeling moved to fulfill that precept which Christ
called peculiarly His own, namely that of loving one another as He loved us? "A
great sign," thus the Apostle St. John describes a vision divinely sent him,
appears in the heavens: "A woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under
her feet and a crown of twelve stars upon her head" (Apoc. xii., 1).
Everyone knows that this woman signified the Virgin Mary, the stainless one who
brought forth our Head. The Apostle continues: "And, being with child, she cried
travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered" (Apoc. xii., 2).
John therefore saw the Most Holy Mother of God already in eternal happiness, yet
travailing in a mysterious childbirth. What birth was it? Surely it was the
birth of us who, still in exile, are yet to be generated to the perfect charity
of God, and to eternal happiness. And the birth pains show the love and desire
with which the Virgin from heaven above watches over us, and strives with
unwearying prayer to bring about the fulfillment of the number of the elect."
While it is a book not of the four Gospels, it is nonetheless important to the Catholic Faith, as many of the allegories and symbolisms within are direct and mean something, such as our Blessed Mother, Jesus (the lamb often mentioned in the book), etc. Why much of our practical basis for the Catholic Mass comes out of that book! If taken literlally, we have is a direct Scriptural reference to Mary's birth pains AND an encyclical from a Pope stating such. However, we are not sola scriptura Christians, we are Catholics! We know what a number of things in the Bible are taken contextually and defined literally when absolutely needed by our Magisterium, so taking this into account as well as doing a couple of read throughs, word order, and the question and context, make it seem like 1) that Mary wanted to deliver the kid and it was causing anguish or mental ``pains`` as in ``get it over with now! Give the Saviour to the world`` and that it refers to general humanity`s birthing pains. So I am afraid that this encyclical is not 100% clear but perhaps other sources will point the way to answer this question.
I also turned to one of the two Marian, dogmas, which in fact, are one of the two Church's instances of absolute ex-cathedra pronouncement of dogma which must be obeyed by all Catholics, or they are excommunicated, Munificentissimus Deus, the November 1, 1950 Apostolic Constitution released by Pius XII. In it, here's what I got:
"21. Thus St. John Damascene, an outstanding herald of this traditional truth, spoke out with powerful eloquence when he compared the bodily Assumption of the loving Mother of God with her other prerogatives and privileges. "It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. ... "
"32. Along with many others, the Seraphic Doctor held the same views. He considered it as entirely certain that, as God had preserved the most holy Virgin Mary from the violation of her virginal purity and integrity in conceiving and in childbirth, he would never have permitted her body to have been resolved into dust and ashes ....
37. At the same time the great Suarez was professing in the field of mariology the norm that "keeping in mind the standards of propriety, and when there is no contradiction or repugnance on the part of Scripture, the mysteries of grace which God has wrought in the Virgin must be measured, not by the ordinary laws, but by the divine omnipotence ...."
Alright. So this is getting better. It`s still not a direct ``she had no childbirth` statement, but these paragraphs can point to some things.# 37, when talknig about mysteries of grace and not ordinary laws, definitely makes it possible she could defy the natural law/rules of pain in childbirth. Further looking at # 32 when it talks about purity and integrity, in conceiving and childbirth, one could say that she would sustain no blood loss, fracture or broken bones, or tissue damage. Now finally, when I think of paragraph # 21, we can remember the first woman, Eve, who by what she did in co-operation of the devil, was punished with labour pains in childbirth, due to the corruption of Original Sin, which Mary does not have. Still, no direct statements yet. Where to now???
Other Magisterial Arms.
So I went onto a Catholic forum that asked this questions and found this:
Non-Theological Sources
I also decided to do direct searches on the internet for mary, chilbirth, and pain. I got this handy article here:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15464b.htm, which talks about the Virgin Mary herself. This is what is contained about her birth:
Mary gives birth to Our Lord
Objection 2. Further, the end is proportionate to the beginning. But Christ ended His life in pain, according to Isaiah 53:4: "Surely . . . He hath carried our sorrows." Therefore it seems that His nativity was not without the pains of childbirth.
Objection 3. Further, in the book on the birth of our Saviour [Protevangelium Jacobi xix, xx] it is related that midwives were present at Christ's birth; and they would be wanted by reason of the mother's suffering pain. Therefore it seems that the Blessed Virgin suffered pain in giving birth to her Child.
On the contrary, Augustine says (Serm. de Nativ. [Supposititious), addressing himself to the Virgin-Mother: "In conceiving thou wast all pure, in giving birth thou wast without pain."
I answer that, The pains of childbirth are caused by the infant opening the passage from the womb. Now it has been said above (28, 2, Replies to objections), that Christ came forth from the closed womb of His Mother, and, consequently, without opening the passage. Consequently there was no pain in that birth, as neither was there any corruption; on the contrary, there was much joy therein for that God-Man "was born into the world," according to Isaiah 35:1-2: "Like the lily, it shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise."
Reply to Objection 1. The pains of childbirth in the woman follow from the mingling of the sexes. Wherefore (Genesis 3:16) after the words, "in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children," the following are added: "and thou shalt be under thy husband's power." But, as Augustine says (Serm. de Assumpt. B. Virg., [Supposititious), from this sentence we must exclude the Virgin-Mother of God; who, "because she conceived Christ without the defilement of sin, and without the stain of sexual mingling, therefore did she bring Him forth without pain, without violation of her virginal integrity, without detriment to the purity of her maidenhood." Christ, indeed, suffered death, but through His own spontaneous desire, in order to atone for us, not as a necessary result of that sentence, for He was not a debtor unto death.
Reply to Objection 2. As "by His death" Christ "destroyed our death" [Preface of the Mass in Paschal-time, so by His pains He freed us from our pains; and so He wished to die a painful death. But the mother's pains in childbirth did not concern Christ, who came to atone for our sins. And therefore there was no need for His Mother to suffer in giving birth.
Reply to Objection 3. We are told (Luke 2:7) that the Blessed Virgin herself "wrapped up in swaddling clothes" the Child whom she had brought forth, "and laid Him in a manger." Consequently the narrative of this book, which is apocryphal, is untrue. Wherefore Jerome says (Adv. Helvid. iv): "No midwife was there, no officious women interfered. She was both mother and midwife. 'With swaddling clothes,' says he, 'she wrapped up the child, and laid Him in a manger.'" These words prove the falseness of the apocryphal ravings.
While I think some of the concepts/thoughts here are somewhat outdated and need an update for clarity "e.g. sexual mingling has a stain" (I'm thinking, so no sex = no pain? odd), and "pain comes from the mingling of the sexes" due to our current advances in modern science and biology, I will say that I do like Thomas Aquinas' way of argumentation.
Pax, Julian.
While it is a book not of the four Gospels, it is nonetheless important to the Catholic Faith, as many of the allegories and symbolisms within are direct and mean something, such as our Blessed Mother, Jesus (the lamb often mentioned in the book), etc. Why much of our practical basis for the Catholic Mass comes out of that book! If taken literlally, we have is a direct Scriptural reference to Mary's birth pains AND an encyclical from a Pope stating such. However, we are not sola scriptura Christians, we are Catholics! We know what a number of things in the Bible are taken contextually and defined literally when absolutely needed by our Magisterium, so taking this into account as well as doing a couple of read throughs, word order, and the question and context, make it seem like 1) that Mary wanted to deliver the kid and it was causing anguish or mental ``pains`` as in ``get it over with now! Give the Saviour to the world`` and that it refers to general humanity`s birthing pains. So I am afraid that this encyclical is not 100% clear but perhaps other sources will point the way to answer this question.
I also turned to one of the two Marian, dogmas, which in fact, are one of the two Church's instances of absolute ex-cathedra pronouncement of dogma which must be obeyed by all Catholics, or they are excommunicated, Munificentissimus Deus, the November 1, 1950 Apostolic Constitution released by Pius XII. In it, here's what I got:
"21. Thus St. John Damascene, an outstanding herald of this traditional truth, spoke out with powerful eloquence when he compared the bodily Assumption of the loving Mother of God with her other prerogatives and privileges. "It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. ... "
"32. Along with many others, the Seraphic Doctor held the same views. He considered it as entirely certain that, as God had preserved the most holy Virgin Mary from the violation of her virginal purity and integrity in conceiving and in childbirth, he would never have permitted her body to have been resolved into dust and ashes ....
37. At the same time the great Suarez was professing in the field of mariology the norm that "keeping in mind the standards of propriety, and when there is no contradiction or repugnance on the part of Scripture, the mysteries of grace which God has wrought in the Virgin must be measured, not by the ordinary laws, but by the divine omnipotence ...."
Alright. So this is getting better. It`s still not a direct ``she had no childbirth` statement, but these paragraphs can point to some things.# 37, when talknig about mysteries of grace and not ordinary laws, definitely makes it possible she could defy the natural law/rules of pain in childbirth. Further looking at # 32 when it talks about purity and integrity, in conceiving and childbirth, one could say that she would sustain no blood loss, fracture or broken bones, or tissue damage. Now finally, when I think of paragraph # 21, we can remember the first woman, Eve, who by what she did in co-operation of the devil, was punished with labour pains in childbirth, due to the corruption of Original Sin, which Mary does not have. Still, no direct statements yet. Where to now???
Other Magisterial Arms.
So I went onto a Catholic forum that asked this questions and found this:
But as the Conception itself transcends the order of nature, so the birth of our Lord presents to our contemplation nothing but what is divine.
Besides, what is admirable beyond the power of thoughts or words to express, He is born of His Mother without any diminution of her maternal virginity, just as He afterwards went forth from the sepulchre while it was closed and sealed, and entered the room in which His disciples were assembled, the doors being shut; or not to depart from every-day examples, just as the rays of the sun penetrate without breaking or injuring in the least the solid substance of glass, so after a like but more exalted manner did Jesus Christ come forth from His mother's womb without injury to her maternal virginity. ................ To Eve it was said: In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. Mary was exempt from this law, for preserving her virginal integrity inviolate she brought forth Jesus the Son of God without experiencing, as we have already said, any sense of pain.CATECHISM OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
PART 1: THE CREED
Article III
Non-Theological Sources
I also decided to do direct searches on the internet for mary, chilbirth, and pain. I got this handy article here:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15464b.htm, which talks about the Virgin Mary herself. This is what is contained about her birth:
Mary gives birth to Our Lord
"And it came to pass, that when they were there, her days were accomplished, that she should be delivered" (Luke 2:6); this language leaves it uncertain whether the birth of Our Lord took place immediately after Joseph and Mary had taken lodging in the grotto, or several days later. What is said about the shepherds "keeping the night watches over their flock" (Luke 2:8) shows thatChrist was born in the night time.
After bringing forth her Son, Mary "wrapped Him up in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger" (Luke 2:7), a sign that she did not suffer from the pain and weakness of childbirth. This inference agrees with the teaching of some of the principal Fathers and theologians: St. Ambrose [56], St. Gregory of Nyssa [57], St. John Damascene [58], the author of Christus patiens [59], St. Thomas[60], etc. It was not becoming that the mother of God should be subject to the punishment pronounced in Genesis 3:16, against Eve and her sinful daughters.
Shortly after the birth of the child, the shepherds, obedient to the angelic invitation, arrived in the grotto, "and they found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger" (Luke 2:16). We may suppose that the shepherds spread the glad tidings they had received during the night among their friends in Bethlehem, and that the Holy Family was received by one of its pious inhabitants into more suitable lodgings.
So I decided to follow up by looking at some of these sources, but I`ll just post one on them, the reference from the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, of which this section is accessible online for free on the internet here:
Article 6. Whether Christ was born without His Mother suffering?
Objection 1. It would seem that Christ was not born without His Mother suffering. For just as man's death was a result of the sin of our first parents, according to Genesis 2:17: "In what day soever ye shall eat, ye shall [Vulgate: 'thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt] die"; so were the pains of childbirth, according to Genesis 3:16: "In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children." But Christ was willing to undergo death. Therefore for the same reason it seems that His birth should have been with pain.Objection 2. Further, the end is proportionate to the beginning. But Christ ended His life in pain, according to Isaiah 53:4: "Surely . . . He hath carried our sorrows." Therefore it seems that His nativity was not without the pains of childbirth.
Objection 3. Further, in the book on the birth of our Saviour [Protevangelium Jacobi xix, xx] it is related that midwives were present at Christ's birth; and they would be wanted by reason of the mother's suffering pain. Therefore it seems that the Blessed Virgin suffered pain in giving birth to her Child.
On the contrary, Augustine says (Serm. de Nativ. [Supposititious), addressing himself to the Virgin-Mother: "In conceiving thou wast all pure, in giving birth thou wast without pain."
I answer that, The pains of childbirth are caused by the infant opening the passage from the womb. Now it has been said above (28, 2, Replies to objections), that Christ came forth from the closed womb of His Mother, and, consequently, without opening the passage. Consequently there was no pain in that birth, as neither was there any corruption; on the contrary, there was much joy therein for that God-Man "was born into the world," according to Isaiah 35:1-2: "Like the lily, it shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise."
Reply to Objection 1. The pains of childbirth in the woman follow from the mingling of the sexes. Wherefore (Genesis 3:16) after the words, "in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children," the following are added: "and thou shalt be under thy husband's power." But, as Augustine says (Serm. de Assumpt. B. Virg., [Supposititious), from this sentence we must exclude the Virgin-Mother of God; who, "because she conceived Christ without the defilement of sin, and without the stain of sexual mingling, therefore did she bring Him forth without pain, without violation of her virginal integrity, without detriment to the purity of her maidenhood." Christ, indeed, suffered death, but through His own spontaneous desire, in order to atone for us, not as a necessary result of that sentence, for He was not a debtor unto death.
Reply to Objection 2. As "by His death" Christ "destroyed our death" [Preface of the Mass in Paschal-time, so by His pains He freed us from our pains; and so He wished to die a painful death. But the mother's pains in childbirth did not concern Christ, who came to atone for our sins. And therefore there was no need for His Mother to suffer in giving birth.
Reply to Objection 3. We are told (Luke 2:7) that the Blessed Virgin herself "wrapped up in swaddling clothes" the Child whom she had brought forth, "and laid Him in a manger." Consequently the narrative of this book, which is apocryphal, is untrue. Wherefore Jerome says (Adv. Helvid. iv): "No midwife was there, no officious women interfered. She was both mother and midwife. 'With swaddling clothes,' says he, 'she wrapped up the child, and laid Him in a manger.'" These words prove the falseness of the apocryphal ravings.
While I think some of the concepts/thoughts here are somewhat outdated and need an update for clarity "e.g. sexual mingling has a stain" (I'm thinking, so no sex = no pain? odd), and "pain comes from the mingling of the sexes" due to our current advances in modern science and biology, I will say that I do like Thomas Aquinas' way of argumentation.
Alright so in conclusion: While we cannot ever be at the time of her birth to ascertain that knowledge and there was no written witness to her birth, due to the majority of sources + Trent, this is a correction that shall be duly noted and changed. Thanks poster for bringing this to my attention. It`s not like they bring up these nit-picky theological details outside of orthodox university/seminary courses, in the span of regular Catholic education!
Pax, Julian.
This post has been somewhat diablo 3 paragon leveling, aion powerleveling, GW2 gold of a revelation to me.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't 100% get the gaming references, thanks for the comment Lina!
ReplyDelete