An Honest Question for serious consideration

[Povero]

I receive a few daily emails from Catholic agencies. The other day, I logged onto one of the highlighted subjects in the email and was instructed that Mary, the biological mother of Jesus, did not experience the pains of childbirth because she was “free of original sin.”

Let’s take this to the next step: Mary did not experience any anxiety or worry after Simeon told her that her heart would be “pierced by a sword”. She just went living on happily. When her Son left her to begin His ministry, she was as happy as a bug in a rug. When her Son was taken into custody, severely (to the point of death) whipped, and dragged (with the help of a man chosen " randomly " from the crowd) His cross, and then crucified (nails driven into his wrists and feet) and ultimately died (not from asphyxiation, as did most who were crucified, but by the mercy of His Father): was she standing there full of joy? Was she free of misery, anxiety, horror, hysteria, incredible grief?

Come on!

Mary was a “creature”. Of course she experienced the pains of childbirth and every single thing any mother experiences while raising any child, especially a child conceived at the announcement of a “strange figure” (angel). She most likely spent her entire life worrying about her Son, knowing He was (to say the least) “special”, “chosen”, and destined for something she had no control over. Can we honestly believe that she stood at the foot of the cross and FELT NOTHING BUT JOY? WHERE did this idea originate; WHO is speaking for God, le Pere tout-puissant, creatur du ciel et de la terre"? WHO DARES to speak for the Author of everything in existence (most of which we, Humans, KNOW NOTHING ABOUT)?

NO. I refuse to believe she was not in anguish. I refuse to believe she did not constantly worry about this Son, without any knowledge at all (because she was a creature) of what would happen to Him. I absolutely refuse this. I don’t care what the “doctors” of the Church say. I am a mother who lost a child. I was warned by the Blessed Mother at age five. She stands by my side because she knows the horror that I am living.

Jesus spoke over and over again about “legalism”, about those who impose “man-made laws” upon others. How is the Roman Catholic Church different from the Pharisees? Can every single Roman Catholic MEMORIZE THE CATECHISM? Do most of us even know what it SAYS? He came to SET US FREE from legalism. He told us what to do, he taught us how to pray (an extension of the “Shema” which, as a Rebbe and a practicing Jew, He said three times daily.)

Our Church has forgotten an awful lot about Jesus, His beliefs, His personal religious practices, and how He redacted the condemnation of those who had changed God’s intention by creating of those practices a “law of performance”.

Ephesians 2:8

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

WE (as in the Roman Catholic Church) may have some things “right”; but “we” also have some things “wrong”. And to think otherwise is hubris.

 

[robwar]

You have a lot of different things in your post. First of all let me say that I am extremely sorry about the lose of your child. Losing a child is probably one of the biggest horrors for any parent. to out live your own child seems out of order and that pain and sorry isn’t something that can just be glibly brushed off.
I will try my best to bring up some points. Mary giving birth to Jesus painlessly isn’t directly spoken about in scripture and is not even official teaching of the Catholic Church. It is sometimes brought up as an assumption because as official dogma of the Catholic church, Mary is immaculately conceived or in layman terms “without original sin”. We see this referred to in scripture when the angle said “hail full of grace”. Mary was “full of grace” or without original sin. In Genesis, one of the result of Eve, taking and eating the forbidden fruit was that she would give birth to children in pain. Therefore, a number of theologians and thinkers make the statement that Mary being without original sin, most likely didn’t experience normal child birth pains. But this doesn’t mean the Mary didn’t suffer or didn’t experience the normal trials of life like everyone else. Just look at Mary’s life, she is pregnant without being fully married yet, Joseph quickly takes her in. I am sure that people wispered behind them and they were subject to rumors. While very pregnant, she and Joseph travel to Bethlehem and then she give birth in a manger/cave for animals. I am sure that was very smelly and unsanitary and just pain undignified. Then Joseph is warned in a dream and they flee to Egypt as refugies. I am sure that was not any fun and very dangerous. They end up living there a while which again is away from home, family and culture. They come back and then Jesus ends up missing while celebrating Passover. Again, that 3 days search was no fun. Joseph apparently dies which leaves her a widow. Again not so good. Then her Son, begins His ministry and is subject to all sorts of arguments and rumors and misunderstanding. Watching all this was difficult. And finally, she watches Him be falsely tried and whipped and killed in a most sick way by being nailed to a cross. I think you can see that Mary’s life was not this happy dance at all and she ends up being a model on how to handle suffering instead of being discounted as being above suffering. I am sorry about what you have gone through but I hope you can see Mary as a helper in your suffering than some plastic doll that never experienced pain.

 

[Matthew_Light]

I’m really sorry about the loss of your child.

I’m sure the blessed Mary experienced great pain and anguish at the loss of her Son, as you have at the loss of yours.

God bless!