Did Mary actually give "birth" to Christ?

[JimG]

There is certainly nothing at all “wrong” with childbirth. The only thing to keep in mind is that Catholic doctrine regarding the Virgin Birth is that Mary remained a virgin before, during, and following the birth of Jesus.

 

[adstrinity]

Wait. We have all learned in 6th grade Health class…or, maybe not, but, this is basically what is taught, that the hymen can stretch or break due to tampon insertion or physical activity (non sexual). COULD IT BE possible for Jesus to have come through an open hymen naturally or temporarily because of God? I mean, the first born son “opened the womb” in the Old Testament…this would seem significant. I would think that Jesus DID come out vaginally because “By the power of the Holy Spirit, He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became Man”.

 

[mlchance]

Ghosty:

The labor pains were increased due to Sin, not caused by it.

Precisely. Physical pain is not a consequence of the Fall. It is hardwired, so to speak, into Creation itself. For a delightful commentary, see C. S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[porthos11]

He was like us in ALL THINGS but sin.

 

[StCsDavid]

I have to say I find the obsession with the disposition of Mary’s private parts after the birth of Jesus a little odd. Mary conceived of the Holy Spirit; carried our Lord in her womb; and one way or another gave birth to our Savior. Is he any less our Lord whether he appeared or came into the world the old fashioned way? Did the meaning of his death and resurection change based on how he technically was born? How would you like if people were debating your mother’s genitalia?

 

[Larry_B]

Madia:

Someone correct me if I’m wrong but here’s what I think:

Mary did not experience the physical pain of childbirth due to her Immaculate Conception. However, Mary did in fact give birth to Jesus; She just didn’t experience the pains of childbirth.

ditto

 

[BibleReader]

Larry B:

Madia:

Someone correct me if I’m wrong but here’s what I think:

Mary did not

experience the physical pain of childbirth due to her Immaculate Conception. However, Mary did in fact give birth to Jesus; She just didn’t experience the pains of childbirth.

ditto

Hi, Larry.

You’re not going to get clarity from the Church, yet, on this subject.

Revelation 12:2 etc. says that the mother of Christ did experience pain. Genesis 3 does not contradict this, simply because Genesis 3 also imposes death as a consequence of Original Sin, and though Mary could have been assumed without “dormition,” just like Elijah was, she wasn’t. If we know (because the Church teaches that this is so) that Mary experienced “dormition” – flatlining – before her assumnption, despite her Immaculate Conception, and that – flatlining – is a copnsequence of Original Sin, why do so many people, against Revelation 12:2, insist that Mary did not experience labor pains, the other consequence of Original Sin?

See Post 15 above.

Was the birth normal, or was it miraculous? A Council Canon indicates that it was miraculous. See Post 12 above. I maintain that that clearly contradicts Scripture.

 

[Ghosty]

The only thing to keep in mind is that Catholic doctrine regarding the Virgin Birth is that Mary remained a virgin before, during, and following the birth of Jesus.

Yes, but nowhere does it say that childbirth itself violates virginity. Breaking of the hymen does not make someone impure, otherwise women who have played sports or used tampons wouldn’t be virgins either.

Saying that she was a virgin during childbirth is simply covering all the bases, and I see no reason whatsoever to believe that physical childbirth somehow negates virginity.

 

[JimG]

The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia article regarding the virgin birth of Jesus can be found here:
newadvent.org/cathen/15448a.htm

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

gmmartin42:

I have a question regarding the birth of Jesus and Mary’s labor. My wife says that she was taught in her Catholic upbringing that Mary did not undergo physical labor, and that Jesus just “appeared: next to Mary.

Then she was taught a Gnostic notion of the Incarnation.​

If Christ’s human nature is not as really human as ours in being

• bodily
• and material
• and having been formed in the womb

• then the Word was not made flesh, was not crucified, did not die, was not resurrected, and we are still in our sins.

It goes without saying that to deny the bodily and tangible and visible reality of the Incarnation, is not only to deny the Gospels, which constantly assert that Jesus was not a spirit but a man of flesh and blood; it utterly destroys the entire foundation for the Church & the sacraments.

To teach what your mother was taught, blows the Christian faith into a trillion smithereens. It leaves nothing behind. All specifically Christian motives for resisting temptation, simply evaporate. This is a singularly ruinous error. Why was your mother being taught Manichean doctrine ?

The virginity of Mary is useless and worthless, if the reality of the Incarnation is to be sacrificed to it. It’s the most anti-Christian of beliefs - to deny the reality of the Incarnation, makes men antichrists, according to St. John ##

Thus, she was able to maintain her state of virginity. I on the other hand, was taught that she did give actual birth, but because of her selection as Mother of Jesus by God, she did give birth (as any other woman) but maintained her virginity. I also saw some hour-long television program on A&E or something like it, in which they interviewed physicians who talked about Jesus being conceived outside the uterus, blah-blah-blah, and thus Mary still was a virgin. I think the show took it a little too far, but the question remains: was Jesus “born”, or did he just “appear” next to Mary? Or does he Church itself not know for certain?

Thanks

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

StCsDavid:

I have to say I find the obsession with the disposition of Mary’s private parts after the birth of Jesus a little odd. Mary conceived of the Holy Spirit; carried our Lord in her womb; and one way or another gave birth to our Savior. Is he any less our Lord whether he appeared or came into the world the old fashioned way? Did the meaning of his death and resurection change based on how he technically was born? How would you like if people were debating your mother’s genitalia?

It would have helped if so many Fathers had not been infected with the errors of Plato. Platonism bred disdain for the body, and encouraged the entirely un-Christian view that “the body is a tomb” - sōma sēma. Christianity, like Judaism, affirms that the body is a good thing - not something to escape from. Evil is not in the body or in being bodily, but in the heart of man. That was the Jewish view, and was the Christian view.​

I can’t see that it matters whether His mother was married or not - except to her morals, of course. There would be a certain fittingness in his having been born of a prostitute, had he been so born. ##

 

[Madia]

The Church teaches that Mary was a virgin before, during, and after Christ was born:
newadvent.org/cathen/15448a.htm

Also Catechism #499:
scborromeo.org/ccc/p122a3p2.htm#499

For those wondering how Mary was a virgin during the birth of Christ, the best explanation I have found is in “The Mystical City of God” which seems to indicate that Christ was born glorious and transfigured:
geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/7194/book4c4.html

Now, as seen in John chapter 20 verse 19 Jesus with His Glorified Body was able to pass through a shut door without opening it. Also, in Matthew chapter 17 verse 2 Christ was transfigured before his death. So the Bible shows us that Christ with His Glorified body could pass through something shut without opening it and that he could be transfigured before His death if He choose to do so.

This isn’t definitive teaching but to me it makes sense. Even if you don’t accept this explanation, it’s not really neccisary for faith to understand how God did something. I believe that Christ multiplied fish even though I don’t know how he did it. Since God created fish in the first place, surely he could have multiplied them.

 

[Sacrament_o]

Did God’s semen fertilize Mary’s egg?

If yes, then Jesus had both God’s DNA and Mary’s DNA. Being made up in part of Mary’s DNA, how then could Jesus be equal to God?

If God didn’t fertilize Mary’s egg and instead placed a fertilized egg in Mary, was Mary just an incubator?

 

[Thomas_More_1]

Sacrament o:

Did God’s semen fertilize Mary’s egg?

If yes, then Jesus had both God’s DNA and Mary’s DNA. Being made up in part of Mary’s DNA, how then could Jesus be equal to God?

If God didn’t fertilize Mary’s egg and instead placed a fertilized egg in Mary, was Mary just an incubator?

Now that one is a joke right? The Transcendent Almighty God does not have DNA.

Jesus is not part God and part man. He is Fully Man, having received his human nature from Mary in time, and Fully God, receiving his eternal coequal consubstantial Divine Nature from the Father.

He’s equal to God because He is God .

As regards to the virginity of Mary, there is no dogmatic definition regarding it’s physicality that I know of. But the tradition of the Church very very strongly supports that idea that she was physically and spiritually a Virgin throughout every moment of her life. This includes the fact that her hymen was always intact.

It seems a little odd to care about that to us moderns, but that physical virginity is a powerful sign and totally fitting.

It is like we imagine Mary’s face: as moderns we know that people who aren’t so good looking, or even ugly, can be truly beautiful in other ways and their physical looks aren’t that important. I mean it’s just physical, right?

But I know that Mary always was and still is absolutely beautiful and radiant and holy and kind-looking, because it would be such a fitting sign! How could she be otherwise, man?

 

[hilde_the_dog]

This is all very nice conjecture regarding the pain. I don’t believe the Catholic Church has taken a postion on either side (or at least nobody wiriting on this thread has found it). Having said that. Pain is natural and inmany cases good. “don’t touch the oven”. If Mary did not have pain at childbirth did she have no pain in her life. clearly that is not the case as she wept for Jesus. then again we know Christ experienced physical and emotional pain and He was without sin.

Regarding virginity the Church has spoken…

Regarding was he born physically I side with yes…since He was like us in all things but sin. And then I got to thinking Christ is in the tabernacle at church. He is physically removed for mass and placed on the alter. Mary is the tabernacle of God. So would not the birth of Jesus be physical also so that He could be sacrificed.

 

[barsapp]

August 7, 1555, Pope Paul IV issued an Ecclesiastical Constitution called “Cum quorundam,” making it an article of faith that Mary, the mother of Jesus, “was a virgin before, during, and after the conception and birth of her” son.

 

[Ghosty]

barsapp:

August 7, 1555, Pope Paul IV issued an Ecclesiastical Constitution called “Cum quorundam,” making it an article of faith that Mary, the mother of Jesus, “was a virgin before, during, and after the conception and birth of her” son.

Yes, we all know that, but it doesn’t mean that she didn’t give birth the normal way. Virgin does not mean intact hymen.

 

[barsapp]

Ghosty:

Yes, we all know that, but it doesn’t mean that she didn’t give birth the normal way. Virgin does not mean intact hymen.

Lateran Council, Oct, 649, DS 503: “If anyone does not in accord with the Holy Fathers acknowledge the holy and ever virgin and immaculate Mary was really and truly the Mother of God, inasmuch as she, in the fullness of time, and without seed, conceived by the Holy Spirit, God in the Word Himself, who before all time was born of God the Father, and without loss of integrity brought Him forth, and after His birth preserved her virginity inviolate, let him be condemned.” COMMENT: It is important to note the word integrity, which means the state of being untouched, and so is a physical word. It rules out lesions, blood and similar things. The Greek text, which is of equal authority, has aphthoros, without corruption.
I’m only trying to show the sources. May be not everyone know them in a precise manner.

 

[Madia]

Having said that. Pain is natural and inmany cases good. “don’t touch the oven”. If Mary did not have pain at childbirth did she have no pain in her life. clearly that is not the case as she wept for Jesus. then again we know Christ experienced physical and emotional pain and He was without sin.

The pain we now feel may not have been present before the fall. Natural pain like arthritis, sore muscles, etc. most likely were not present before the fall. Now, I’m guessing Adam and Eve had “sensations” before the fall (touching a soft animal would feel soft, they could taste what you are eating, etc.) but I’m not sure if they actually experienced “pain” (What would have caused them pain?).

Now, Mary was created without original sin however she was born into a world disordered by original sin. So, while she may not have experienced natural pains (artritis, labor pains, sore muscles, etc.) she still probably experienced pains as a result of the world which is disordered by original sin (for example she could be burnt if she touched something too hot).

 

[JOHNYJ]

Of course she did ! the question is notopen to discussion .On the point of labor pains it is pius believe that she did not have any.