Does Revelation 12 contradict the teaching that Mary gave birth painlessly?

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Catholics far more than any other Christian group have strongly maintained that the woman in Heaven described in Revelation 12 is Mary, and if I’m not mistaken, that this is at least partly a scriptural basis for her Queenship in Heaven. I think it very much is a vision of Mary, regardless of whatever else it tells us about her role in the Economy of Salvation

Revelation 12:2 tells us “And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.” (KJV)

However, while laborious childbirth has never been defined as an indispensable aspect of the doctrine of Immaculate Conception, countless prominent Catholic thinkers and leaders/authorities have advanced the argument that childbirth must have been painless as part of Mary’s freedom from original sin. We take scripture to be free of error, so it would seem to follow Revelation 12:2 indicates that Mary did in fact experience a laborious childbirth. Yet, though such has never been defined doctrinally by the Church, how do we reconcile this with the fact that so many great thinkers within have believed the contrary of Revelation 12:2?
 
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Not necessarily.
Although we believe she gave birth painlessly, she still suffered in becoming the Mother of God—Joseph almost divorced her, they had to travel far from home and she gave birth in a stable.
 
This verse has thrown me as well. I’m not an expert, but from what I’ve read there are two thoughts:

One is that because there is so many layers to scripture, the woman represents both Mary, and could also represent Israel. So the history of Israel does contain a lot of suffering. The other is that this is not necessarily physical pain, but more inline with the prophecy that her heart would be pierced as well (Luke 2:34-35). So while not physical pain as the result of original sin, maybe some mental anguish knowing that the son she is bearing is going to suffer tremendously.
 
MJDorry said:
However, while laborious childbirth has never been defined as an indispensable aspect of the doctrine of Immaculate Conception, countless prominent Catholic thinkers and leaders/authorities have advanced the argument that childbirth must have been painless as part of Mary’s freedom from original sin.
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They’re obviously wrong. Remember, John was the Disciple to whom Christ entrusted Mary. She lived in his house. He knew her as a son knows his mother.

John 19:26-27

26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.
27 Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.
 
MJDorry said:
However, while laborious childbirth has never been defined as an indispensable aspect of the doctrine of Immaculate Conception,
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I apologize if I don’t understand this, but the Immaculate Conception is Mary’s conception. Christ’s conception was the Incarnation.
 
Right. Doctrinally, Mary’s Immculate Conception has yet to be defined as precluding her pain while giving birth to Christ.
 
Cardinal Muller wrote a 900-page work titled Katholische Dogmatik. Für Studium und Praxis der Theologie (Catholic Dogmatic - For the Study and Practice of Theology)

In it he states that the doctrine of the Virgin Birth is “not so much concerned with specific physiological proprieties in the natural process of birth (such as the birth canal not having been opened, the hymen not being broken, or the absence of birth pangs), but with the healing and saving influence of grace of the Savior on human nature.”

This aligns with how I understand the Church’s position on the subject
 
MJDorry said:
it would seem to follow Revelation 12:2 indicates that Mary did in fact experience a laborious childbirth.
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I’ve heard alternating opinions between the woman in Revelation 12 being Mary and the Church. Haydock’s Commentary takes the latter approach.
 
So then wouldn’t it logically follow that since pain during childbirth is the punishment for original sin, and Mary was created without original sin, she then did not receive the punishment?

Well death is the punishment, but because of original sin the female punishment was pain in childbirth and the man’s was back breaking work.
 
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tony-nj said:
So then wouldn’t it logically follow that since pain during childbirth is the punishment for original sin, and Mary was created without original sin, she then did not receive the punishment?
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Catechism
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

154 Cf. DS 291; 294; 427; 442; 503; 571; 1880.
155 LG 57.
156 Cf. LG 52.
DS = Denzinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum (1965)
LG = Lumen gentium the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (1964)
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tony-nj said:
So then wouldn’t it logically follow that since pain during childbirth is the punishment for original sin, and Mary was created without original sin, she then did not receive the punishment?
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How do we explain the fact that animals also experience pain in giving birth?
 
Perhaps the labor pains mentioned in Revelation 12:2 could be understood metaphorically as they are in Galatians 4:19 NRSV, where St Paul said, “My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,” and as they are understood when the woman of Revelation 12 is understood to be Israel or the Church.
 
MJDorry said:
We take scripture to be free of error, so it would seem to follow Revelation 12:2 indicates that Mary did in fact experience a laborious childbirth
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Except that Rev 12 isn’t meant to be a literal account of Jesus’s birth. It isn’t literal at all.

Remember the senses of scripture.

The woman is also, and more directly, Israel giving birth to the Messiah.

See Is 66:7-14.
 
As it is with all of scripture, it is very difficult to nail down a single meaning for any verse , chapter or book. God’s word tends to be mutilayered and nuanced for the ages. However, the male child born in Revelation 12 was destined to rule the nations with a rod of iron.

Where else do we see that? David’s messianic Psalm 2, verse 9.
 
tony-nj said:
So then wouldn’t it logically follow that since pain during childbirth is the punishment for original sin, and Mary was created without original sin, she then did not receive the punishment?
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Not only pain in childbirth but pain in entirety is a consequence of the original sin. Immunity to pain and suffering was one of the gifts of the prelapsarian nature. However, Jesus was not subject to the original sin, yet it is dogmatic that Jesus experienced pain during the Passion.

Immortality was also one of the gifts, but it was still possible for Jesus to die, not out of necessity but out of choice.
 
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I’m sure this has been debated since the beginning. So no it doesn’t contradict it. I’m sure we aren’t the first people to ponder that. Or anything for that matter. Everything you can ask has been asked millions and millions of times before.
 
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MJDorry said:
Revelation 12:2 tells us “And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.” (KJV)
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This a a paragraph in Pope Saint Piux X’s Encyclical Ad Diem Illum:
  1. 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.
    http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x...x_enc_02021904_ad-diem-illum-laetissimum.html
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