Leviticus 12-Purification

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Is there any Catholic explanation as to why the days of purification differ for sons and daughters? (sons= 33 days, daughters= 66 days)

I’ve tried looking it up but most protestants just accept it as a manifestation of the cultural views on the two sexes?
 
Leviticus 12
12:1 Yahweh spoke to Moses and said,
12:2 'Speak to the Israelites and say: "If a woman becomes pregnant and gives birth to a boy, she will be unclean for seven days as when in a state of pollution due to menstruation.
12:3 On the eighth day the child’s foreskin must be circumcised,
12:4 and she will wait another thirty-three days for her blood to be purified. She will not touch anything consecrated nor go to the sanctuary until the time of her purification is over.
12:5 "If she gives birth to a girl, she will be unclean for two weeks, as during her monthly periods; and will wait another sixty-six days for her blood to be purified.
12:6 "When the period of her purification is over, for either boy or girl, she will bring the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting a lamb one year old for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or turtledove as a sacrifice for sin.
12:7 The priest must offer this before Yahweh, perform the rite of expiation for her, and she will be purified from her discharge of blood. "Such is the law concerning a woman who gives birth to either a boy or a girl.
12:8 If she cannot afford a lamb, she must take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for the burnt offering and the other for the sacrifice for sin. The priest will perform the rite of expiation for her an

Yes .

Ok in the Old Testament Jewish law ( no idea if it’s still the same today) everyone , male and female, had to be purified to enter the sanctuary area. That meant getting rid of the Tumah people collected. Lots of things made a person collect tumah. Blood was a major source of tumah. So women menustrating were collecting up tumah and unable to enter the Sanctuary. Women have periods so having a female baby doubled the length of time. Men , obviously don’t get periods…
 
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But women don’t get periods for 33 days after giving birth to a girl? How would that make her ritually unclean, since a menstruating woman was unclean for only 7 days anyway?
 
I presume the practical part of things refer to lochia. I know the internet says “2 to 4 weeks but as much as 2 months”. For mine, it was always closer to 2 months, but then again, I never took it easy, and I presume the ancient Hebrew ladies didn’t, either…

I do remember catching a snippet from Fr Mitch Pacwa where he was talking about ritual impurity. He had brought up the point that when people come in contact with the Divine— you (become? not quite the word I’m looking for?) sacred as you come in contact with something sacred. I think there might have been something about parallels between the ritual impurity that comes from childbirth, and the ritual impurities that come from touching the Torah barehanded.

So I’m wondering if having a male child vs a female child isn’t so much “a female child is dirty and so it takes longer to purify yourself afterwards”, but more of a “a female child has a very unique potential to cooperate with God’s plan in a very distinct way” and thereby has more potential to come in contact with the sacred in a very distinct way in the future, if that makes sense.

Maybe other moms have experienced this, and not to hijack the thread-- but, for example, for each of my kids, I found myself coming in contact with the divine in a very unique way. For the first, it was being able to experience the Love of God, just a bit of it, just for a few moments. I thought it was just a normal-Mom-thing and I was really looking forward to it for my second. 🙂 And then I was so sad when I didn’t feel that same wave of love. Instead, what I got was driving down the road, and looking at the mama cows in the fields, and they had their babies next to them— and just suddenly getting this feeling of the unity of creation, if that makes sense, running ages back into the past, and running ages into the future, and just this whole interconnectedness, and knowing that I was quietly playing my part in this continuity, just like the cows were quietly playing their part… It was really weird, but it was profound, in its own way.

So, yeah. That’s my hypothesis.
 
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It’s Jewish custom, some of which still adhere to this. I watched a documentary on it.
For Catholics, this purification is evident int hat we sign ourselves with holy water before we enter our own parishes.
We Confess mortal sins before receiving.
We take much for our Jewish heritage and incorporate it and enrich our own practices from it.
 
Law of thousands of years ago…

Whose to really know why it was set up that way. But it wasn’t just for menustration. After child birth a woman can do that for quite some time.
 
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