Mary, and Jesus’ Birth

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I beg your pardon? I am sorry; I don’t understand. She “asserts masculinity”? What is that trying to say, please? Is this a way Americans say that “Maria wishes to be addressed using masculine pronouns?”

I read an article about this in one of the academic journals that I still get from the United States…I know not why I get it. Perhaps it as a gift from some institution at which I spoke. The subscription is surely exhausted given I am emeritus now. I found the author very difficult to follow, with “preferred pronouns” as well as “gender neutral” and “alternative pronouns,” that really made no sense to me and I could not fathom their etymology.

English can certainly be a very enigmatic language. Seminary professors of my vintage didn’t confront this issue concerning “preferred pronouns”.

Thank you however for trying to explain this. I will just refer to this user as “Maria” and repeat “Maria” where I would otherwise use pronouns of she/he. Perhaps that will work.

PS Thank you for the suggestion. I don’t know how to alter the format but it does not matter. It would not work. White computer text on a black background causes me to have occular migraines because of a particular degenerative condition I have.
 
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Do you teach that Our Lady was injured in childbirth? If so, based on what?
 
When I taught Mariology, I had no place in my curriculum relative to the Virgin Mary suffering “injury” in her life. The selection of readings students were responsible for reading did look at the medievals concerning Our Lady and illness, the effects of aging, and in the era of High Mariology, infused knowledge.
 
Don_Ruggero said:
When I taught Mariology, I had no place in my curriculum relative to the Virgin Mary suffering “injury” in her life. The selection of readings students were responsible for reading did look at the medievals concerning Our Lady and illness, the effects of aging, and in the era of High Mariology, infused knowledge.
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Wonderful! Thanks for your response.
 
Wonderful? What is wonderful about a negative statement?

That is not to say that she did not have an injury or to say that she did.

We do not know if she tripped, fell down, cut herself or sustained an injury.

That is the question I was answering.

The answer is: We do not know and cannot say.
 
You seem extraordinarily confused, Maria, from multiple perspectives.
 
You bring up injury with zest, Maria.

In light of what Saint Thomas Aquinas says about broken bones, please expound the possibility of the Blessed Virgin breaking her arm, given the limitations of Thomistic Mariology but taking into account Munificentissimus Deus

Refer, please to S-T III, q. 14.

Thank you, Maria.
 
Gorgias said:
So… a simple question for anyone from the “the meaning of ‘virgin during childbirth’ requires that Mary’s womb was not opened” camp:

If Jesus did not open Mary’s womb, why does Scripture explicitly say that He did?
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That’s what got me dragged into this in the first place.

Try to find my first post in this thread. It was not at the beginning, but relatively late.

The term “opened the womb” meant that the child was the first one born. Simply put, the oldest child. That’s what it means in Luke, with the addition that the ceremony of dedication applied if-and-only-if the oldest child was also a male. If the oldest child was a girl, that was just their bad luck.

The reason I want you to go back to my posts is that I did a cut-and-paste of an online concordance which shows the other times that phrase appears in scripture, and similar phrases. I also add the caveat that the concordance will give you non-Catholic translations, so be aware. One can simply ignore them and read only the Catholic texts.
 
Don_Ruggero said:
We do not know if she tripped, fell down, cut herself or sustained an injury.
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We’re only talking about during childbirth.

First Lateran Council: “If anyone does not, according to the holy Fathers, confess truly and properly that holy Mary, ever virgin and immaculate, is Mother of God, since in this latter age she conceived in true reality without human seed from the Holy Spirit, God the Word Himself, who before the ages was begotten of God the Father, and gave birth to Him without injury, her virginity remaining equally inviolate after the birth, let him be condemned.”
 
JimG said:
The more I read about this, the more it seems to be primarily a disagreement between earlier theologians and modern theologians. I’m not entirely sure why we should prefer the later interpretations to the traditional interpretations.
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Please read through this, then get back to me. Tell me if you understand what I’m trying to say here. Don’t go further than what I’m writing. Just tell me if you understand what I am saying in this post right here. Please.

It has to do with “values.”

What value does a statement uphold.

For example:

Look at these 2 sentences

Christ was born in the town of Bethlehem

Christ was born in the city of Bethlehem

What’s the difference?

Obviously, the designation of Bethlehem as either a town or a city. What’s the difference? A city had walls.

What we need to do is look at those 2 sentences and ask “what value does each part uphold?”

The verb born is a very important value indeed. We must believe He was born. He did not merely appear to be here on earth (an early heresy). He did not hatch from an egg. He was not delivered by a stork. He was born. That word has tremendous value. Unless the God-made-man, the God-Incarnate, was born, there is no Salvation.

The last part “in Bethlehem” likewise upholds an important value. The location is important because of the earlier prophecies. But all by itself, not really significant. If the Messiah had been born someplace else, like the next town/city a few miles away, we would still be redeemed. In the end, Bethlehem is important only in relation to other events in salvation history and in relation to the earlier prophecies. So the words “in Bethlehem” have true value, but still, the fact of the Incarnation is less important than the specific place of birth.

Lastly, was Bethlehem a city or a town? Did it have walls or not? I’m not sure, and I’ve avoided looking it up on-purpose for the moment. In English, sometimes we say town, sometimes we say city. It makes no difference. Whether or not Bethlehem had walls has nothing to do with Salvation. It’s an irrelevant piece of trivia. There is no value to be upheld here by defending one position or the other.

So, do you understand what I mean when I say that in Theology we have to ask ourselves “what value does this statement uphold?”
 
Don_Ruggero said:
Refer, please to S-T III, q. 14.
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Try 28

We must therefore say that all these things took place miraculously by Divine power. Whence Augustine says (Sup. Joan. Tract. 121): “To the substance of a body in which was the Godhead closed doors were no obstacle. For truly He had power to enter in by doors not open, in Whose Birth His Mother’s virginity remained inviolate.” And Dionysius says in an epistle (Ad Caium iv) that “Christ excelled man in doing that which is proper to man: this is shown in His supernatural conception, of a virgin, and in the unstable waters bearing the weight of earthly feet.”

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4028.htm#article2
 
Thank you. I will get to those. My German is enough to ride the train and order schnitzel and bier. I can handle a few sentences in Theology but it takes me a while depending on the exact vocabulary.

It annoys me that I can find so many references to AAS 1990 in online searches for this monitum. The Acta itself is, of course, easy to find. But once there, I couldn’t find the monitum within it.

People on both sides of the issue readily say that it supports their position. But no one actually quotes even a single word from it. That makes me suspicious of what it says. If opposing sides both claim it proves them right, and neither side quotes any words, my suspicion is that it proves neither of them.

I’ll certainly read that link.

Thanks again for posting it.
 
Don_Ruggero said:
I beg your pardon? I am sorry; I don’t understand. She “asserts masculinity”? What is that trying to say, please? Is this a way Americans say that “Maria wishes to be addressed using masculine pronouns?”
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No. It’s not that she asserts masculinity; he asserts that he’s a man. So, “@De_Maria has taken me to task for calling him a woman” means what it plainly states; it’s not some weird gender-bending, politically-correct form of American speech. 😉
 
The Blessed Virgin is “Ever Virgin”. That has nothing to do with “injury,” which is what you asked me about, Maria. Nothing at all.

Reading through your string of posts, I think you demonstrate a concerning imbalance.

Concerning enough that I think to attempt further dialogue with you may be actually harmful to your emotional well-being.
 
Don_Ruggero said:
You bring up injury with zest, Maria.
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The problem with that user’s question is that said user is opposed to any attempt to define the word “injury.”

I’m not quite sure how anyone can answer a question as to whether-or-not an injury occurred given that the word “injury” is somehow beyond definition.

I’ve offered that we consider than an injury is an in-justice, a wrong. An example might be an act which violates the substantial integrity of the body.

Apparently my thoughts that the notion of injury is somehow connected to the notion of justice have nothing to do with this discussion, as that particular member sees things.
 
De_Maria said:
It is Catholic Doctrine that She was not injured in childbirth.
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You keep repeating it, but you refuse to even consider the possibility that the word “injury” just might have a definition.
 
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I have just completed reading the 451 posts in this thread…and speaking of 451, I toast Chalcedon.

To my best knowledge, I first encountered this Maria in an exchange on a thread about Ecumenism and Lutherans – I do not remember her from the old Forum, if I interacted with her – and I stated that the answer to her question lay with From Conflict to Communion which led to a bizarre exchange in which she said she did not read documents but she needed to have things explained to her by post since she did not read.

Whether Maria is a woman or Maria is a man…or a “she” wishing to be called “he” or a “he” wishing to be called “she” I do not know and, at this point, I do not care. Help in that area is beyond my competence

I do care that there is something radically disturbed here

Let me be crystal clear. I have taught Mariology for years, reviewed as well as moderated theses for various topics in this field, written in this field, lectured in this field. I have never seen the like of this

I have opened a dialogue with @camoderator because never, until this bizarre thread, have I confronted diagrams, images and illustrations of vaginas and hymens and other female genitalia, presented in connection with regard to this dogma of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God…in all my decades in the academy. And I really did not need it at the venerable age to which I am arrived

Perhaps there is something that could be derived from it in a spiritual presentation to gynecologists or mid-wives…perhaps that is Maria’s profession. But from my perspective, this is disturbed. Profoundly. I am gobsmacked

Whatever the moderators decide or do not decide, I will tell here and now what this priest and Mariology professor has decided: there is something warped here

I cannot imagine these diagrams and illustrations on the “Catholic Answers Forum” that I signed up for years ago. This is a record low mark

I do not contemplate aspects of the intimate anatomy of either the Incarnate Word or His Mother nor do I consider Them in the shadow of anatomy manuals

And this is what is more important to me: because of the reverence owed to the Mystery and Person of Mary, including her body. I wish to forget I ever read this thread or saw those image associated with the Most Holy Theotokos

Beyond that, I desire no further communication with Maria…she or he or whatever that person is or thinks that they might be

My goodness

Good bye
 
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