Mary, Ever Virgin

[Tantum_ergo]

Those ‘well intentioned images’ were Christian teaching for 1500 years and even continued with the Protestant reformers–at first.

It is the equally ‘well intentioned images’ of a ‘no longer perpetual virgin’ that are ‘new’ teaching. . .Mary’s perpetual virginity is an old teaching, indeed.

So, with great respect, it is really not those who point to how beautiful and how ‘like us’ it ‘makes’ Mary and Joseph to be a ‘real’ family who are articulating 'as GOOD a truth – if not better!" than this supposedly 'unBiblical, late, <> of Mary’s perpetual virginity, but rather, attempting (albeit with good intentions) to impose ‘their’ <> as AT LEAST AS VALID as the original and authentic teaching. And from there it is a small step to insisting that the ‘first’ teaching (in its ‘surrealism’) was a MISTAKE and the ‘new’ teaching is the ‘real reality’. After all, that’s how the Eucharist was ‘changed’ from Real Presence (how surreal!) to ‘symbol’ (how much more ‘practical’ and ‘human’ a concept).

It is precisely because authentic Catholic Christian teachings are ‘difficult’ that we know that they are indeed true. But after some 2000 years, when most of us come to our faith being ‘born into it’, being able to ‘read it’, we tend to lose sight of how ‘miraculous’ it is that Christ came ‘born in a stable’. To the people of that time, power meant WEALTH and prestige, and for the power of GOD HIMSELF to be born humble and poor was a SHOCKING idea–so shocking that many Jews (the chosen people) were never able to overcome their ‘practical human understanding’ of what the Messiah SHOULD BE to actually see the Messiah AS HE WAS.

Think about it. Do we want a God ‘just like us’ who ‘happens’ to be God. . .or do we want GOD who happens to have chosen to come to us to show us what ‘being fully human’ should BE?

 

[mercygate]

Thank you, Kitty. I was feeling quite alone and alienated from the church I love while reading the many other replies I have received. I was thinking that, perhaps, I have been hanging out with a group of strangers, and not the brothers and sisters I believed them to be.
Virgin Mary, did I read your response correctly? I have not been questioning that our Blessed Mother was a virgin when she conceived Jesus. God is Jesus’ Father. Joseph was His step-father. That is Truth. The continuing virginity of Mary and, one would assume, Joseph after Jesus’ birth may be truth; or, it may be the well-intentioned imaginings of man.

Donald, can you go back to my post on the nature of dogma? I think your problem is not so much with THIS teaching as it is with the whole magisterial enterprise. No dogma is EVER promulgated in a vacuum. These things do not come about because of sentimental piety.

As a clue that you may have a wider gap in your understanding than is manifested by this question, in an earlier postyou equated the doctrinal status of Puragatory and Limbo.

You seem to have taken offense to the tone of some of the responses you have received on this thread. I have gone back over it and while people have been forthright, they have not been discourteous. BTW: Our good friend, Kitty Chan, with whom you found some rapport on this question, is an Evangelical Protestant.

 

[donaldotwo]

Tantum Ergo and Mercygate,

Thank you for your thoughtful replies. I have taken no offense from the responses I received. I only felt isolated by the absense of any meeting of minds (by any measure) with mine; until Kitty Chen responded.

Mercygate, you are correct in your observation that I have difficulty with the development of ideas about faith. The story as it unfolded through the conception of Jesus in Mary by the Holy Spirit; and all that followed, and has been recorded so wonderfully in the New Testiment is plenty to nourish my own spirit. It included ample evidence of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The apostles Creed covers things pretty well.

Coincident with our conversation, I read an inspiring thought this morning in Anthony DeMello’s One Minute Wisdom. The subject is Imprisonment. “You are so proud of your intelligence,” said the Master to a disciple. “You are like the condemned man who is proud of the vastness of his prison cell.”
Before you hasten to tell me that DeMello’s thoughs and teachings are frequently not in favor with the Vatican (just as you let me know that Kitty Chen’s credentials are dubious), think about all we can learn, and have learned, from some of those who stepped away from the Catholic church, and joined their spirits to the universal (catholic) church. They sometimes faced up to some serious shortcomings in Church leadership and guidance, and their dissent required real courage.

I prefer to remain in the “Big C”. It’s where my spirit finds true peace, even when I don’t find it in all it teaches.

 

[VociMike]

Tantum Ergo and Mercygate,

Thank you for your thoughtful replies. I have taken no offense from the responses I received. I only felt isolated by the absense of any meeting of minds (by any measure) with mine; until Kitty Chen responded.

I hate to tell you this, but Kitty Chan is not a Catholic. So you found no meeting of minds with the Catholic responses, but you did find a meeting of minds with the non-Catholic response.

 

[donaldotwo]

I appreciate your observations. Very astute.

 

[Church_Militant]

My thinking is that if Jesus had blood siblings instead of step siblings then why would he have given his mother into the care of St. John as one of His last acts. It was the children’s responsibility to care for a widowed mother, but that was not the case for stepchildren/stepmothers and so Jesus would have had to insure that someone took care of His mother.

 

[mercygate]

Tantum Ergo and Mercygate,

Thank you for your thoughtful replies. I have taken no offense from the responses I received. I only felt isolated by the absense of any meeting of minds (by any measure) with mine; until Kitty Chen responded.

Mercygate, you are correct in your observation that I have difficulty with the development of ideas about faith. The story as it unfolded through the conception of Jesus in Mary by the Holy Spirit; and all that followed, and has been recorded so wonderfully in the New Testiment is plenty to nourish my own spirit. It included ample evidence of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The apostles Creed covers things pretty well.

Coincident with our conversation, I read an inspiring thought this morning in Anthony DeMello’s One Minute Wisdom. The subject is Imprisonment. “You are so proud of your intelligence,” said the Master to a disciple. “You are like the condemned man who is proud of the vastness of his prison cell.”

This caution against intellectual pride is a common theme among the desert fathers. Faith is ultimately not a matter of bra(name removed by moderator)ower – although we do not exempt the brain from participation. After all we are commanded by God Himself to love Him with our whole mind!

Before you hasten to tell me that DeMello’s thoughs and teachings are frequently not in favor with the Vatican (just as you let me know that Kitty Chen’s credentials are dubious),

I didn’t mean that Kitty had dubious credentials, just giving a heads-up about the fact that she is not on the same page the Catholic Church is on with this.

think about all we can learn, and have learned, from some of those who stepped away from the Catholic church, and joined their spirits to the universal (catholic) church.

As a convert myself, I could never concur that stepping away from the Catholic Church does anything but diminish his connection with the universal Church. And I have a very ecumenical heart.

They sometimes faced up to some serious shortcomings in Church leadership and guidance, and their dissent required real courage.

I would say that the Church herself has faced up to serious shortcomings in leadership. Dissent does not require courage so much as the pride your friend DeLello points out. To effect real reform of real problems, you need people like Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic. THEY effected monumental reforms without so much as a syllable of dissent.

I prefer to remain in the “Big C”. It’s where my spirit finds true peace, even when I don’t find it in all it teaches.

I hope you come to find peace in her teachings because as you explore them, and meditate upon them, you will see that they all form a coherent and cohesive whole that is luminous in beauty.

 

[Kitty_Chan]

Thank you, Kitty. I was feeling quite alone and alienated from the church I love while reading the many other replies I have received. I was thinking that, perhaps, I have been hanging out with a group of strangers, and not the brothers and sisters I believed them to be.
Virgin Mary, did I read your response correctly? I have not been questioning that our Blessed Mother was a virgin when she conceived Jesus. God is Jesus’ Father. Joseph was His step-father. That is Truth. The continuing virginity of Mary and, one would assume, Joseph after Jesus’ birth may be truth; or, it may be the well-intentioned imaginings of man.

Just a quick reply, yes donald I do realise you are catholic and that made me happy to see the thought. I felt less alone when you met me half way as it were. (even though you didnt know)

When you can see value in them being ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances and come out blessed in Gods favor come what will, it made me happy that you could see that.

Now, what comes of that? If you can see that then I can try to see the other view. The end of a arguement starts with the other “entertaining” the idea the other has a point.

I will read all the responses later, just this for now.

 

[Joel_Tunnah]

Remember, celibacy is a higher call because it is in imitation of those perfected in heaven where there is no marriage.

Celibacy is not a ‘higher call’ than marriage. Marriage is a sacrament. Celibacy is not.

 

[mercygate]

Celibacy is not a ‘higher call’ than marriage. Marriage is a sacrament. Celibacy is not.

Consecrated virginity is considered to be, objectively, a higher condition of life than marriage. Celibacy for no reason is not “higher” than marriage.

That is all for another thread, however.