Mary & Joseph's Marriage Intentions vs. Church Teaching

[Kenny_Kamel]

I’ve been reading, praying, and discerning much about the Holy Family during this Advent Season and the age old questions related to Mary’s Perpetual Virginity have been running through my head as of late. Allow me to state that I do not deny Mary’s Perpetual Virginity but I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Joseph and his role in the Holy Family now more than ever.

Here is something I’m hung up on, particularly after having begun reading the booklet “Saint Joseph: Fatima and Fatherhood.” If Mary had taken a vow of lifelong virginity prior to her betrothal to Joseph and he still agreed to marriage, it would suggest that he would esstentially be a lifelong virgin so long as they were married. Of course God had other plans, the Incarnation of course. Using Mary and Joseph’s intentions as an example, well wouldn’t they fly in the face of the Church’s teaching regarding Holy Matrimony and that marriage needs to be ordered toward procreation?

I’m trying to grasp what the timeframe Mary & Joseph lived in was like so far as marriage and marital relations are concerned as well as how that may apply to the Church’s teachings since then, certainly in our time.

 

[catholictiger]

I’ve been reading, praying, and discerning much about the Holy Family during this Advent Season and the age old questions related to Mary’s Perpetual Virginity have been running through my head as of late. Allow me to state that I do not deny Mary’s Perpetual Virginity but I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Joseph and his role in the Holy Family now more than ever.

Here is something I’m hung up on, particularly after having begun reading the booklet “Saint Joseph: Fatima and Fatherhood.” If Mary had taken a vow of lifelong virginity prior to her betrothal to Joseph and he still agreed to marriage, it would suggest that he would esstentially be a lifelong virgin so long as they were married. Of course God had other plans, the Incarnation of course. Using Mary and Joseph’s intentions as an example, well wouldn’t they fly in the face of the Church’s teaching regarding Holy Matrimony and that marriage needs to be ordered toward procreation?

I’m trying to grasp what the timeframe Mary & Joseph lived in was like so far as marriage and marital relations are concerned as well as how that may apply to the Church’s teachings since then, certainly in our time.

When Mary and Joseph got married they weren’t Catholic they were living under Jewish Law not Catholic Law. So no problem here. Plus I suspect the tradition that marriage needs to be ordered to procreation did come till after Joseph was dead.

 

[agnes_therese]

When Mary and Joseph got married they weren’t Catholic they were living under Jewish Law not Catholic Law. So no problem here. Plus I suspect the tradition that marriage needs to be ordered to procreation did come till after Joseph was dead.

And, let’s face it, this was a special case.

 

[MountainMan]

Kenny - that is an excellent question. If I read your post correctly, you are a seminarian, and I want to be sure to encourage you in your vocation - Thank you for saying “Yes” to the Lord’s call!! In response to your question, I will add that, given the special nature of their marriage and their relationship, Joseph and Mary’s ‘vocation’ was to nurture and raise the Son of God as he prepared for His mission on earth. He and He alone had to be their Number 1 priority. From the Archangel Gabriel’s message to them, they understood that the Child they were expecting was indeed God’s Son. Again, thank you for your ‘Yes’ and for this question. You will be in my prayers!

Chuck

 

[Kenny_Kamel]

When Mary and Joseph got married they weren’t Catholic they were living under Jewish Law not Catholic Law. So no problem here. Plus I suspect the tradition that marriage needs to be ordered to procreation did come till after Joseph was dead.

Wasn’t the first commandment God gave to the first married couple, “be fruitful and multiply?” Having the intention to abstain from marital relations, what were Mary & Joseph seeking to accomplish as a married couple that they couldn’t accomplish outside of marriage?

Let’s not look at this using the hindsight of what came to pass, I’m using Mary & Joseph’s intentions prior to the Incarnation as an example. I’m sure they aren’t the only couple set to be married in history that have intentionally choosen to abstain from marital relations throughout their lifetime together.

 

[ValPal]

And, let’s face it, this was a special case.

I agree with the “special case” argument.

Technically, they were married under Jewish Law, which is conventional versus sacramental, and which does not appear to have required consummation for validity. However, if Truth does not change, the “technicality” is irrelevant; it would be wrong. And I would doubt that the Holy Couple would marry under such a technicality. OTOH, God can do as God wants, so I simply leave it at that.

 

[Waiting]

Wasn’t the first commandment God gave to the first married couple, “be fruitful and multiply?” Having the intention to abstain from marital relations, what were Mary & Joseph seeking to accomplish as a married couple that they couldn’t accomplish outside of marriage?

Let’s not look at this using the hindsight of what came to pass, I’m using Mary & Joseph’s intentions prior to the Incarnation as an example. I’m sure they aren’t the only couple set to be married in history that have intentionally choosen to abstain from marital relations throughout their lifetime together.

Mary was a young Jewish girl who had taken the vow of virginity, as she made clear to Gabriel. She needed a means of protection when left orphaned. Therefore the betrothal ,to Joseph, who, it’s been thought, may also have taken the vow to be celibate. Joseph would have been made aware of Mary’s vow, and been o.k. with it. A young, unmarried girl in Mary’s time, was quite a different situation from today’s young, unmarried girl.

 

[zab]

This reflection from the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen may help:
catholictradition.org/Mary/marys-book1.htm

Here is just a quote taken from the above:

Marriage must end in the family, at least in intention if not in act; for only through the family does life escape exhaustion and weariness by discovering its duality to be trinity, by seeing its love continually reborn and renown, by having its mutual self-giving transformed into receiving. Love thus defeats death, as it defeats exhaustion. It achieves a kind of immortality as self-renewal becomes self-preservation. God is eternal society; Three Persons in one Divine Nature. The family is human society; mutual self-giving, which ends in self-perfection.
Deep mystery is hidden in the fact that Mary “conceived by the Holy Spirit.” It meant that the love that begot her child was not human love. A child is the fruit of love. But, in this one instance, the love that begot was the love of God, which is the Third Person of the Trinity. Under the sun one needs no candle. When conception takes place through Spirit love, there is no need of human love. The virgin birth did not imply that Mary conceived without love; it only meant that she conceived without passion. Birth is impossible without love. Human husband love is unnecessary if God sends His Spirit of Love. Where there is no love, there is no family.
To Mary alone was given the gift of bearing a child directly through God. But, in a lesser way, every child is born of God. The parents cannot create the soul of the child; that must come from God. Flesh cannot beget spirit. At the very beginning of the human race, Eve, in the ecstasy of the first-born in the world, cried out: “I have been enriched by the Lord with a man-child” [Gen. 4: 1]. “By the Lord,” but using the intermediary of man. Mary, the new Eve, in the ecstasy of her first-born could cry: “I have been enriched by the Lord with a man-child,” without the intermediary of man; because she was begetting the new Adam, the new head of the human race. As in the Trinity there are Three Persons in one Divine Nature, as in Adam there are millions of human persons in one fallen human nature, so in Christ there are millions of human persons in one regenerated human nature. “In Adam,” man with his heritage of sin can become “in Christ,” with a heritage of grace.

 

[1ke]

If Mary had taken a vow of lifelong virginity prior to her betrothal to Joseph and he still agreed to marriage

This is a pious tradition, this is not a fact or Church doctrine.

Using Mary and Joseph’s intentions as an example, well wouldn’t they fly in the face of the Church’s teaching regarding Holy Matrimony and that marriage needs to be ordered toward procreation?

No.

Consent makes a valid marriage. Consummation makes marriage (between the baptized) indissoluable.

how that may apply to the Church’s teachings since then, certainly in our time.

It does not apply to Church teaching on marriage, but neither does it contradict it. Even today it is possible for a couple under spiritual direction to enter into a Josephite marriage (for a time or indefinitely). They must be canonically able to contract marriage, which means that they must be willing and able to render the marriage debt should either party ask. But they are not required to render the marriage debt under mutual agreement to abstain.

 

[ValPal]

They must be canonically able to contract marriage, which means that they must be willing and able to render the marriage debt should either party ask. But they are not required to render the marriage debt under mutual agreement to abstain.

Is this even applicable when discussing Joseph and Mary?

 

[1ke]

Is this even applicable when discussing Joseph and Mary?

That was not the question.

 

[ValPal]

That was not the question.

Stealthful dodge.

 

[1ke]

Stealthful dodge.

It is not a dodge. It is the fact.

The OP asked how it applies to Church teaching in our time.

The Catholic Church did not exist when Joseph and Mary married, as has already been pointed out, and therefore had no jurisdiction over their marriage.

 

[catholictiger]

Wasn’t the first commandment God gave to the first married couple, “be fruitful and multiply?” Having the intention to abstain from marital relations, what were Mary & Joseph seeking to accomplish as a married couple that they couldn’t accomplish outside of marriage?

Let’s not look at this using the hindsight of what came to pass, I’m using Mary & Joseph’s intentions prior to the Incarnation as an example. I’m sure they aren’t the only couple set to be married in history that have intentionally choosen to abstain from marital relations throughout their lifetime together.

what does jewish law say because that is what matters in this case. Does Mary and Joseph have to consummate the marriage or is there something else they have to do.