Dear Metanoia, I respectfully disagree with your post…I should think that Mary menstrated and went through menopause, the same as other women do. Not every woman “suffers” from these acts of nature. Mary was fully human…
I have some respectful disagreements with some of your opinions!
It never occured to think of Mary’s menstration. Probably she did, but then, maybe she didn’t. She may have been quite different in this way as well. We don’t know. DID Eve menstrate before the fall?? (Hmm - some women call it “the curse”!). I don’t think this is in the catechism, so we can only speculate.
I wonder if Blessed Mary Agreda commented on this? She has a lot to say on
every aspect of Mary. I have only skimmed the abridged City of God so I don’t know. But from what I did read, I would
not be surprised to read Mary Agreda saying Our Lady did
not menstrate.
As far as menopause, in our day, with the soils depleted of organics with mass crop farming with chemical fertalizers and pesticides, and even our standard healthy diet being nutritionally depleted, our menopause comes earlier than it used to. Back then, when their diets had no processed foods at all, but were full of fresh whole foods farmed naturally - whole grains, fresh fish, and the lifestle was more active, with more walking and plenty of sunshine, its likely everyone went through menopause much later.
Think about also how hate in the heart causes physical degradation and early death. Think of how love in the heart must surely do the
opposite. Then think of the magnitude of
the love in the Immaculate heart of the Mother of Our Lord!
Code:
http://www.theholyrosary.org/images/ihm.gif
When you think of this, its easy to see we cannot assume she was “just like us” physically. Especially when it comes to physical degradation which we know is related to the fall.
I am not saying I think she was preserved like a 15 year old all her life, but, because of her life and heart, I do think the physical degradation would be
different. Less.
Think of older people falling in love, truly. They look like youths again. Mary, who was
always in love with God, and then so intimately in love with her Son, and we can only imagine the Holy Spirit, who surely never abandonned her - - she truly must have been an eternal youth! In some sense(s) anyway.
Being the Mother of God did not prevent her from possessing normal human attributes, except during events that involved her uniqueness towards her Son - ex: incarnation. I think she stubbed her toe, cut her nails, combed her hair, took baths, scratched an itch, preferred one food over another, sang, cried, worried, smiled, probably had a tooth ache, maybe had a stiff neck, etc. etc. etc. She was human…Her Son was human and divine. .
Somehow, I do not see Jesus and Mary, living in such perfect love and in such perfect harmony, with their wills surrendered to the will of God, as having to suffer many aliments of the immune system such as a toothache. I bet their immune systems were singing! I do not see them doing
a lot of toe-stubbing. I do see that in me, when I am out of balance, out of sorts. I don’t see them beign out of balance and out of sorts too often. Instead I see the both being fully peaceful and in the moment.
Whatever they did in their practical lives, they did it as people who had no vices, no compulsions, no selfishness. Whatever they were doing, they were willing to put it aside for the needs of another. Whatever they did, they did it with love and harmony, peace, patience and prayer.
I bet Jesus’ favortie foods had a lot to do with Mary making them!
Unless I read it wrong, the quote from the New Advent pertains to the “resurrected” body of Christ not Mary.
No one here is thinking Mary was “resurrected”. Thats because pretty much of us here are Catholic.
Mary was unique. So was Eve. Eve became more like us. Mary didn’t. Mary is
Blessed Among all Women.
Mary is related to God like no other:
Daughter of God
Mother of the Son
Spouse of the Holy Spirit.
So these supposings of how those unique connections to the Holy Trinity might have affected her physicality are not unusual.
But even in the simplest things, such as menstruation, I am greatly comforted to think of her and to know that she is with me.
No one has ever just dumped a religious book on me before and said “Read it”.