Mary's perpertual Viriginity, why does it matter?

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Delphinus85

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Okay, so I know the thread title seems heretical, but it’s not, I promise!! 😃

I was following a discussion on another thread about Mary’s perpetual viriginity, and like everything else on here, it got pretty heated.

At any rate, I posed a question no one really answered. It was posed at non-catholics, but I’d lik to hear the catholic answer…

“Why does it matter if Mary was ever-virgin or not? What difference does it make if she had other kids or not? What does this change about how you love and serve God?”

IMHO It doesn’t. The only thing vital to a catholic faith (in my eyes) is that we maintain Mary was SINLESS, and it’s entirely possible that Mary was sinless, yet conceived kids by Joseph. Now, I personally believe Mary was sinless and an ever virgin. The fact that she remained a virgin seems to be backed scripturally as well as through the church. I accept the teaching and find a great beauty in it.

Catholics: What does this teaching mean to you? What do you get out of it?

Protestants: Why does it matter to you SO much that she did have sex? What does this change? Forgive my accusation, but it rather seems it’s rejected so vehemently simply because you don’t want to agree with anything the RCC says…
 
It matters to me that she was sinless because of what her life entailed. First, unwed mother, father not “around.” Second, child born into a stable, not even in their own home. Third, child presented in temple, Mary told that a sword was to pierce her heart as well. Forth, birth of child requires flight into Egypt to escape corrupt earthly ruler. Fifth, earthly husband dies before son can start his own career. Sixth, son follows lead of heavenly Father and becomes travelling teacher/minister instead of carpenter, therefore he never has his own home and lives a hard life. Seventh, relatives try to tell son to leave hometown and seek other lands. MOther follows along dutifully. Eighth, son escapes hostile leaders of local faith/government time and again. Nineth, the trial and passion. Tenth, meeting her son on the road to his death. Eleventh, being at the foot of the cross with only one of his closest followers. Finally, son rises from the dead, walks the earth for a little while, then leaves again.

What a rough life, all of this covering 33 years. Now, if she had been like everyone else, think about the extrodinary grace she would have had. But, if through a unique event she was preserved from sin, how much easier would it have been to go through this? Remember that one of the aspects of origional sin is concupiscence, the drifting away from God that humans naturally have. Mary never showed this trait. From her first concent to be the mother of the Savior until his death, she stayed true to the calling of God. No one else ever did.
 
Besides, if you could ask one thing of God, would it not be that your family all get into heaven? Why should Jesus not want to be sure his momma did?
 
Oh agree she was completely sinless! I am asking about why perpetual virginity is so important to other catholics (I know what I love about it, I wanna hear from others 🙂 )
 
Delphinus85 said:
Oh agree she was completely sinless! I am asking about why perpetual virginity is so important to other catholics (I know what I love about it, I wanna hear from others 🙂 )
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Sorry, I misunderstood. 😃

Her perpetual virginity to me is easy. First, if my fiance was found to be pregnant with the Son of God, I may still marry her, but I doubt that I would touch her!! Her virginity helps with the Arc of the Covenant parallel (no man can touch her). Besides, why do we assume that everyone wants to have sex all the time? I like the concept that Joseph was older, maybe in his 30s, and he took Mary knowing that she was to remain a virgin. He may have been married before and had other kids, and he needed someone to cook and clean and such. I don’t know. I do know that it is a modern thought that she had other kids.
 
i would say that for me, it doesn’t matter either way.

i would also say that if she was preserved from sin or not doesn’t matter to me as well.

either way on either one i can find beauty in what God did.

for example> if mary did remain a virgin then: joseph was a pretty good guy to agree to take care of her as his wife when they never offically became husband and wife (pretty uncommon in that time other than in a slave/master sort of relationship), how cool God is to have a point in EVERYTHING He does (e.g. that the whole reason ultimately for the ark was to point to mary), and that she really was totally devoted to God.

if mary had children after the virgin birth: she and joseph would be a shining example of how God can and does use all of us… we don’t need to be sinless or “special”, people would be more able to relate to her, God would be pretty cool in giving her other children knowing that her firstborn was going to die prematurely, and it would show all the more that joseph really did believe her and accept her (even unto accepting her truly as his wife).

if mary was sinless (including born without original sin): shows that God takes the least expected things and uses them for the most noble purposes, again the consistency of God (the ark parallel), and it’s a great example of honoring your mother.

if mary wasn’t sinless: it shows again that God uses “normal” people for his supernatural purposes, it’s easier to relate to mary and it makes her assent to God all the more powerful

my point is that the marian doctrines don’t ultimately have an impact on my faith one way or the other. it is one of the things i disagree with the RCC on is that they make the marian doctrines necessary for salvation… i think that is wrong.

i do agree the idea of mary having other children is a more recent idea (and flows from a lack of knowledge of church history and poor translations of scripture). both calvin and luther taught perpetual virginity.

i have trouble with the sinlessness. the logic doesn’t sit right. if mary had to be sinless to give birth to Jesus, why didn’t anne (mary’s mother i believe) have to sinless to give birth to mary? and right on up the line?
 
Delphinus85 said:
“Why does it matter if Mary was ever-virgin or not? What difference does it make if she had other kids or not? What does this change about how you love and serve God?”

IMHO It doesn’t. The only thing vital to a catholic faith (in my eyes) is that we maintain Mary was SINLESS, and it’s entirely possible that Mary was sinless, yet conceived kids by Joseph. Now, I personally believe Mary was sinless and an ever virgin. The fact that she remained a virgin seems to be backed scripturally as well as through the church. I accept the teaching and find a great beauty in it.

Catholics: What does this teaching mean to you? What do you get out of it?

Protestants: Why does it matter to you SO much that she did have sex? What does this change? Forgive my accusation, but it rather seems it’s rejected so vehemently simply because you don’t want to agree with anything the RCC says…
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I don’t think that motivates Protestants at all. I think that Scripture shows far more evidence for Mary living a normal married woman’s life than it does that Mary was sinless and was a virgin her whole life and Protestants are only stating this.
 
bengal_fan said:
i would say that for me, it doesn’t matter either way.

i would also say that if she was preserved from sin or not doesn’t matter to me as well.

either way on either one i can find beauty in what God did.

for example> if mary did remain a virgin then: joseph was a pretty good guy to agree to take care of her as his wife when they never offically became husband and wife (pretty uncommon in that time other than in a slave/master sort of relationship), how cool God is to have a point in EVERYTHING He does (e.g. that the whole reason ultimately for the ark was to point to mary), and that she really was totally devoted to God.

if mary had children after the virgin birth: she and joseph would be a shining example of how God can and does use all of us… we don’t need to be sinless or “special”, people would be more able to relate to her, God would be pretty cool in giving her other children knowing that her firstborn was going to die prematurely, and it would show all the more that joseph really did believe her and accept her (even unto accepting her truly as his wife).

if mary was sinless (including born without original sin): shows that God takes the least expected things and uses them for the most noble purposes, again the consistency of God (the ark parallel), and it’s a great example of honoring your mother.

if mary wasn’t sinless: it shows again that God uses “normal” people for his supernatural purposes, it’s easier to relate to mary and it makes her assent to God all the more powerful

my point is that the marian doctrines don’t ultimately have an impact on my faith one way or the other. it is one of the things i disagree with the RCC on is that they make the marian doctrines necessary for salvation… i think that is wrong.

i do agree the idea of mary having other children is a more recent idea (and flows from a lack of knowledge of church history and poor translations of scripture). both calvin and luther taught perpetual virginity.

i have trouble with the sinlessness. the logic doesn’t sit right. if mary had to be sinless to give birth to Jesus, why didn’t anne (mary’s mother i believe) have to sinless to give birth to mary? and right on up the line?
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Bengal, I have always enjoyed your posts. I wish more Protestants would be willing to look at both sides (Catholics, too).

The rest of her family would not have to be Immaculately Concieved. First, it was a unique, singular event reserved for the woman who would be the Arc of the New Covenant. Secondly, Ann et al would not have needed the special graces that it imparts, as they themselve would not carry Christ or have to go through his passion and death.
 
Maybe being a perpetual virgin doesn"t
matter to some on this forum. But maybe it mattered
a whole lot to Mary.
 
ralphinal said:
Sorry, I misunderstood. 😃

Her perpetual virginity to me is easy. First, if my fiance was found to be pregnant with the Son of God, I may still marry her, but I doubt that I would touch her!! Her virginity helps with the Arc of the Covenant parallel (no man can touch her). Besides, why do we assume that everyone wants to have sex all the time? I like the concept that Joseph was older, maybe in his 30s, and he took Mary knowing that she was to remain a virgin. He may have been married before and had other kids, and he needed someone to cook and clean and such. I don’t know. I do know that it is a modern thought that she had other kids.
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If Joseph had not married Mary, she would have been stoned to death as an adulteress as soon as the baby was born. Joseph was her protector and provider. Without him she would not have survived and the baby would have been a bastard. He would have ended up a servant at best.
 
notself said:
If Joseph had not married Mary, she would have been stoned to death as an adulteress as soon as the baby was born. Joseph was her protector and provider. Without him she would not have survived and the baby would have been a bastard. He would have ended up a servant at best.
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True, but what does that have to do with her perpetual virginity
 
btw Good post Bengal Fan
et al

In the end I dont know. I like Mary better “real” like us, not “protected”. It makes what she went through more special, more of an inspiration. In many ways the 2 of them had everything going against them. But they trusted God.

Also, none of the others in scripture were perfect. They did extraordinary things with their ordinary selves and God to guide them. In fact some of them were not even what we may judge as “good” people. But they were faithful.

🙂
 
Delphinus85 said:
Okay, so I know the thread title seems heretical, but it’s not, I promise!! 😃

I was following a discussion on another thread about Mary’s perpetual viriginity, and like everything else on here, it got pretty heated.

At any rate, I posed a question no one really answered. It was posed at non-catholics, but I’d lik to hear the catholic answer…

“Why does it matter if Mary was ever-virgin or not? What difference does it make if she had other kids or not? What does this change about how you love and serve God?”

IMHO It doesn’t. The only thing vital to a catholic faith (in my eyes) is that we maintain Mary was SINLESS, and it’s entirely possible that Mary was sinless, yet conceived kids by Joseph. Now, I personally believe Mary was sinless and an ever virgin. The fact that she remained a virgin seems to be backed scripturally as well as through the church. I accept the teaching and find a great beauty in it.

Catholics: What does this teaching mean to you? What do you get out of it?

Protestants: Why does it matter to you SO much that she did have sex? What does this change? Forgive my accusation, but it rather seems it’s rejected so vehemently simply because you don’t want to agree with anything the RCC says…
Click to expand...
It matters because many of us fear that the tradition of perpetual virginity developed out of the early Church’s aversion to sex and to the body. It’s no accident that one of the fiercest defenders of the doctrine, St. Jerome, came within a hairsbreadth of saying that marital sex was incompatible with Christian holiness. It’s easy to see why St. Jerome and others would find the idea of the Mother of God having sex with her husband disgusting. It’s clear that they did find it disgusting, and their attitude can be explained quite easily by factors unconnected with (and even perhaps uncongenial to) orthodox Christianity. Furthermore, the doctrine of virginity “in partu”–that Mary was physically “intact” throughout the process of birth, implying that Jesus in some way “teleported” out of her womb–seems downright docetistic, as if the properties ascribed to Jesus’ risen body in the Gospels were the result of His divinity rather than of His resurrection. This threatens the basic Christian understanding of the nature of our resurrection and its relationship with that of Jesus.

On the other hand, I think that a case can be made that the perpetual virginity might be an important root of the Christian understanding of women’s dignity. Since for much of our history marriage and sexuality have been seen in terms of the possession and penetration of the woman by the man, it may be important for Christians to teach that the ideal woman was in fact never “possessed” in this way–and furthermore that her sexless marriage was the ideal for all marriage. Repellent as this is for modern people, it points the way toward a more companionate and egalitarian understanding of marriage, in which the husband reveres the wife as a being made in God’s image rather than seeing her as a “field to be ploughed,” as men have tended to see their wives historically. I know Christian feminists who consider the perpetual virginity, and the traditional Christian emphasis on virginity, to be a very feminist doctrine–and on the whole I think I agree.

So I am on the fence about this issue, mostly because I respect tradition too much to junk such a traditional doctrine entirely. But I can certainly see that quite a bit is at stake on both sides.

Edwin
 
After reading that Edwin Id still say that Joesph did act well to Mary as he stayed with her. Even though he was well within his rights to leave her. Accepting Jesus as his to raise with Mary. A marriage based on such things is something for everyone to have as a example.

When they had trials, we dont read they almost broke up because it was to inconvient. We read they were faithful to the Lord and each other and their small baby.

This is what those feminists and others should remember. Why are they or anyone worried about what happened after? Bunch of gossips! :mad:

Or that, they even entertain such thoughts about 2 fine people. The start is what is important. This is the example Mary and Joesph were. In love and trusting God.

🙂
 
notself said:
It has to do with why he married her. He did it to protect her, not necessarily to have her cook and clean.
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Ok. I should have been more clear. That is why he married her once she was found with child. You are correct. My point is to why he would have married her if she had taken a prior vow of chastity. This type of arrangement was noted in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
 
The RCC of old was pretty much obsessed with virginity for females. If you look in the Book of Christian Prayer, there is a whole section for virgins, they are all women of course, since it’s worse for women to lose their virginity than men.

Basically, sex is nasty, so naturally the Virgin Mary remained a virgin so because she wouldn’t lower herself to doing something so animal.

She was way above condecending to that lower nature. I mean, can you imagine the mother of Jesus doing that? :rolleyes: No! Because, inspite of what moderists say, sex is nasty, and since the rest of us are imperfect and sinful, we like and crave it, but Mary is perfect, so she never lowered herself to do it.🤷
 
jssaxon said:
Because, inspite of what moderists say, sex is nasty, and since the rest of us are imperfect and sinful, we like and crave it, but Mary is perfect, so she never lowered herself to do it.🤷
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Cant quite tell if you are being sarcastic here . . . but sex is nasty because its been perverted. In a loving marriage, it is never nasty. Mary and Joesph loved one another there is no lowering.
 
I disagree. Sex is nasty. You have to lower yourself to have sex. It’s part of our lower, sinful nature. That’s why we are trapped here.
 
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