Pain during child birth in Rev 12

[CatholicSoxFan]

One of the main texts we Catholics use to support Marian doctrines is Revelation 12.
[BIBLEDRB]Revelation 11:19[/BIBLEDRB]
[BIBLEDRB]Revelation 12:1-5[/BIBLEDRB]
However, in verse 2, the woman is said to have pain during child birth, which we say didn’t happen during the birth of Jesus, because Mary was not born in the original sin. How do we answer a Protestant who brings this up? It seems to render some of the Protestant explanations of who the woman could be as having more explanatory scope, and being less ad hoc.

 

[jediliz]

It also refers to the church - maybe the childbirth pain is like a prediction of persecution of the church and Christians

 

[RPRPsych]

It also refers to the church - maybe the childbirth pain is like a prediction of persecution of the church and Christians

Quite right

In Bishop Challoner’s footnotes, he clearly states that the primary meaning of the woman is the Church, the New Israel, and her sufferings. It applies to Our Lady only by allusion. This view is also echoed by modern Catholic commentators, such as Bernard Orchard and Henry Wansbrough.

 

[Cathoholic]

Pain during child birth in Rev 12

(Others have already answered correctly but since I wrote it out in my document program earlier and am copying and pasting now I will just reiterate their points.)

CatholicSoxFan. You are doctrinally correctly alluding to Mary not experiencing any sense of pain in the birth of Jesus (one example includes the Roman Catechism: “Mary . . . brought forth Jesus . . . . without experiencing, . . . . any sense of pain.”).

ROMAN CATECHISM Mary was exempt from this law, for preserving her virginal integrity inviolate she brought forth Jesus the Son of God without experiencing, any sense of pain.

So WHY does “the Woman” of Revelation 12 have birth pangs?

Because when reading Revelation; there are differing layers or senses of meaning. There are differing senses of Scripture elsewhere too (see CCC 114-119) but especially so in Revelation.

The Church especially sees these differing layers in Revelation 12 that you are alluding to.

CCC 1138 “Recapitulated in Christ,” these are the ones who take part in the service of the praise of God and the fulfillment of his plan: the heavenly powers, all creation (the four living beings), the servants of the Old and New Covenants (the twenty-four elders), the new People of God (the one hundred and forty-four thousand),4 especially the martyrs “slain for the word of God,” and the all-holy Mother of God (the Woman), the Bride of the Lamb,5 and finally "a great multitude which no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes, and peoples and tongues."6

Footnote 5 refers us to (among other things), Revelation chapter 12.

(See also CCC 501 and CCC 757)

“The Woman” has Jesus for Her son (“she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron”–Rev. 12:5), but “The Woman” ALSO has spiritual motherhood to the whole Church.

That’s WHY just a few verses later, when the dragon goes off to make war on the “rest of Her children” it doesn’t merely name off some kids names.

The book of Revelation rather tells us the dragon went to make war on all Her children . . . . . on those who bear testimony to Jesus.

REVELATION 12:17a 17 Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus.

So if “The Woman” is the Mother of the Church . . . . would we expect She might have had some quite painful birth pangs, in “delivery” of the Church? Yes.

And She did. I suspect the prophet Simeon was in part referring to this event at the foot of The Cross when he said:

LUKE 2:34-35a . . . . 34 and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also) . . .

So no pain in the Blessed Virgin delivering Jesus . . . .

. . . . But yes quite a bit of pain in the Blessed Virgin “delivering” the Church.

And even St. Paul talks about how he himself experiences birth pangs or “trivail” when founding a new diocese or Church at Galatia.

GALATIANS 4:19 (RSVCE) 19 My little children, with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you!

GALATIANS 4:19 (NIV) My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, . . .

So in one sense, “the woman” does not have birth pangs (in the sense of Her delivering Jesus).

Yet in another sense “the woman” does have birth pangs (in the sense of Her delivering the Church).

And even in another sense Mary Herself is a living archetype (literally a “typus”—see CCC 967) of the Church.

There are even other senses to Revelation 12, that I won’t expound upon here (such as an Old Testament sense, a personal sense, etc.).

I hope this helps.

God bless.

Cathoholic

 

[COPLAND_3]

As for the woman, there are 2 senses that can be interpreted, one is of Mary, and the other is the Church. Here are the footnotes from the Aquinas Study Bible for both senses, these are direct quotes from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.

Mary Interpretation****12:2 cried travailing in birth: That is, at the moment of the Passion, she cried through sympathy. Travailing, that is, like being in the condition of a woman in labor when He was being martyred on the Cross, as Luke 2:35 says, ‘And your own soul a sword shall pierce.’ (St. Albert the Great) Gregory of Nyssa, who talks about the Lord in his Homily on Songs 13, says, ‘Jesus, whose conception is without intercourse, and whose birth is undefiled.’ Therefore the birth was free from pain. If such a great teacher of the Church says this, and the Virgin has escaped the pain of giving birth, how is it that she is travailing? Does this contradict what was said? Not at all… Until the divine angel told Joseph about her, that she conceived of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin was naturally disheartened, and embarrassed before her betrothed, and thinking that he might somehow suspect that she was in labor from a secret relationship. Therefore the text says, under the rule of metaphor, ‘cried travailing.’ (Oecumenius) And she cries out, with wonder, saying: ‘How shall this be, seeing I know not man?’ Travailing in birth, that is to say, when she obeyed, it was without prejudice and with all virginity. Travailing, that is, submitting anxiously, preserving her virginity. (Hugh of St. Cher)

in pain: That was her burning desire to have His pain end while He was suffering. (St. Albert the Great) Or she suffers because the “ancient serpent” wishes to devour “the child”. (Pope John Paul II MULIERIS DIGNITATEM 30) Or, that is, by fasting, by vigils and prayers, abstinence, continence, and anything else of this kind of chastity. (Hugh of St. Cher)

Church Interpretation****12:2 cried travailing in birth: The children of the Church will increase throughout the nations. (Bulus al-Bushi) Or by which is meant that the Church, always bringing forth Christ, becomes the instructor of all the nations. (St. Hippolytus of Rome) Likewise, the doctrine of preaching, which disposes men, that they may become the sons of God by adoption… He says, then, and being with child (in the womb), according to a Gloss, ‘in the memory of the yoke, having, the Word of God.’ This is the fetus, which the Church has received from her Spouse, about which He endeavors to form the children, beautiful and the new… She cried, that is, the preachers in the Church and the good pastors. The Church preaches greater by preaching with passion, which is understood to be with a shout, as Isaiah 58:1 says, ‘Cry, cease not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet.’ Travailing, that is, with an effort attempting to bring forth spiritual children. (St. Thomas Aquinas)

in pain: In pain, the interior desire, and the exterior mortification of the flesh, that she may bear, that is, the spiritual children of God. (St. Thomas Aquinas) Or it means that the Church will not cease to bear from her heart the Word that is persecuted by the unbelieving in the world. (St. Hippolytus of Rome) She called to God, so He would quickly give to her a Son who would free her from the oppression of the infidels. (Nicholas of Lyra)

 

[Glacies]

To add to the Church interpretation, the Haydock Commentary also thinks that the pains could refer to the fact that the has Church grown in difficult situations or that the beginning times of Christianity were difficult.

With child, &c. to signify that the Church, even in the time of persecutions, brought forth children to Christ. Wi. — It likewise signifies the difficulties which obstructed the first propagation of Christianity. Past.