Rev 12 doesn't refer to Mary due to painful birth in text?

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Dancelittleewok

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A protestant said:
You see that as Mary because that’s what the RCC says, and in saying so it contradicts itself. The woman in Rev. 12 gave birth IN PAIN, yet the RCC teaches that Mary had a PAINLESS childbirth.
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Does this prove that Mary is not the woman in Revalation 12:1-6?
I, of course, am with the Church on this one.
 
The pain referred to in Revelation is not physical but spiritual. Remember what St. Simeon prophesied would happen to Our Lady? That a sword would pierce her heart? It’s called being a white martyr, and Mary suffered the most of any white martyr who ever lived in giving birth to Christ’s Church (while he died upon the cross) as the Mother of the Church and of Christ. Does that help?
 
First of all, God promised Eve that He would greatly increase the pain of childbirth. This would show that women were going to have pain, even if Eve hadn’t have instigated Apple-Gate.

2nd, with all the Symbolism in Apocalypse, the pain the woman suffers through could be the pain that Mary felt at the foot of the Cross. Remember, Simeon had told her, “And you, too, a sword shall pierce”

3rd, the Child that was born was to rule with a rod of Iron. 2nd Psalms tells us that that child was to be Jesus.

4th, if you consider that the child is Jesus, and the Dragon is Satan, then the woman would represent a person, not a group.

5th, the Bible begins with a story involving Adam, Eve, and Satan. It ends with a story involving Jesus (the New Adam), Mary (the new Eve), and the Dragon (Satan).
 
Della said:
The pain referred to in Revelation is not physical but spiritual. Remember what St. Simeon prophesied would happen to Our Lady? That a sword would pierce her heart? It called being a white martyr, and Mary suffered the most of any white martyr who ever lived in giving birth to Christ’s Church while he died upon the cross as the Mother of the Church and of Christ. Does that help?
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Very well put…and people say Catholics don’t know their bible:)
 
You see that as Mary because that’s what the RCC says, and in saying so it contradicts itself. The woman in Rev. 12 gave birth IN PAIN, yet the RCC teaches that Mary had a PAINLESS childbirth.
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Where does the Church say that Mary had a painless birth? I’ve never heard that.
 
cheese_sdc said:
Where does the Church say that Mary had a painless birth? I’ve never heard that.
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I forget which pope taught this, but it is based on the idea that sin brought the pains of birth upon women. From the Summa Theologica:
“In the state of innocence child-bearing would have been painless: for Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 26): ‘Just as, in giving birth, the mother would then be relieved not by groans of pain, but by the instigations of maturity…’”
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There are simply too many possibilities to rule out based on on childbirth.

God says in Genesis will increase labor pain. Implying there was already pain to begin with.

Also, it is acceptable for someone sinless to suffer from effects of the fall as long as it does not involve moral defects. Jesus dies for instance.

Scott
 
From New Advent:
After bringing forth her Son, Mary “wrapped Him up in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger” (Luke 2:7), a sign that she did not suffer from the pain and weakness of childbirth. This inference agrees with the teaching of some of the principal Fathers and theologians: St. Ambrose [56], St. Gregory of Nyssa [57], St. John Damascene [58], the author of Christus patiens [59], St. Thomas [60], etc. It was not becoming that the mother of God should be subject to the punishment pronounced in Genesis 3:16, against Eve and her sinful daughters.
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I’m not sure why, but this doesn’t sit well with me.
 
Scottgun said:
There are simply too many possibilities to rule out based on on childbirth.

God says in Genesis will increase labor pain. Implying there was already pain to begin with.

Also, it is acceptable for someone sinless to suffer from effects of the fall as long as it does not involve moral defects. Jesus dies for instance.

Scott
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I agree. I knew a gal who gave birth to her first child in only 15 minutes with hardly any pain at all, and from what I understand that’s quite unusual, especially for a first childbirth.

Am I wrong or is the idea that Mary didn’t suffer pain in childbirth merely a pious belief and not a matter of faith? I’m not sure about it, although if she didn’t I wouldn’t see any problem with it.

As a woman I wouldn’t be envious of her, but think of it as appropriate to her station. Still, if she did have pain, I can’t see that it would have anything to do with her being in a state of grace, as she certainly was.
 
The “increase pain” argument sounds most reasonable.

You may want to ask the person making the claim, where the catholic church taught that she would not feel pain in childbirth.
 
Dancelittleewok said:
A protestant said:

Does this prove that Mary is not the woman in Revalation 12:1-6?
I, of course, am with the Church on this one.
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No, it doesn’t prove it - but the imagery of a woman in childbirth is used for Israel, so it would be appropriate to the Church, interpreted as the New Israel - which is how the “great sign” has usually been taken. St. Victorinus of Pettau (Ptuj) interprets verse 1 of chapter 12 thus:​

The woman clothed with the sun, and having the moon under her feet, and wearing a crown of twelve stars upon her head, and travailing in her pains, is the ancient Church of fathers, and prophets, and saints, and apostles, which had the groans and torments of its longing until it saw that Christ, the fruit of its people according to the flesh long promised to it, had taken flesh out of the selfsame people. Moreover, being clothed with the sun intimates the hope of resurrection and the glory of the promise. And the moon intimates the fall of the bodies of the saints under the obligation of death, which never can fail. For even as life is diminished, so also it is increased. Nor is the hope of those that sleep extinguished absolutely, as some think, but they have in their darkness a light such as the moon. And the crown of twelve stars signifies the choir of fathers, according to the fleshly birth, of whom Christ was to take flesh.​

This does not mean that the “great sign” does not have some reference to the BVM - but it does not seem that the great sign is the BVM in person. After all, if the great sign is the individual person Mary, what is all this about her being given wings ? It’s easier to understand that sort of detail if the great sign is a representative image, rather than an individual person. And it would fit with the other “signs” in the book, which atre not individual persons, but representative images - and with the Great Whore of 17, who is a place or society, not an individual person, & is a parody of the Woman of chapter 12.

Whatever the identity of the Woman of chapter 12, it will be found by fitting in with all the clues - the identification of the Woman as the BVM does not manage to do this. It doesn’t explain the flood vomited by the dragon, or the angel - and if the man-child borne by the Woman is to be identified as the person of Jesus borne by Mary, how are they to be accounted for ? If the passsage is to be taken as a symbolic account of historical facts - such as that Mary bore Jesus - it can’t suddenly switch to being a symbolic account of symbolic facts, or a straightforward account of historical facts.

If the whole passage, and similar passages, (and book) is symbolic, this difficulty disappears.

As to the painless child-bearing by Mary - is this Catholic doctrine ? ##
 
6th Century Church Father Coecumenius I think hit the nail on the head. Here is his explanation.
She was with child, and she cried out in her birth-pangs, in anguish for delivery. Yet Isaiah says about her, “before the woman in labor gives birth, and before the toil of labor begins, she fled and brought forth a male child.(Is. 66:7)” Gregory also, in the 13th chapter of his interpretation of the Song of Songs talks about of the Lord “whose conception is without intercourse, and whose birth is undefiled.(Gregory of Nyssa, Homilia in Canticum Canticorum 13)” So the birth was free from pain. Therefore, if, according to such a great prophet and the teacher of the church, the Virgin has escaped the pain of childbirth, how does she here cry out in her birth-pang, in anguish for delivery? Does not this contradict what is said? Certainly not. For nothing could be contradictory in the mouth of the one and the same Spirit, who spoke through both. But in the present passage you should understand the crying out and being in anguish in the way: until the divine angel told Joseph about her, that the conception was from the Holy Spirit, the Virgin was naturally despondent, blushing before her betrothed, and thinking that he might somehow suspect that she was in labor from a furtive marriage. Her despondency and grief he called, according to the principles of metaphor, crying and anguish; and this is not surprising. For even when blessed Moses spiritually met God and was losing heart- for he saw Israel in the desert being encircled by the sea and by enemies- God said to him, “Why do you cry to me?(Ex. 14:15) So also now the vision calls the sorrowful disposition of the Virgin’s mind and heart “crying out.” Oecumenius Commentary on Revelation]
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I don’t know if the Church has ever solemnly defined (either thru the pope or an ecumenical council) that Mary had no pain during the birth of Jesus. I do know, however, that every Church father and early church writer that I have read who wrote on the subject, asserted that the birth of Jesus was painless for Mary.

As to Rev. 12 and the Woman Clothed with the Sun,
I have read in Catholic literature that this “woman” is a polyvalent symbol, which represents both Israel and the Virgin Mary.
Perhaps Mary’s pain was in knowing that her son would have much to suffer? But then again, she wasn’t told that until the Presentation in the Temple…

Jaypeeto4 (aka Jaypeeto3)
 
Cheese,

It doesn’t sit well with me either (it’s similar in my mind to saying Jesus never banged His thumb with a hammer in the carpenter shop), but I will defer to the Church on this one. If a situation comes up in my life where it will have a direct impact on what I need to do in a situation, I will consider the question further.
  • Liberian
 
Notworthy,

One problem with your response is that the Revelation passage says that the child is caught up to Heaven while the woman takes refuge in the desert. Mary and Jesus were in Egypt together.

Given the literary genre of Revelation, I would be EXTREMELY surprised if the 1,260 days were literal. Unfortunately I am trying to make the case that the woman is literally Mary, and I don’t have a good dividing line between “this is literal” and “that is symbolic.” (DanceLittleEwok and I post on another forum which shall remain nameless but which is relatively anti-Catholic.)
  • Liberian
 
Liberian said:
Notworthy,

One problem with your response is that the Revelation passage says that the child is caught up to Heaven while the woman takes refuge in the desert. Mary and Jesus were in Egypt together.

Given the literary genre of Revelation, I would be EXTREMELY surprised if the 1,260 days were literal. Unfortunately I am trying to make the case that the woman is literally Mary, and I don’t have a good dividing line between “this is literal” and “that is symbolic.” (DanceLittleEwok and I post on another forum which shall remain nameless but which is relatively anti-Catholic.)
  • Liberian
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I would agree that the 1260 days is symbolic. But I wouldn’t assume that the child being caught up to heaven while Mary flees to the wilderness is a stumbling point. John doesn’t exactly follow a linear time progression in Revelation, does he?

I mean, doesn’t the dragon get kicked out of heaven like three times. Does that mean Satan sneaks back into heaven at least twice, only to get tossed out again? Isn’t someone watching the back door?!?!?
 
Remember:

If you believe that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant, then isn’t the Woman clothed with the Sun in 12:1 Mary? After all, Chapter 11 reveals the Ark of the Covenant in Heaven, which then turns into the Woman (the Ark of the New Covenant)

If you believe that Mary is the Mother of All Christians, as indicated in the Gospel of John, doesn’t the dragon go off to wage war against all that follow Christ? Wouldn’t this Woman be Mary?

If you believe that the child who is to rule with a rod of iron is the same person referenced in Psalm #2, then isn’t this child Jesus?

If the child is Jesus, and the Dragon is Satan, then the Woman should represent a person, not a group, right?
 
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