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Why Care About the Perpetual Virginity of Mary?
By Joe Heschmeyer
shamelesspopery.com/why-care-about-the-perpetual-virginity-of-mary/
Why wouldn’t the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph have an ordinary sexual relationship?
Because as highly exalted as marriage and marital sex are, there’s an even higher good of virginity. Jesus Christ says as much in Matthew 19:10-12, after presenting the Christian teaching on the indissolubility of marriage:
The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.” But he said to them, “Not all men can receive this precept, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.”
So some people are given the grace to live celibately for the sake of the Kingdom of God, and the one is able to, should. The obvious question at this point should be, does that include the Virgin Mary? Or is Christ calling His celibate followers to a higher state of life than the one to which He called the Mother of God?
St. Paul likewise presents virginity as an even higher good than marriage: “he who marries his betrothed does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better.” And one of the reasons that he gives is that the celibate is able to focus fully on the Lord, without the worldly troubles that naturally result from family life (1 Corinthians 7:27-28, 32-34):
Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek marriage. But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a girl marries she does not sin. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. …] I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband.
But how does this apply to the Virgin Mary? After all, she was undoubtedly married. From the time of the the earliest Christians forward, it was understood that she lived both of these seemingly-contradictory things. How? By having a single Son who is God. So her focus on her family didn’t distract her from the things of the Lord because her family was literally centered around the Lord Himself. It’s this that makes the Holy Family unique: Joseph and Mary are married for the exact same reason that religious celibates remain unmarried – to give their attention fully and completely to God.
But it’s the Book of Revelation that presents one of the clearest reasons for why Mary was perpetually a Virgin. It’s Revelation 14:1-5, in which St. John reports this vision of the 144,000:
Then I looked, and lo, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder; the voice I heard was like the sound of harpers playing on their harps, and they sing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand who had been redeemed from the earth. It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are chaste; it is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes; these have been redeemed from mankind as first fruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are spotless.
At first blush, this sounds anti-sex and anti-woman. It’s not. The point of the passage is that these are the celibates who have been set aside entirely for God. They are purely and completely dedicated to Him. The word “holy” properly means “consecrated” or “dedicated or devoted to the service of God, the church, or religion.” It’s a thing given to God entirely. And the Jews recognized from the start that it was wrong to take a holy thing and use it for ordinary purposes.
Take the Ark of the Covenant, for example. The Glory of God overshadowed the Ark, and it was where God would visit His people in a unique way. It was therefore too holy to be touched (2 Samuel 6:6-7), much less used as a bookshelf. In saying that, we’re not saying anything against bookshelves. They’re perfectly good. But we are recognizing that there’s a higher good at play, and that mingling the sacred and profane (in the literal sense of “unholy, not consecrated”). So it is with the Virgin Mary. St. Luke in particular presents her as the Ark of the New Covenant. If the old Ark was too holy even to touch, how much more was the new Ark, Mary, bodily consecrated to God?
Returning to the 144,000, they are virgins because they’re consecrated to God. But their exterior, bodily consecration to God – their exterior holiness – was itself a sign of a more important, interior consecration. They were externally “undefiled” as a symbol of the fact that they were spiritually “spotless.” So it is with the Virgin Mary.
(cont.)
Why Care About the Perpetual Virginity of Mary?
By Joe Heschmeyer
shamelesspopery.com/why-care-about-the-perpetual-virginity-of-mary/
Why wouldn’t the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph have an ordinary sexual relationship?
Because as highly exalted as marriage and marital sex are, there’s an even higher good of virginity. Jesus Christ says as much in Matthew 19:10-12, after presenting the Christian teaching on the indissolubility of marriage:
The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.” But he said to them, “Not all men can receive this precept, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.”
So some people are given the grace to live celibately for the sake of the Kingdom of God, and the one is able to, should. The obvious question at this point should be, does that include the Virgin Mary? Or is Christ calling His celibate followers to a higher state of life than the one to which He called the Mother of God?
St. Paul likewise presents virginity as an even higher good than marriage: “he who marries his betrothed does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better.” And one of the reasons that he gives is that the celibate is able to focus fully on the Lord, without the worldly troubles that naturally result from family life (1 Corinthians 7:27-28, 32-34):
Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek marriage. But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a girl marries she does not sin. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. …] I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband.
But how does this apply to the Virgin Mary? After all, she was undoubtedly married. From the time of the the earliest Christians forward, it was understood that she lived both of these seemingly-contradictory things. How? By having a single Son who is God. So her focus on her family didn’t distract her from the things of the Lord because her family was literally centered around the Lord Himself. It’s this that makes the Holy Family unique: Joseph and Mary are married for the exact same reason that religious celibates remain unmarried – to give their attention fully and completely to God.
But it’s the Book of Revelation that presents one of the clearest reasons for why Mary was perpetually a Virgin. It’s Revelation 14:1-5, in which St. John reports this vision of the 144,000:
Then I looked, and lo, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder; the voice I heard was like the sound of harpers playing on their harps, and they sing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand who had been redeemed from the earth. It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are chaste; it is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes; these have been redeemed from mankind as first fruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are spotless.
At first blush, this sounds anti-sex and anti-woman. It’s not. The point of the passage is that these are the celibates who have been set aside entirely for God. They are purely and completely dedicated to Him. The word “holy” properly means “consecrated” or “dedicated or devoted to the service of God, the church, or religion.” It’s a thing given to God entirely. And the Jews recognized from the start that it was wrong to take a holy thing and use it for ordinary purposes.
Take the Ark of the Covenant, for example. The Glory of God overshadowed the Ark, and it was where God would visit His people in a unique way. It was therefore too holy to be touched (2 Samuel 6:6-7), much less used as a bookshelf. In saying that, we’re not saying anything against bookshelves. They’re perfectly good. But we are recognizing that there’s a higher good at play, and that mingling the sacred and profane (in the literal sense of “unholy, not consecrated”). So it is with the Virgin Mary. St. Luke in particular presents her as the Ark of the New Covenant. If the old Ark was too holy even to touch, how much more was the new Ark, Mary, bodily consecrated to God?
Returning to the 144,000, they are virgins because they’re consecrated to God. But their exterior, bodily consecration to God – their exterior holiness – was itself a sign of a more important, interior consecration. They were externally “undefiled” as a symbol of the fact that they were spiritually “spotless.” So it is with the Virgin Mary.
(cont.)