Vera Lex,
First, thank you for responding.
Given the command that married couples are not
to withhold themselves from each other except
at certain times, which are to be limited,
is no argument from silence.
Unfortunately, the passage you quote in Luke
does not state she remained a virgin - only
that she was at the time.
Please do not take that as a criticism of your
belief, just my attempt to explore this issue
from the Scriptures. Nor is it a denial of
Tradition. I’m just asking.
And I appreciate your response.
Best,
ampu
Marriage was instituted by God as means of sanctifying the majority of the human race so that by mutual self-giving the parties to the marriage learn through self-sacrifice to grow in love and therefore in holiness.
It is possible however for two people, who have decided to remain in a state of virginity, to marry. Such marriages are sometimes called ‘white marriages’ and providing neither partner demands their ‘marriage rights’ there will be no ‘withholding’ involved.
Our Lady and Saint Joseph followed this latter path. Their vocation was to raise the Son of God at their breast and in their own home. For them the path of holiness was to make God the very real centre of both their spiritual and earthly life. They could not have done this had they engaged in carnal relations for the giving of each to the other would have meant taking part of their attention and love away from God the Son who was physically there with them even from before their marriage.
Consider this question: Why would it be wrong for a married couple to exercise the marriage debt in an empty church building? It would be wrong not because there is anything wrong with such relations between a married couple (quite the contrary) but because the Church building being the house of God is a place where God is to come first not other human beings. His presence demands out complete attention. Behaviour, which in the marital bed would be good and holy, would thus become a sign of selfishness and a rejection of God if performed in a Church.
In the Catholic (and Orthodox) Church we believe God is truly present in the tabernacle. Similarly, Saint Joseph’s house was itself, in a sense, a most sacred tabernacle within which God the Son truly resided; a place of perpetual worship and adoration.
Responding to your observation about the scriptural passage from Saint Luke: we are told that Our Lady was already espoused to Saint Joseph when the angel Gabriel appeared to her. The normal reaction one would expect from someone who is about to be married to the news (even from an angel!) that IN THE FUTURE they are to have a child is a presumption that the child would be the fruit of the forthcoming marriage.
This was not the BVM’s reaction however. When she is told that she is to have a child she instead expressed complete confusion as to how this could possibly be. “How is this to be done?” she asks (future tense), not “how has this come about?”.
The following part of her response “because I know not man” is therefore not the equivalent of saying “because I have not yet known a man” for it is clear that she has known a man since she is not married.
Her confusion regards the future not the present. Her statement “I know not man” is an expression of the state of life that she has adopted for all time - her consecrated state of virginity. Her question is: “How can this come about since I have consecrated myself to God as a virgin?”
As a final consideration, St Paul in 1 Corinthians explains that the state of virginity is above the married state. How could we possibly imagine the Holy Family not adopting any but the most perfect state of life which Sacred Scripture commends to us all?