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To: annalex
Death and labor pain are consequences of the sin of Adam, but not of our actual sins.

Swing your partner round and round ... toss her in a corner upsidedown.

You are seriously dancing around the issue. If Mary was sinless, she wouldnt have been cursed in childbirth. To say she was suffering in some kind of mystical or esoteric way strains any resemblance of cogent hermeneutic.

47 posted on 09/08/2010 9:31:37 PM PDT by dartuser ("Palin 2012 ... nothing else will do.")
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To: dartuser
If Mary was sinless, she wouldnt have been cursed in childbirth

Who said she was "cursed"? Your reference is to this:

[14] And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. [15] I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she [correct tranlation is "he"] shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.

[16] To the woman also he said: I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband's power, and he shall have dominion over thee. [17] And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. [18] Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. [19] In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return. [20] And Adam called the name of his wife Eve: because she was the mother of all the living.

(Gen 3)

Note a couple of things. Mankind or even Adam and Eve are not cursed. The Serpent is cursed, and the earth which Adam toils is cursed. Secondly, alongside the prophecy of suffering there is a mini-gospel in verse 15: the seed of the woman, that is the Christ born of Mary, will defeat the Serpent. So much rather than being cursed, Mary is blessed in Genesis 3.

The Catholic teaching of Original sin is explained by St. Paul in this passage:

[12] Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned. [13] For until the law sin was in the world; but sin was not imputed, when the law was not. [14] But death reigned from Adam unto Moses, even over them also who have not sinned after the similitude of the transgression of Adam, who is a figure of him who was to come. [15] But not as the offence, so also the gift. For if by the offence of one, many died; much more the grace of God, and the gift, by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.

(Romans 5)

Observe that original sin is not the same as actual sin that a person may or may not commit. Verse 14 does not refer to labor pain but to death as a figure of all suffering, and explains that they come even to those who did not commit an actual sin.

To say she was suffering in some kind of mystical or esoteric way strains any resemblance of cogent hermeneutic

It is one possible explanation, that the exagerrated birth pangs in Rev. 12 are a reference to what St. Paul once described as groans in the expectation of the salvation: "we also, who are in this tabernacle, do groan, being burthened; because we would not be unclothed, but clothed upon, that that which is mortal may be swallowed up by life" (2 Corinthians 5:4). It is, after all, a very poetic book. There is nothing uncogent about making notice of that. However, -- I already emntioned it to you but it does not seem to register: Mary certainly suffered in a tangible way. Her suffering was prophesied by Holy Simeon in Luke 2:35; it is referred to directly in Luke 2:48 and it can be surmised that Our Lady surrefered great anguish at the foot of the Cross. Suffering, either mental or physical, is not a consequence of personal sin. As I mentioned earlier to a Catholic Christian suffering is a blessing which brings about our sanctity. Most saints are martyrs; they suffered, and not for their sins but for the sins of others. There is no contradiction whatsoever in Mary suffering and being sinless. The only contradiction is between the Holy Scripture and the Protestant heresy of "total depravity of man".

59 posted on 09/09/2010 5:54:00 AM PDT by annalex
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