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To: RnMomof7; Mrs. Don-o
"Do you also believe she had a painless childbirth?"

I have never given it much thought, and since Scripture is silent and there is no Church doctrine on it I am free to believe or disbelieve as my reason and faith lead me. However, reasonable person, viewing miraculous events that happened 2,000 years ago, would certainly weigh the witness of those much closer in time and in degrees of separation. And if I can believe that there was a virgin birth I have no reason to doubt the possibility or dismiss it outright out of a disdain for those who believe it.

Peace be with you

162 posted on 12/12/2012 2:00:22 PM PST by Natural Law (Jesus did not leave us a Bible, He left us a Church.)
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To: Natural Law; RnMomof7
I'm with you: Some speculative sorts think Jesus came forth as light goes through glass, but who knows how? And there is no explicit doctrine of painless childbirth.

There is an explicit doctrine of Mary's ever-virginity.

This derives its moral significance from the fact that Mary was chaste, and its Christological significance from the fact that she was made pregnant by God and not a man. However it has a third significance: freedom from the rupturing membranes, bleeding and pain indicates freedom from "corruption" in the purely physical sense of deterioration: the tendency toward tearing and strife and pain which accompanies procreation for the female, and is akin to death.

If Christ is reversing the curse of Eve, it makes theological sense that Mary's becoming pregnant and giving birth would be occasions of unalloyed bliss and not of bleeding: the integral opposite of "[tearing] pleasures with rough strife/ Through the iron gates of life."

163 posted on 12/12/2012 3:05:08 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o ("He Whom the whole world cannot contain, was enclosed within thy womb, O Virgin, and became Man.")
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