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Gail Finke's avatar

While I don't agree that Mary and Joseph had an ordinary marriage, I think your proposal gets at the truth from the wrong end of the telescope and is thus a way of understanding it that is beneficial to anyone.

I grew up in a very secular household and it took me a long time to understand and accept the perpetual virginity of Mary. As I did, I came to think of it almost exactly as you wrote -- we all live in God's eternity so there's a sense that anything about us is eternal. I don't think that any more.

There's no one person or thought that made me think, "ah, I have it now!" but the one that came closest to that was a theologian (I don't remember who, Jaruslav Pelikan, maybe?) who said that by being both a virgin and a mother, Mary is uniquely herself--she doesn't belong to any man. Not to her father, not to her husband, not to her son. Not because she was a proto-feminist who hates men and no one was good enough for her, but because she belongs to God alone, and so God gave her all those things in a way no other woman has ever had them. A greater way. Sex is a good thing, but it's a thing of Earthly life that will pass away, and Mary was given MORE. She had MORE marriage and motherhood than we do. Assume Plato was right for a minute, and all women experience just slivers of the forms of "marriage," "virginity," and "motherhood." She participates in all of them at the same time, and to a greater extent. God gives her more, and gives them forever.

On a practical level, Mary bore Christ inside her for nine months and then fed him with her body for months after--it makes no sense to me to think she was the human equivalent of a lead-lined vessel impervious to the holiness of God, and just popped Him out one day and went on with her life. You're an artist, you know how artworks and buildings can give people a sense of awe and peace and holiness. I think Mary's body must have been transformed like that, but in a unique way. I don't think Joseph was just a hanger-on who followed her around like a slave because she was too holy to touch, I think she and Joseph had a marriage that was MORE than what we are granted. He had more of marriage and fatherhood than we do. Sex within marriage is a fantastic gift but it's only a shadow of what is to come, and I think they got more of what is to come.

But however we understand it, the perpetual virginity of Mary was for all intents and purposes universal East and West for most of Christian history, and so I accept it. Again, while I think your proposal is only part of the truth, that part is all true and will benefit people who come to see it that way.

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Sierra Charlie's avatar

Irish-Catholic here, which means Roman Catholic, of course. In all my time in St. Philip the Apostle School, I don’t remember being taught the perpetual virginity of Mary. I’ll admit there’s the tiniest possibility I didn’t pay full attention in theology class(es), and there’s a distinct possibility that a hungry boy, such as I was, also did not pay the strictest attention at mass each Sunday. Consequently, it was long after college that I first heard mention of it.

Well, you know, old dogs and new tricks. I still have a difficult time believing it. Joseph accepted his young wife had not been with another man. Okay, I get that. Christ’s conception was, indeed, a miracle. But I have a most difficult time believing the Lord God expected him to also go the rest of his life without “knowing” Mary.

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