Virginity of Mary

The Church has four Marian Dogmas, namely, Divine Motherhood of Mary, Perpetual Virginity, Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. Last week, I dealt with the dogma of Divine Motherhood of Mary, in which I posited that Mary is the Mother of God and Mary is the God-Bearer. This week let us try to apprehend what the Church says about Perpetual Virginity of Mary.

The annunciation of Mary inaugurates “the fullness of time”, the time of the fulfilment of God’s promises and preparations. The time for the Word made Flesh, the time for the Godhead to enter into human reality. Mary was chosen to conceive that Word made Flesh who would dwell ‘bodily.’ Mother Mary responds to the call of God by her question, ‘How can this be, since I know not man?’ At this moment Mary was given the privilege of the Holy Spirit to conceive the ‘Emmanuel’, ‘the Holy Spirit will come upon you’ (Luke 1: 34-35). The Holy Spirit, ‘the given of life’, is sent to sanctify the womb of the Virgin Mary and divinely fecundate it, causing her to conceive the eternal Son of the Father in a humanity drawn from her own.

What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illuminates in turn its faith in Christ (CCC 487). God, from all eternity chose Mary as the mother of His Son who is a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David (Luke 1:26-27). The virginity of Mary goes back even before the annunciation. She also is immaculate, which means, free of any stain of sin.

The expression perpetual virginity, ever virgin, or simply Mary the Virgin refers primarily to the conception and birth of Jesus. The Council of Lateran posits that Mary conceived ‘without any detriment to her virginity, which remained inviolate even after his birth’ (649). The Catholic Church holds that Mary was and is Virgin before, in and after Christ’s birth. The Vatican Council II reiterated the teaching about Mary, the Ever-Virgin, by stating that Christ’s birth did not diminish Mary’s virginal integrity but sanctified it.

I would like to encourage us to focus our attention to the choice that God made for His Son to be born in the world. He chose Mary, who is considered powerless and weak because God is faithful to His promises. Mary stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently hopes for and receives salvation from him. If Mary is humble and poor, we are also called to be humble and poor in our own ways. We are called to follow Mary, as the model of the Church; hence, we will be called to be virgin or chaste in our lives. Mary remained faithful to the Lord by remaining virgin. Let us also encourage each other to remain faithful to the Lord and His body, the Church by embracing a chaste life; remaining faithful to spouses, children and family. We also shall ask our Lady to give us that sensus Christi in our sesus fidei.