Marie de Nazareth
To Jesus, through Mary
A reader wrote to me recently, "More and more often I hear deeply shocking opinions. Even in Christian circles some people say that Mary was a virgin only before Jesus' birth, and that Jesus had siblings afterwards..." Yes, it is shocking, because Mary's virginity is a dogma which we reaffirm each Sunday when reciting the Creed: "He was ... born of the Virgin Mary" (The Apostles' Creed); "He was born of the Virgin Mary and became man" (Nicene Creed).
The Three Stars of Mary's Triple Virginity
The evening hymn for the seasons of Advent and Christmas, the "Alma Redemptoris Mater", is a contemplation of this mystery: "Virgo prius ac posterius", that is, "Virgin before and after the Nativity." To which we must add Mary's virginity "in partu", that is during the very night of Christmas. The God Child, conceived without deflowering, is born also without hurting his Mother's integrity. The three stars seen on icons, on Mary's forehead and shoulders, are there to give honor to that triple virginity as well as to underline it.
On that subject, I find the parallel between the two mysteries of the Incarnation (God's entrance into our world and our flesh, at the Annunciation) and of the Ascension (His departure from this visible world) quite illuminating.
In both cases it isn't about the arrival or the departure of an extra-terrestrial being, like an object from some distant galaxy that would be returning to outer space. On the contrary, the "body" of the Word is formed under the heart of the Virgin, from within. He doesn't enter inside her by force, by human choice or natural generation (1). In the same manner at Easter, before sunrise, the body of the Crucified One passes into Glory, but without tearing or displacing the sheets which enveloped him. Again, there is no infraction. No more than on the evening of Easter day, in the room where the Eleven had taken refuge: the doors of the place where they had gathered being closed, Jesus came (2). This could explain His words to Mary Magdalene, "Do not touch me." He is indeed present, but no longer in a material sense like any object we perceive with our senses. Inversely, at the moment of His human conception, the Word pre-exists as a divine Person, but not on a human level as "something" of this earth. His conception is an absolute beginning. And this novelty also accompanies the miraculous circumstances of His birth.
A Tearless Passing from One World to the Other...
Another parallel can be helpful (3), this time on Mary's side as the ever-virgin Mother. In the mystery of her Assumption, we see what death would have been like in God's original plan, if sin hadn't upset the harmony of creation: the end of Mary's earthly life is a tearless "passing" from this world to the next, from earth to Heaven, a completion. Accordingly, she experiences giving birth without a tear, where the bodies of the mother and that of the child separate with total gentleness and harmony, themselves outward signs of the integrity of their beings and hearts. By giving birth to the Son of God and by becoming His father, Mary and Joseph, respectively, have received from God the highest kind of fecundity that ever existed in this world.
Aside from this unique case, the fecundity of a human couple logically implies a large family, at least more than one, since no single child can exhaust or fulfil his parent's capacity to love. Mary and Joseph were engaged in the extraordinary adventure of a divine fecundity, and one really can't see what the procreation of another child who would be "really theirs" could add to their happiness, to the salvation of the world, and to the Glory of God. Instead one can easily see how this pernicious idea too often reduces the Gospel to level the stories told in cheap novels.
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(1) John 1:12. From as early as the Ancient Times, the manuscripts and commentaries of this verse from John's Prologue give both a spiritual and general sense (the birth of Christians through faith) and a literal and personal sense (virginal birth of the Christ).
(2) John 20:19.
(3) This paragraph stems from a personal reflection from the author.