DID
MARY SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE ANCESTRAL CURSE
THAT
CAME FROM THE SIN OF ADAM AND EVE?
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AUTHOR:
BISHOP BRIAN J. KENNEDY, O.S.B.
CELTIC
ORTHODOX BENEDICTINE FATHERS
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The
majority of Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians are taught that the
Virgin Mary never experienced the pains of childbirth in the birth of Jesus and
the birth process did not affect Mary’s body. It is usually phrased Mary was a virgin
before, during and after the birth of Christ. This is the common wisdom, but is
it true?
The
Church celebrates the Feast of the Dormition of Mary, that is the day she fell asleep in the Lord; the day
she died. Mary died in Ephesus.
Mary died because she was subject to the natural consequences of the first sin
of Adam and Eve. The wages of sin
is death and it was the sin of our first parents that brought death into the
world together with estrangement from God. The death of Mary proves our Blessed
Mother was not exempt from the consequences of the ancestral curse inherited
from out first parents. Why would Mary be exempt from
sickness and the pains of childbirth and yet not exempted from death?
CHRIST
ALONE WAS EXEMPT FROM THE CONSEQUENCES OF
THE
ANCESTRAL CURSE. CHRIST IS THE
EXCEPTION, NOT MARY.
In Pope Leo’s sermon 62,2 we read: “ONLY THE SON OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN IS BORN WITHOUT TRANSGRESSION, NOT INDEED OUTSIDE THE HUMAN RACE, BUT A STRANGER TO SIN…SO THAT OF ADAM’S OFFSPRING ONE MIGHT EXIST IN WHOM THE DEVIL HAD NO SHARE” Source: Hilda Graef, Mary, a history of doctrine and devotion (London, sheed and Ward, 1965, page 117
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Christ
said He laid down His life, no man took it from Him. (John 10: 17-18) Obviously Christ – the new Adam – could
not undergo natural death as death is the wage of sin. Christ had to will to die, will to lay
down His life, as there is no other way it could happen. This is true because CHRIST
ALONE WAS NOT SUBJECT TO THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE SIN OF OUR FIRST PARENTS.
Nobody
questions Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary
but if Mary had not fallen under the consequence of the Ancestral Curse she would never have
been sick and never would have died but we know she in fact did die at
Ephesus. The pain of childbirth is
also the consequence of the Ancestral Curse.
MARY
IN TRUTH WAS AT HER CONCEPTION WHAT
WE
BECOME AT OUR BAPTISM
It
is clear from Jeremiah 1:5 that the Prophet was at his conception what we become
at our baptism and the same would be true for Mary and possibly for St. John the
Forerunner of the Christ. This does not mean any of them were conceived not
subject to the consequences of the Ancestral Curse that eventually became to be
called Original Sin. They were “baptized in the Spirit” as are we at our baptism
and Chrismation (Confirmation).
In
that our Blessed Mother was subject to the consequences of the
Ancestral
Curse she did experience not only sickness and death
but
the pains of childbirth. Her body carried the same evidence of
Childbirth
that is common to all women.
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