Perpetual Virgin, Revamped

The next series on the Blessed Virgin has now been fully revamped: Perpetual Virgin. In addition to all the personal touches I slipped into the various chapters, it also now includes a substantial amount of new quotes from the Early Church Fathers as well as the following new concluding chapter:

--

Mary, Court of the Eternal King

"You had good reason to be horrified at the thought that another birth might issue from the same virginal womb from which Christ was born according to the flesh. For the Lord Jesus would never have chosen to be born of a virgin if He had ever judged that she would be so incontinent as to contaminate with the seed of human intercourse the birthplace of the Lord's body, that court of the Eternal King."

-Pope St. Siricius (A.D. 392, Letter to Bishop Anysius).

This response of the Sainted Pope upon hearing from one of his brother bishops of the appearance of some Antidicomarites (as St. Augustine calls them) in Anysius' diocese, expresses well the heart of the Christian who has pondered this doctrine and come to accept the Church's position. It is beyond fitting that Our Lord Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords, should not have to share His "court", the womb of His mother, with a sinful sibling. I am reminded of the Centurion's protest in the Gospel, "I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof..." (Matt 8:8). If we are not worthy that the Lord God should come into our homes, then how much more unworthy are we to enter the courts of the Holy One of Israel???
        As I learned the Catholic position, I too, little by little, began to realize the profound audacity of claiming that the Mother of God might sully both her "gate" and her womb by the touch of sinful humanity when she had been chosen by God to be His holy Ark, more holy even than the first. This may seem hypocritical to those who believe that Mary too was sinful. After all, if Mary was mired in sin like the rest of us, then our Lord's first home, "that court of the Eternal King," was already sullied by her own imperfections. But that's not what we believe. Indeed, it is one small part of the reason we attest that Mary was preserved from all stain of sin from the moment of her conception, but that's a topic for another time.
        Too often in America, our tendency regarding God is to forget the supreme reality of His holiness. We are too acquainted with the effects of His awesome mercy, which allows us to because not only servants but children and friends to Almighty God, that we almost completely forget His justice. We have become complacent and presumptuous, approaching His holy altar without the fear of the Lord. If nothing else, that is what this doctrine aught to rectify in our hearts. For the sake of our sanctification, we absolutely must remember that the Lord is holy─i.e. set apart─to the point that anyone who is not absolutely pure, devoid not only of all actual sin, but also of any and all mere attachment to sin, comes into His presence, His holiness and justice demand that He eradication that person (this, by the way, is also why we believe in Purgatory, but again that's a topic for later). In the Old Testament account of the Ark, which was also called the Ark of the Presence, returning from the Philistines, Uzzah did not sin in desiring the Ark to be safe─indeed, that desire fueled the calling of Joseph who offered his life to be protector of Mary and thus became likewise the protector of Christ─yet he was smote because He dared reach out his hand to touch the object that held the Presence of the Holy One of Israel─not even the Presence Himself, but that which held Him. And this was merely the seat of God, not the person whom His Presence fully entered! It would be the height of audacity to presume to touch such a person in a sexual manner! Indeed, that is why, while they believed that she was merely consecrated to the Lord in the normal way, the scribe and priest in the Protoevangelium were aghast at the prospect of someone having lain with her. How much more appalled would they have been to learn later that a sinful man had lain with the very Virgin to whom God had consecrated Himself in return?
        It is for this reason that the Catholic Church calls Mary "the Spouse of the Holy Spirit." Because, despite the long tradition of woman and men consecrating themselves to God in the Temple, and indeed throughout the centuries since the Incarnation, Mary was the first and last to whom the Holy Spirit in return united Himself so completely that a Divine Person, the Saviour of the World, was born of the union. As Christ Himself said, "What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (Matthew 19:6). In the end, the only question I was left with regarding this doctrine was not a question to be asked of Catholic apologists, but rather a question that I had to ask myself: if God has made Himself uniquely one flesh with this particular woman, how could I not believe that she would have remained faithful to God alone? And I respond in the words of St. John of Damascus: "Perish the thought!"