Did Mary Have Labor Pains?: Why The Miracle of Christ's Birth Is Often Underestimated

I have come to the realization that a majority of Christians underestimate just how magnificent, marvelous, and miraculous was the birth of Christ Jesus. At root, this lack of awareness comes down to the overlooking of a prophecy of Isaiah.

“Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she was delivered of a son. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things?” Is 66:7

This is no doubt a mysterious and prophetic passage from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. Alas, it is likely that you do not know what it ultimately references: The miraculous Birth of Christ Jesus. As Christmas nears, images of the Christ Child and his Mother Mary increasingly fill hearts and minds. And it is at this time of year when the souls of men seem more receptive to the great mysteries of Christ’s childhood in which his mother is inextricably linked.

St. Augustine said in in the early centuries of the Church of Mary, the Mother of God, “A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual.”

From early on the Church has proclaimed Mary “Apartheinos”, that is, Ever-Virgin: A virgin before, during, and after the birth of Christ Jesus. Note that word, “during”. Christ’s birth in the cave of Bethlehem has always been considered unique by the Church.

What you should realize is that some popular, modern Christian notions of the birth of Christ stand counter to the ancient, long-standing understanding held by Catholics and the Protestant Reformers alike, that Jesus, virginally conceived (a Truth still universally adhered to by Christians), was also virginally born. If we were to accept movies such as “The Nativity Story” at face value, we would be led to believe that Christ’s birth was like any other, born of a woman experiencing the painful labor process.

It seems we have forgotten the full glory and wonder of what the Virgin birth really was, and in turn, have a diminished comprehension of the beauty and wonderment of Christmas. Over 30 “Doctors“ of the Church, those great, saintly, human minds of the Church that have helped us to understand the Word of God since the dawn of Christianity, considered Christ’s birth unique. So did two of the primary Protestant reformers.

So what does it really mean? Truly, Mary did conceive and bear a son by the power of the Holy Spirit. But the Catholic Church, and even the early opponents, and again, even the initiators of the Protestant Reformation, all believed, as did the Early Fathers of the Church that Jesus was born as light passes through glass, causing no harm to the glass, leaving Mary’s virginity intact. Fulfilling the Isaiah 66:7 prophecy, Mary is delivered of a son before her labor pains begin. Pain first makes its entrance into the pages of the Gospels for her as Simeon prophecies that her Son will be a sign of contradiction, a sword even piercing Mary’s own soul as Luke 2:34-35 notes. Her Son’s Messiahship will cost the God-Man his life, for the salvation of souls. Mary’s labor pains will crescendo as she stands at the Foot of the Cross, watching her Son, her beloved only Son who is also her God and Savior, die for her and all mankind. She will “labor” in sorrow and joy as Christ’s spiritual brothers, whom we all are, are born through Baptism through the ages and then endure the great spiritual battle, all of us, in our bodies, minds and souls as our lives on Earth unfold. Mary’s labor pains come as she watches play out in each of us, the war between Heaven and Hell, she striving to form each of us into faithful disciples of her Son. In John 19:26-27, Christ gives the beloved disciple, and in joyful consequence, all beloved disciples down through the ages to his Mother as spiritual children, a fact seen vividly in Rev 12:17 where the Dragon goes off to make war on the rest of Mary’s children (we spiritual brothers of Christ), “…Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus…”. So, in fact, though Mary did not endure labor pains at Christ’s birth, in a mysterious way, her life since then has been one of labor pains as she strives to form us each in Christ.

Returning to Christ’s First Coming among us 2000 years ago, why do people find the reality of such a miraculous birth as His so difficult to grasp? Personally, I just don’t know. But it should not be. It is easily held by Catholics and Protestants alike that Christ’s conception and 33 years later, his death, were unprecedented, and utterly unlike that of other human beings. He was conceived without a human Father, a never before seen reality. His death was not only the most painful in all human history before or after, dying for the sins of all mankind, he also rose again from the dead to new life, a solitary exception in the drama of human life and death.

We need to ask ourselves, If Christ’s conception and death were unique, why not also his birth?

His birth was also extraordinary and exceptional. If we tend to doubt the miraculous manner in which Jesus was born, we must remember the Angel Gabriel’s words, “For with God nothing will be impossible”, Luke 1:37. Jesus was indeed born of Mary, but his birth was not exactly like ours. Mary’s labors, as we have noted, were not and are not (present tense because Mary is still laboring that we will be born to eternal life in Christ Jesus) exactly like every other mother’s. While Catholic Christianity often finds itself defending Mary’s perpetual virginity AFTER the birth of Christ, running up against those who inaccurately claim that Mary had other children after Jesus and also inaccurately that she and Joseph had relations after the birth of Christ, rarely do we hear defenses of Mary’s virginity DURING the Birth of Christ.

As Saint Gregory Nazianz in 381 A.D. said, “Believe in the Son of God….born of the Virgin Mary in an indescribable and stainless way…” And Saint Ambrose of Milan said in 392 A.D., “Mary is the gate through which Christ entered this world, when He was brought forth in the virginal birth and the manner of His birth did not break the seals of virginity.” Martin Luther said of Christ’s birth “It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a virgin…Christ, we believe, came forth from a womb left perfectly intact.” Ulrich Zwingli, another Protestant Reformer said likewise when he commented that “I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the Gospel, as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin.” To remain a virgin during child birth would mean that no violation whatsoever occurred to Mary’s physical purity. Christ’s Birth was therefore altogether a singular event in human history. As the Word made Flesh passed like a ray of blazing light into Mary at his conception, so as the same eternal blazing light did he enter the cave at Bethlehem that first Christmas, the eternal light shining in the darkness. But by all means, there was nothing ordinary about his birth. It was singularly unique.

Very early on, the Church declared that Mary’s real and perpetual virginity indeed extended even unto the act of giving birth to the Christ Child. Lumen Gentium, one of the great documents of The Second Vatican Council, declares that “Christ’s birth “did not diminish his mother’s virginal integrity, but sanctified it.”

Some of who we know as “mystics” who had visions of biblical passages and events, including of the life of Jesus and Mary, especially that of the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, a German nun, who lived the last few years of her life only on water and the Eucharist (the real presence of Christ under the appearance of bread and wine), noted seeing the birth of Christ in their visions in a manner that matched well with the mysterious, but certainly true belief that Mary’s giving birth was not in the ordinary way of things. While we know with no certainty the exactitudes of how Christ’s birth came to pass that Holy Night, we do know that just as Jesus so many times in his life transcended human realities and the typical human way of doing things like being virginally conceived, turning water into wine, walking on water, healing the blind, raising the dead, and himself being definitively raised from the dead, his birth, too, had a marvelous glory beyond what has come to be depicted in the popular imagination.

True, the beautiful particularities of Christ’s birth are not explicitly noted in the Gospels, yet neither are a great many other foundational beliefs about the Faith. It is the Church, led into all Truth by the Holy Spirit, as promised by Christ Jesus, that gives us, as the ages pass, a more and more clear and nuanced picture of the great mysteries of our Faith. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit we come to know that Christ’s birth is more, and not less marvelous in light of the fact that it too is mysterious, like his conception. Although Jesus became like unto us in all things but sin, and although he truly and surely lay in the manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, God now having a human face in the Christ Child, we must rediscover that Christ’s birth was a momentous occasion of more splendor and majesty than many have come to think. Christ’s Birth was unlike all others as he came forth from the precious tabernacle of sweet Mother Mary’s womb, and in light of that fact, the light of the stable shines brighter, that Holy Night appears even holier, that Silent Night demands even more awestruck silence from us, wrapped in contemplation of the Word made Flesh.

As Author Father Faber notes in a reflection (not equal to the Words of Sacred Scripture, but an insightful meditation) upon the Birth of Christ that demonstrates the miraculous means of His birth, Mary’s Heart, immediately prior to Christ’s Birth was intensely burning with love for her God that had become man in her womb, she was yearning to see his face… “More than ever she desires to look upon that little face, which shall express to her in its silentness those mysteries which words cannot paint, and to the conception of which busy thought can give neither hue nor form…She looked inward, with her new nine-months habit: for that was to her what upward was to all other adoring souls of men, and she trembled at the greatness of the mystery…the desire of her heart, like a shaft that cannot be recalled, had sped its way. It reached the Heart of the Babe, and at once she felt the touch of God, and was unutterably calm and Jesus lay upon the ground on the skirt of her robe, and she fell down before him to adore…It was as if the sweet will of Mary were the time-piece of the divine decrees.”

“Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she was delivered of a son. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things?” Is 66:7

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”-Jn 1:14

Merry Christmas.