The non-Virgin Mary
Isn't. That's right, she isn't a virgin.
Have you ever been in a labor and delivery room? If you haven't, check it out on the Discovery Health Channel. This will be a newsflash to some of my conservative friends, but no baby gets born with a hymen still intact. I have heard there are occasional exceptions, but those stories are anecdotal. Certainly, Jesus' brothers and sisters knocked that hymen out if he missed. That's right, Pope, it says brothers, not cousins.
What's more, that hymen wasn't even there when Jesus came out because Joseph took care of it at the conception.
Calm down, get a glass of water, and I will wait.
How can I say that? I say that because babies need two things to get born. Sperm and an egg. Back in biblical days, before in vitro fertilization, they needed a penis and a uterus together, in the same room, to have a baby. Miracles may happen, but when they do happen they do not represent disruption of the laws of nature. For more on this, see the first blog. What's more, God is Spirit and so is the Holy Spirit (it's right there in her name, "Holy Spirit") and so neither of them has genitals. Despite all the very disturbing debates about this over the ages, there ain't no Holy Penis except Joseph's.
But how can Jesus be God's Son if there isn't a Holy Penis? The same way that you and I are children of God: through the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit and by opening himself radically to love and grace and compassion. If you think a Holy Penis is stronger than those things, we need to talk about your preoccupation with Divine Genitalia.
Mary isn't and wasn't a physical virgin because Jesus, to be fully human, had to (1) be born of a man and a woman, (2) needed a mother who was a human mother, not some sexless vision of a sick, patriarchal society in which women were desired sexually by men but then blamed for the man's desire once the act was over. He didn't need "divine blood lines" to be divine. That notion comes from a pre-scientific, Jewish lens that had great value attached to the first born male that we post modern people couldn't care less about.
Do you really want Mary to be a life long celibate and to be used to oppress women as she has? Can you even begin to relate to a woman who supposedly loves her husband but loves God more and so "saves herself for God"? Can you fathom why Joseph would have even married such a nut case? How emasculated would he had to have been? Do you really want the disgusting, allegedly celibate, sexual cripples that are the historic Roman Catholic Magisterium to define what is and isn't appropriate sexual behavior for a woman, especially given the legend of clerical celibacy that insists that those same individuals have never seen a grown woman naked (except, perhaps, their housekeeper)? Do you really think that you are going to get away with telling me that my wife, whom I love more intensely than you can imagine, is somehow less a human being because we have a truly intimate, adult relationship that has a sexual component? What about your mother? Was she a whore because she had sex with your Father? Would she have been better off "consecrating her virginity to God?"
Let's be honest for a change. Mary's alleged virginity was the stuff of legend in biblical times - legends that were told to signify that a birth was important. Kings were born of virgins, emperors were born of virgins - the list goes on and on. What's more, the birth narratives were the last things added to the Gospels and only appear in two of them.
Let's instead recognize Mary as a model for REAL women. The Bible tells us that Mary, concerned that Jesus had gone around the bend, showed up at a home seeking to take him home before he got himself in trouble. That's real parental instinct, something a real mother would do. Mary stood at the foot of the cross, weeping as her son died, and he commended her to the care of St. John. That's something a real, loving son would do for his real, loving mother. She changed his diapers, he ate from her breast.
And some people are really sick enough to believe that a hymen has anything to do with any of it. Do I seem angry? Damn straight I am. I am angry for 2000 years of the persecution of women through the imposition of this "ideal" of womanhood that has been foisted upon people in the Name of God by an institutional church that has committed perhaps its greatest sin in doing so. I mourn for all women who have been adversely affected by this nonsense, who have felt guilt about being a sexual being because of Church teachings such as Mary's virginity that are life denying. It simply has to stop, and the only was it is going to stop is for both men and women to reject it for the abusive nonsense it is.
Who will stand up with me?
Have you ever been in a labor and delivery room? If you haven't, check it out on the Discovery Health Channel. This will be a newsflash to some of my conservative friends, but no baby gets born with a hymen still intact. I have heard there are occasional exceptions, but those stories are anecdotal. Certainly, Jesus' brothers and sisters knocked that hymen out if he missed. That's right, Pope, it says brothers, not cousins.
What's more, that hymen wasn't even there when Jesus came out because Joseph took care of it at the conception.
Calm down, get a glass of water, and I will wait.
How can I say that? I say that because babies need two things to get born. Sperm and an egg. Back in biblical days, before in vitro fertilization, they needed a penis and a uterus together, in the same room, to have a baby. Miracles may happen, but when they do happen they do not represent disruption of the laws of nature. For more on this, see the first blog. What's more, God is Spirit and so is the Holy Spirit (it's right there in her name, "Holy Spirit") and so neither of them has genitals. Despite all the very disturbing debates about this over the ages, there ain't no Holy Penis except Joseph's.
But how can Jesus be God's Son if there isn't a Holy Penis? The same way that you and I are children of God: through the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit and by opening himself radically to love and grace and compassion. If you think a Holy Penis is stronger than those things, we need to talk about your preoccupation with Divine Genitalia.
Mary isn't and wasn't a physical virgin because Jesus, to be fully human, had to (1) be born of a man and a woman, (2) needed a mother who was a human mother, not some sexless vision of a sick, patriarchal society in which women were desired sexually by men but then blamed for the man's desire once the act was over. He didn't need "divine blood lines" to be divine. That notion comes from a pre-scientific, Jewish lens that had great value attached to the first born male that we post modern people couldn't care less about.
Do you really want Mary to be a life long celibate and to be used to oppress women as she has? Can you even begin to relate to a woman who supposedly loves her husband but loves God more and so "saves herself for God"? Can you fathom why Joseph would have even married such a nut case? How emasculated would he had to have been? Do you really want the disgusting, allegedly celibate, sexual cripples that are the historic Roman Catholic Magisterium to define what is and isn't appropriate sexual behavior for a woman, especially given the legend of clerical celibacy that insists that those same individuals have never seen a grown woman naked (except, perhaps, their housekeeper)? Do you really think that you are going to get away with telling me that my wife, whom I love more intensely than you can imagine, is somehow less a human being because we have a truly intimate, adult relationship that has a sexual component? What about your mother? Was she a whore because she had sex with your Father? Would she have been better off "consecrating her virginity to God?"
Let's be honest for a change. Mary's alleged virginity was the stuff of legend in biblical times - legends that were told to signify that a birth was important. Kings were born of virgins, emperors were born of virgins - the list goes on and on. What's more, the birth narratives were the last things added to the Gospels and only appear in two of them.
Let's instead recognize Mary as a model for REAL women. The Bible tells us that Mary, concerned that Jesus had gone around the bend, showed up at a home seeking to take him home before he got himself in trouble. That's real parental instinct, something a real mother would do. Mary stood at the foot of the cross, weeping as her son died, and he commended her to the care of St. John. That's something a real, loving son would do for his real, loving mother. She changed his diapers, he ate from her breast.
And some people are really sick enough to believe that a hymen has anything to do with any of it. Do I seem angry? Damn straight I am. I am angry for 2000 years of the persecution of women through the imposition of this "ideal" of womanhood that has been foisted upon people in the Name of God by an institutional church that has committed perhaps its greatest sin in doing so. I mourn for all women who have been adversely affected by this nonsense, who have felt guilt about being a sexual being because of Church teachings such as Mary's virginity that are life denying. It simply has to stop, and the only was it is going to stop is for both men and women to reject it for the abusive nonsense it is.
Who will stand up with me?
