Mary The Perpetual Virgin

Often times people will ask, “Did Jesus have blood brothers and sisters?”  Our Protestant brothers and sisters believe that Jesus did have blood brothers and sisters and will usually quote today’s Gospel, “Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” (c.f. Mt. 6)  Catholics believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, i.e. she was, is, and always remained a virgin.  Protestants believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, a fundamental Truth that needs to be believed in order to be a Christian, but they go no further, believing Mary had other children with Joseph after Jesus was born.

As Catholics we believe in the procreation of the human species.  It is a natural and good desire for couples to want to have children.  However, we believe that Mary and Joseph choose the supernatural good, to live in some way in the next world already, not that they were opposed to or believed that procreation as something lesser, they simply choose another way to live out their lives.

How then does the Catholic Church explain these brothers and sisters of Jesus, as well as explaining another seemingly problematic passage where it states, “Joseph did not know Mary until after Jesus was born?”

The Church has interpreted two possibilities as to the so called brothers and sisters of Jesus.  The first is that these brothers and sisters are really cousins or extended family members, possibly even aunts and uncles.  Recall that Abraham does not refer to his nephew Lot as his nephew but as his brother or as his kin.  The word for brother was very loosely used to refer to extended family, which makes it a good possibility the Gospel authors were referring to Jesus’ brothers and sisters as extended family.  The second possibility is that these were Jesus’ step brothers and sisters.  Some believe that since Joseph was much older than Mary he may have been a widower and Mary was his second wife.  There is no clear and substantial evidence to that opinion, but it is a possibility as we find written in the apocryphal work of the Protoevangelium of James (one of the books that did not make it into our Canon of Scripture).  Some may not like this conclusion, that Joseph may not have always been a virgin, but his prior marriage, which ended through death of his wife, would have no bearing on his relationship with Mary and how the holy family lived.

Finally that last passage of Joseph not knowing Mary until after Jesus was born does not tell us that Joseph and Mary did not remain chaste or that they had other children, “Similar analysis can be used to dispel the inference drawn from Matthew 1:18, 25 that Joseph and Mary had relations after the birth of Jesus. (In these passages, reference is made to the time “before [Joseph and Mary] lived together” and to Joseph and Mary’s not having relations “until she bore a son.”) These passages merely assert that up to a definite point in time the marriage was not consummated, but does not speak to the issue of consummation after Jesus’ birth. St. Jerome cites many scriptural passages to support this thesis, including Isaiah 46:4; Matthew 28:20; 1 Corinthians 15:23-26; Psalms 122:2; Psalms 118:123; Genesis 35:4; Deuteronomy 34:5-6; Genesis 8:7; 2 Samuel 6:23.” (see for full article concerning Mary’s perpetual virginity http://www.cuf.org/faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=102) 

I pray this small lesson in apologetics helped clear the air a little and shed some light on our Blessed Mother’s Perpetual Virginity.  Mary, Queen of Virgins, Pray for us. 

Fr. John

picture from http://precioustreasures.com.au/blog/?p=53