“I would not believe the Gospel unless I were impelled thereto by the authority of the Catholic Church” (St. Augustine, Contra Epistulum Fundament, 5). The Catholic Church, which is the pillar and bulwark of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), discerned during her early years which of the writings that Tradition had passed down from Apostolic times were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Catholic Church, as the true servant of the Word of God, by the authority entrusted to her by Jesus Christ, established the Canon of Sacred Scripture (which books are in the Bible—cf. Councils of Hippo (393) & Carthage III (397)). It is impossible to deny the teaching authority of the Catholic Church without also undermining the authority of Sacred Scripture. The Bible is the gift of the Catholic Church to the world. 

Thus, when it comes to the interpretation of passages of Sacred Scripture a logical blunder is made if one does not look to the authority of the Catholic Church on which the very formation of the Bible is dependent. Let us turn our attention to one particular passage in the context of considering the perpetual virginity of Mary. We look to Luke 1:31-34. The angel greets Mary with high praise and says to her: “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” Mary was at the time betrothed to Joseph, and giving birth would naturally follow in the life of the ordinary married Jewish couple. However, Mary gives the enigmatic response, “How shall this be since I do not know man?” 

Sacred Scripture always says a lot in a few words. Let us examine this passage to see what can be drawn from it. If Mary had any intention of consummating her union with Joseph, she would have never asked the question. It only becomes intelligible if we assume that she was inalterably resolved never to have such relations. Her question was not prompted by incredulity, for she did not ask for a proof of the angel’s words, nor is she charged with disbelief and punished as Zachary was in similar circumstances. As a matter of fact, she is praised by Elizabeth for her faith (Lk. 1:45). Her question did not spring from curiosity or doubt but from a legitimate desire to know what measures she must adopt to attain the realization of the angelic promise, since the use of the natural means of procreation were impossible to her. 

Lk. 1:34 points toward the gloriously singular nature of Mary’s motherhood precisely because it is virginal (cf. St. Bernard, Sermo 4, de Assumptione, n. 5). Mary’s Virginity before the birth of her Son highlights the divinity of Jesus in that His conception came about in an entirely supernatural way. Jesus was conceived “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). It is naturally impossible for a virgin to conceive and give birth; therefore Jesus must have come from on high. 

Furthermore, the significance of Mary’s virginity is seen when we consider that the second Person of the Trinity is eternally begotten of the Father in a virginal way. The Son’s eternal generation from the Father is “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” It is therefore fitting that the human birth of the second Person of the Trinity should take place in a virginal way. 

The significance of Mary’s virginity during birth is understood when we ponder the whole incarnational and sacramental economy: in Jesus, God who is Spirit, is united with our human flesh. There is no dualism between matter and spirit in Catholicism; rather, the physical manifests the spiritual. Jesus as a visible human being manifests the invisible God. In continuity with this sacramental logic, Mary’s virginity during child birth, through the miraculous passage of the baby Jesus through the womb of Mary, without violating her integrity [which is parallel to His passage from the tomb through the stone without breaking the sealed grave], manifests the virginity of her heart which was given to God alone. 

The significance of Mary’s virginity after the birth of Jesus is seen when we look at the strong rabbinic tradition that Moses, after his first contact with God, refrained from knowing his wife. This first appears in Philo and is later taken up by the rabbis. Therefore, if Moses with only an external contact with God observed virginity, what of Our Lady who was filled with the divine presence at the conception of Jesus, and carried divinity Himself within her for nine months? 

The rather commonplace and often repeated objections that Jesus had brothers and sisters or that St. Mark and the New Testament Epistles knew nothing of the virginal conception are answered succintly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In regard to passages such as Mk 3:31-35; 6:3; 1 Cor. 9:5; Gal. 1:19, which speak of brothers of Jesus, the Catechism teaches, “The Church has always understood these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin Mary. In fact James and Joseph, ‘brothers of Jesus,’ are the sons of another Mary, a disciple of Christ, whom St. Matthew significantly calls “the other Mary” (Mt. 13:55; 28:1; cf. Mt. 27:56). They are close relations of Jesus, according to an Old Testament expression. A thorough examination of the biblical usage of the Hebrew word ah (brother) and the Greek word adelphos (brother) is found on pages 245-250, volume 2, of Juniper Carol’s masterful work, Mariology. See the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 498 in reference to the silence of St. Mark and St. Paul on the virginal conception. 

Another superficial objection to Mary’s perpetual virginty stems from the misuse of Matthew 1:25: “[Joseph] took his wife, but knew her not until (heos) she had borne a son.” To know one’s wife is the Jewish idiom which means to have conjugal relations. This simple statement of St. Matthew, which has the clear intent to stress the virginal conception of Christ, by no means justifies the conclusion that St. Joseph “knew her” after Christ’s birth, any more than the statement in 2 Sam. 6:23: “No son was born to Michal, the daughter of Saul, until (heos in the Septuagint) her dying day” implies that Michal had a son after her death. If one says Mt. 1:25 necessarily indicates that Mary did not remain a virgin, then one must also admit that 1 Corinthians 15:25, which says that Christ “must reign until (heos) He has put all enemies under his feet,” indicates that Jesus ceased to reign after his enemies had been put under his feet—which is in stark contradiction to Luke 1:33 “and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever.” 

Objections to Mary’s Perpetual Virginity, before, during and after the birth of Jesus, are not new. Bonosos and Helvidius objected to Mary’s Virginity, but were aptly corrected by the Church. The official teaching of the Church was expressed clearly at the Lateran Council in October of 649 when it was decreed, “If anyone does not in accord with the Holy Fathers acknowledge the holy and ever virgin and immaculate Mary was really and truly the Mother of God, inasmuch as she, in the fullness of time, and without seed, conceived by the Holy Spirit, God in the Word Himself, who before all time was born of God the Father, and without loss of integrity brought Him forth, and after His birth preserved her virginity inviolate, let him be condemned.” (DS 503).

St. Augustine says, “The nobility of the Child was in the virginity which brought Him forth, and the nobility of the parent was in the Divinity of the Child.” Let us not falsify the Word of God but rather proclaim Mary’s Perpetual Virginity, which points to the divinity of her Son.