Catechism reflects that invitation: “In his mercy God has not forsaken sinful man. The punishments consequent upon sin, ‘pain in childbearing’ and toil ‘in the sweat of your brow,’ also embody remedies that limit the damaging effects of sin” (1609).
Whoa. Read that again. We have the opportunity to view the labor and sufferings we endure during birth as a unique part of God’s plan to redeem the world from sin! Our births can be a “remedy” for the world for the effects of sin. What a mind-blowing invitation!
Replicating the sacrificial love of Christ, we women offer our very bodies to the child within. We can do this in myriad ways, of course — through eating well and exercising, through the aches and pains of pregnancy, even through the unconscious continual nourishing of that tiny body through our own blood. Yet no act better replicates that type of complete and total sacrificial offering of self as the act of birth. A woman’s body becomes the vehicle, the passageway, of new life entering the world. Just as Christ offered his body on the cross to give each one of us new life, so a mother offers her body on the bed, in the pool, on the table, to give that baby new life. What looks like pain and blood and even death becomes the very avenue through which the world will be changed.
Pope Saint John Paul said just this in his Letter to Families:
The fact that a child is being born, that “a child is born into the world” (Jn 16:21) is a paschal sign…. The “hour” of Christ’s death (cf. Jn 13:1) is compared here to the “hour” of the woman in birthpangs; the birth of a new child fully reflects the victory of life over death brought about by the Lord’s Resurrection. This comparison can provide us with material for reflection. (11)
The mother’s act of birth “fully reflects” the paschal mystery of Christ. The mother in her own little paschal mystery offers herself completely, despite the pain, the fear, and the sacrifice required to give her child life. In birth, the woman has the opportunity to use her body for the glory of God. Her body becomes a sign of Christ’s love for each and every person, a sign for the world that redemption is real, and that Christ has won. Just as Christ first offered his body and blood in the Eucharist at the Last Supper, so a woman offers her body to the infant in her womb at conception and throughout pregnancy. And just as that first Eucharistic celebration culminated in the great sacrifice of the Cross, so a woman reaches that culmination of her bodily offering in the great sacrifice of birth.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen declared: “Not only a woman’s days, but her nights — not only her mind, but her body must share in the Calvary of motherhood. That is why women have a surer understanding of the doctrine of redemption than men have: they have to associate the risk of death with life in childbirth, and to understand the sacrifice of self to another through the many months preceding it.”49
It is important to note here that the language of a woman’s body still exists whether she has a natural vaginal birth, whether it is medicated, or whether she has a surgical birth. Regardless of the method, her body is still a beautiful and profound sign of the Paschal Mystery as she lays it down at the service of new life. In any kind of birth, she gives of herself completely, vulnerably, to the point of her own blood being spilled so that her child may have life. The act of birth is by its very nature paschal. We as women have the opportunity to climb our own unique Calvary and ultimately give ourselves over as Christ did, offering our complete bodies — naked, vulnerable, messy, and beautiful — to usher new life into the world.
Our unique experience of birth is our chance to enter into the story — Christ’s story. No matter how one’s birth plays out, Christ continues to be present and available. No matter what kind of birth you have, there is opportunity for grace and growth, and an offering of self. There is an opening in the story of sin and salvation and redemption for you.
Will there be pain? Most likely, yes. But as Catholics we approach pain and suffering in a very different way from the rest of the world. Through Christ, pain has the power to become something beautiful and redeeming. God has endowed our bodies with a unique feminine strength to share in this work. We see it as an opportunity to grow in union with God, to become stronger, and even to participate in the work of saving souls. And, as almost any mother can attest as she looks her baby in the eyes, it is worth it.
In finding out that you are pregnant, you are able to be freed, liberated from the tyranny of yourself in this tiny world in which you were the most important. You are free to love and give and sacrifice. And that holy grace will make you something altogether different. You will be shaken, humbled, stretched, and broken. And it will make you a mother.
— Haley Stewart, mom to three
Mary, Our Lady of Childbirth
“Mary’s maternity is the model of all motherhood.”— Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
In the Incarnation, God was born of a woman. God chose to enter humanity through the rite of birth. If nothing written thus far has convinced you that birth is beautiful and has the capacity to be holy, this truth should.
The Son of God could have chosen any way to become human. But he chose, from all eternity, to be conceived and grown in a human woman and born from her very body. In Mary, childbirth is reclaimed again for God. In her “yes” (fiat) to the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation, Mary became the new woman of Genesis, the archetype for all women. Her “yes” is the reversal of Eve’s “no.” She is the new Eve. The consequences of Eve’s disobedience can now be redeemed and made new through Mary’s obedience. Willingly and freely Mary chose to offer her body as the vehicle for God to become man and bring eternal life to the world.
What an example we have in Mary’s beautiful and bold openness to the will of God. What’s more, we have the opportunity to do the same. United with her, we can give God the offering of our very body to bring new life into the world. Mary can be the model we need to open our hearts, bodies, and souls to new life. Even those experiencing a pregnancy unexpected or less than ideal can see themselves in her, for certainly Mary’s situation was considered less than ideal on the surface! “In Mary, Eve discovers the nature of the true dignity of woman, of feminine humanity. This discovery must continually reach the heart of every woman and shape her vocation and her life.”50
While Mary probably did not experience pain during the birth of Jesus, she certainly suffered as she stood at the foot of the cross, united with her Son in his work of bringing eternal life into the world. Calvary was her labor. As his mother, her “yes” opened her up in a unique way to the pain and suffering that was necessary for humanity to be redeemed. We can look to her as we share a piece of that in our pregnancies, births, and the rest of motherhood.
There is a beautiful sculpture of Mary in the Church of Saint Augustine in Rome called Our Lady of Childbirth. Beneath the statue are hundreds of pictures, testimonies, and offerings of thanksgiving from mothers who prayed there for healthy pregnancies and births. For centuries women have begged intercession from Mary under this title for healing of infertility, for help in pregnancy, and for healthy and even happy deliveries. This devotion is a tremendous witness to the importance and beauty of a woman’s experience of birth — and heaven’s concern for it. Not only should we pray for a healthy birth, but we are invited to ask that it be a “happy” one.
As a mother herself, Our Lady surely experienced profound joy, power, intimacy with the Trinity, and perhaps even ecstasy during her own childbearing, though her outside circumstances were far less than ideal. She offers us a share of her joy. Christ gave her to us, after all, and the Church declares that “she is a mother to us in the order of grace.”51 She is our heavenly mother, a good and devoted mother who wants the best for her daughters, and we can be assured that she desires and prays for us to have healthy, holy, and truly joyful births.
