The prevailing approach to motherhood in western society these days is to evade it at all costs. Motherhood is being delayed and family sizes are shrinking.
Women are led to believe and are expected to use birth control to avoid becoming pregnant. Use of contraceptives is a grave sin, as recognized by the Catholic Church. On top of there being a crisis in love, there remains little appreciation for the gift of motherhood in our culture.
The solution is the need to return to a Biblical approach to sexuality, to the family, and to parenthood—especially motherhood.
I have written an eBook called, 7 Biblical Passages Against Birth Control… And How to Use Them to Defend Life, available for free. As a bonus, I will detail here an additional Biblical passage not covered in the eBook, namely 1 Timothy 2:15.
THE BIBLE ON REDEMPTIVE MOTHERHOOD
“To the woman [God] said, ‘I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you,’” reads Genesis 3:16.
Following the Fall this was the punishment God gave Eve, and by extension to every woman, namely, pain in childbearing. Saint Paul remembers the Fall, just before he offers a remedy for the curse from the Fall:
Saint Paul writes in 1 Timothy 2:15, “Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.”
Eve disobeyed God and so was cursed with painful childbirth. Yet, God allows women to be saved through childbirth.
The Haydock Bible Commentary, a scholarly and reliable explanatory resource on the meaning of Scripture, expands on 1 Timothy 2:15. It explains that women are saved by the rearing of children into adulthood.
It says, “This is the duty of the woman; upon the faithful discharge or neglect of which she must expect her salvation, or reprobation, to hang. Thus repairing the evil which the first of all women brought upon man, by seducing him to evil, -V.”
In commentary on 1 Timothy 2:15, The Letters of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Timothy, and Titus (2nd Ed.)
APPLYING SCRIPTURE TO OUR LIVES TODAY
Consider how the inerrant Word of God elevates the gift of motherhood versus what we hear in society today. Modern society leads women to believe their bodies are inherently flawed, because they are capable of bearing children.
Today’s western culture says a woman needs to take drugs to suppress her God-given ability to bear children. This is the opposite of the Biblical understanding of true femininity and motherhood.
As we saw, the Bible says women can obtain heaven by the redemptive act of rearing and raising children. This flies in the face of the modern culture, as it elevates the dignity of female body.
Rather than exist purely to be sexually available with no consequences for men, as women on the Pill and other contraceptives are, women who approach sex being free to embrace motherhood are living in true faith of God.
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“Motherhood is the gift of God to women…
So anything that destroys God’s gift of motherhood
destroys His most precious gift to women–
the ability to love as a woman.”
~ Mother Teresa’s Letter to the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 1995
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Most every culture assigns the rearing of children primarily to the women in their society. This makes perfect sense, as women are nurturing, by their very nature. Thus, women are predisposed to motherhood, and thus are fulfilling their God-given vocation.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, in paragraphs 1652-53, and as Saint Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:25-35, not everyone has the vocation to parenthood, and so heaven is not closed to non-maternal women. But for those who are called to be a mother, by being true to that vocation, one can participate in the salvific role of mankind, in imitation of our Blessed Mother Mary.
Mary, the Perfect Mother
MARY AS THE MODEL OF REDEMPTIVE MOTHERHOOD
Mary’s being chosen as the Ark of the New Covenant allowed Christ to preserve her from all sin. The child she bore would go on to save the entire human race. Her yes as the New Eve allowed Christ, as the New Adam, to redeem us all, especially His mother. Where Adam refused to lay down his life for his wife, the New Adam sacrificed His life for the New Eve.
In short, Christ sanctified motherhood for everyone, by having she who was “full of grace” (Luke 1:28) serve as His own mother. Christ sanctified all wombs for all children, by entering Mary’s womb for nine months. She was saved by her Son. Her Son was able to save us, after being raised by Mary.
No one else will ever give birth to the Savior of the world. But each mother out there can follow Mary’s example of living out her vocation of motherhood “in faith and love and holiness, with modesty” (1 Timothy 2:15). By doing so, each mother will be sanctifying herself, her children, and thus the entire human race.
If you liked what you read here, be sure to download your own free copy of the eBook, 7 Biblical Passages Against Birth Control… And How to Use Them to Defend Life. There I include seven other Biblical passages against birth control use.
YOUR TURN
Have you ever reflected on the salvific role mothers play in God’s plan?
Do you better understand now why the Chatholic Church holds Mary in such high regard?
What are you thoughts on Saint Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 2:15?
A BIG THANK YOU, AS I WILL BE ON THE RADIO
Thank you to Dave Palmer at The Guadalupe Radio Network for allowing me to be a guest on the ‘GRN Alive’ radio show this morning, which starts at 9 am EST / 8 am CST. I will be discussing my blog and my eBook. I am so excited!
You can tune in to GRN from anywhere by clicking HERE!
