St. Catherine of Siena, Laguna Beach

20 hours ago

Saint Anthony's daily calendar🙏
Our greetings from the Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua.
Peace and all good❤
𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒓 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑺𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒕 𝑨𝒏𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒚. ... See MoreSee Less

St. Catherine of Siena, Laguna Beach

20 hours ago

HOW CAN MARY BE A MOTHER AND A VIRGIN AT THE SAME TIME? THIS WILL SHOCK YOU.😲🤔

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Most of our brethren from other denominations wonder, and some even laugh at us, when we say:
“Mary is a virgin, even after giving birth to Jesus.”
To them, it sounds impossible… even foolish.

“How can a woman give birth and still remain a virgin?” they ask.
But here is the truth: what is impossible for man is not only possible for God, it is the very sign of His saving plan.

✝️ Virgin Before, During, and After Birth

The Catholic Church proclaims what the earliest Christians, the Fathers, and the Scriptures affirm:

👉Before birth: Mary conceived without knowing man. She asked the angel:

“How shall this be, since I know not a man?”
And the angel replied:
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” (Luke 1:34–35)

👉During birth: The prophet Isaiah foretold:

“The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).
Matthew confirms this prophecy at Jesus’ birth (Matthew 1:22–23), showing that she is the same virgin both in conceiving and in giving birth.

👉After birth: She had no other children and remained wholly consecrated to God (CCC 499–501).

✝️ Virginity and Motherhood United

Humanly, virginity and motherhood exclude each other. That is, humanly speaking, they can't work together. It's either you are a virgin or a mother.

But in Mary, by God’s power, they meet without conflict.

This mirrors the mystery of Christ Himself:

Jesus became what He was not, fully human, without ceasing to be what He always was, fully divine.
In the same way, Mary became what she was not, a mother, without ceasing to be what she always was, a virgin.

✝️ How Can This Be?

If the Son of God could enter her womb without a man’s seed, purely by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, then He could also leave her womb without breaking what God Himself had sealed.

The prophet Ezekiel saw it in vision:

“This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut.” (Ezekiel 44:2)
The Fathers recognized in this “shut gate” the image of Mary’s womb, the divine King entered, and it remained forever closed.

The Gospels give us another image after resurrection, when the disciples were gathered in the upper room in fear:

“Jesus came and stood among them, though the doors were locked.” (John 20:19)
If the Risen Lord could pass through closed doors, He could also be born without opening the “door” of His Mother’s virginity.

✝️ Without Pain, Without Bloodshed

In Jewish law, childbirth brought ritual impurity because of pain and the shedding of blood (Leviticus 12:2–4).
But Mary’s childbirth was different:

👉She bore the Holy One of God, who came to take away our sins, not to cause impurity.
👉She gave birth without pain, because the curse of Eve (“you shall bring forth children in pain”, Genesis 3:16) did not touch the New Eve.
👉She gave birth without bloodshed, because the Son she bore came not to take blood from others, but to shed His own on the Cross.

Her painless, pure birth was a prophecy:
The day would come when this same Son would endure the crown of thorns, the nails, and the spear, taking all pain upon Himself and pouring out His blood for our salvation.

Mary’s blood was never shed in giving Him life,
because His mission was to shed His blood to give us life.

✝️ Why This Matters

Mary’s perpetual virginity is not just about her, it is about Christ.

Her womb remained sealed before, during, and after birth as a living sign:

👉Jesus is truly the Son of God.
👉Salvation is entirely God’s work, untouched by human corruption.
👉The One who entered the world in purity would save it in purity.

So, yes, Mary is both Virgin and Mother.
She bore God in her body without losing the treasure of her virginity,
just as Christ rose from the tomb leaving it sealed.

The real question is not, “How can this be?”
The real question is:

“Do you believe that nothing is impossible for God?” (Luke 1:37)

Blessed be God for giving us such a Mother,
and blessed be Mary for saying yes to the impossible.

God bless you 🫵
#catholicsonlineclass
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St. Catherine of Siena, Laguna Beach

20 hours ago

✝️THE BIBLE AS THE WORD OF GOD AND THE WORD OF MAN
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✝️ 1. The Bible Is Both Divine and Human

The Bible is a mystery of two voices united in one Word.
It is God’s Word, because it was inspired by the Holy Spirit.
But it is also man’s word, because it was written by human hands, in human languages, and within human cultures.

In other words, the Bible is God speaking through men, not men speaking about God.
God did not dictate the Scriptures word for word as one would dictate a letter.
Instead, He breathed His Spirit into the minds and hearts of chosen writers, prophets, apostles, kings, and evangelist, so that they wrote exactly what He wanted but in their own style and voice.

This is what the Church calls Inspiration.
As St. Paul wrote:

“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”
(2 Timothy 3:16)

The word “inspired” literally means “God-breathed.”
So every time you open the Bible, you are not merely reading ancient words,
you are hearing the breath of God still speaking today.

✝️ 2. The Word of God in the Words of Men

Just as Jesus Christ is both God and man, so too the Bible is both divine and human.
In Christ, God took on human flesh;
in Scripture, God took on human words.

This means the Bible is not a magical text that fell from heaven, it grew within history.
It bears the fingerprints of the human authors, their culture, expressions, and limitations, yet through it, God’s eternal truth shines perfectly.

As Vatican II beautifully teaches in Dei Verbum (The Word of God):

“The words of God, expressed in human language, have been made like human speech, just as once the Word of the eternal Father took on the weakness of human flesh.” (DV 13)

✝️ 3. Example to Help You Understand

Imagine a musician playing through different instruments, a violin, a trumpet, a flute.
Each instrument has a different sound, but the same musician breathes through all of them.
That’s how God spoke through the authors of the Bible.

Moses sounds different from David,
David from Isaiah,
Isaiah from St. Paul,
yet through them all, it is the same divine breath, the same Spirit, the same voice.

✝️ 4. So,

The Bible is the Word of God in the words of men.
God used human voices to speak His divine truth.
That is why it can reach the human heart, because it speaks our language, yet carries heaven’s message.

When you read the Bible, do not say,

“These are ancient words.”
Say,
“This is God speaking to me through human words.”

Because every time you open Scripture,
He still speaks.

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever.”— Isaiah 40:8

🙏 God bless you.
#catholicsonlineclass
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