join human nature to himself, in order to link to himself as undefiled head an
SERMON 191 43 arose, virginal integrity should vanish. It's like the instance after his resurrec¬ tion, when they thought he was a spirit, not a body: Feel, he said, and see; because a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you can see that I have (Lk 24:38). And yet that hefty body of a young man had introduced itself to where the disciples were, without any doors being opened. So why could not the one, who could enter through closed doors when he was a big man, also come out as a tiny child through undamaged parts of the body?
But the incredulous are unwilling to believe either the one or the other. That's why faith prefers to believe both; because unbelief does not believe either. This, of course, is the unbelief which cannot see any divinity in Christ. So then, if faith can believe that God was bom in the flesh, it does not doubt that each of these things was possible for God; to present an adult body to those inside a house without its entrance being unbarred; and for the infant bridegroom to come forth from his chamber,3 that is from the virgin's womb, without damage to his mother's virginity.
The Church is virgin and mother
3. It was there, you see, that the only-begotten Son of God was pleased to join human nature to himself, in order to link to himself as undefiled head an undefiled Church; a Church which the apostle Paul calls a virgin, contemplating not only those in it who are virgins also in the body, but craving4 the uncorrupted minds of all its members. For 1 have betrothed you, he says, to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor 11:2). So the Church imitates the
Lord's mother—not in the bodily sense, which it could not do—but in mind it is both mother and virgin. In no way, then, did Christ deprive his mother of her virginity by being bom, seeing that he made his Church into a virgin by redeem¬ ing her from fornication with demons.5
It is from the Church's uncorrupted virginity that you holy virgins have been begotten. Setting at nought earthly marriages, you have chosen to be virgins also in the flesh, and you rejoice in solemnly celebrating today the one whom the virgin bore. He indeed was bom of a woman, without being begotten by a man of a woman. Since he brought you the gift you would cherish, he certainly did not deprive his mother of this gift that you do cherish. As he heals in you the hurt you have derived from Eve, perish the thought that he should spoil what you have valued in Mary.
What you marvel at in the flesh of Mary,
perform in the depths of your soul
4. She, therefore, in whose footsteps you are following, not only conceived without staying with a man, but also gave birth while still staying a virgin. Imitate her as far as you can; not in her fruitfulness, because you cannot do this and preserve your virginity. She alone was able to have both the gifts, of which you have chosen to have one; because you would lose this one, if you wished