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Translation
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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
Oecumenius
And it says she was pregnant, and crying out in labor pains and anguish to give birth; and Isaiah speaks about her before she begins to labor and before the pains of childbirth come, saying she escaped and gave birth to a male child (Isa. 66:7). Gregory, in the thirteenth discourse of his Commentary on the Song of Songs concerning the Lord, says that her pregnancy remains without intercourse, and her delivery is without defilement. The birth was painless. …
Western Saints
Bede
And she was in pain to deliver. Thus the Lord in the Gospel: A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world (John XVI). Explaining this to His disciples, He added: Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice (John XVI).
Alcuin of York
And being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered. This cannot refer specifically to blessed Mary, but it refers to the Church, which suffers here a certain difficulty in childbirth when it tries to give birth once again to people it had already given birth to, until, according to the apostle's saying, we all meet unto a perfect man. [Eph. 4:13]
Hippolytus of Rome
And those, "she, being with child, cries, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered," mean that the Church will not cease to bear from her heart the Word that is persecuted by the unbelieving in the world.
Translation