And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
Read Chapter 12
Bede
AD 735
delivered: So the Lord says in the Gospel, "A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow because her hour is come, but when she hath brought forth a son, she remembers the anguish no more for joy." And He Himself expounded this to His disciples, and added, "And ye now, therefore, have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice." <a
birth: The Church, in a spiritual sense, both brings forth those with whom it travails, and ceases not to travail with them when already born. As she herself says, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you."
With child, to signify that the Church, even in the time of persecutions, brought forth children to Christ. (Witham)
It likewise signifies the difficulties which obstructed the first propagation of Christianity. (Pastorini)
