Maternity

The Virgin with the Child (Jesus) - Sandro Botticelli - (The Madonna of the Book).

Maternity usually takes form through childbirth. Other forms of maternity are possible, through adoption, and in a spiritual manner. The Virgin Mary is the most perfect model of the mother.

In "The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me"

• The virginal maternity of Mary. Mary's type of maternity had been granted by God to Eve before her degradation.
• Pregnancies: joyful of Mary and sorrowful of Elizabeth.
• Tearing of Mary's spiritual childbirth: She says: "But, believe me, my daughter, there has never been and there never will be a childbirth torment like my childbirth as a MarTyree of a spiritual Maternity accomplished on the hardest of beds: that of my cross, at the foot of the gallows of my Son who was dying.
  
  What mother is compelled to give birth in such a way, and to mix the torment of her entrails that would tear upon hearing the cry of her Creature agonizing in the inner tearing for having to overcome the horror of having to say: 'I love you. Come to me who am your Mother' to the murderers of her Son, who was born from the most sublime love Heaven has ever seen, from the union of love of a God with a virgin, from a Kiss of Fire, from the embrace of the Light, who became Flesh and from the breast of a Woman made the Tabernacle of God?"
• All suffering soothes on Mary's breast : Elizabeth says to her: "Let me put my hands on your breast." "Oh! if in your suffering you would always ask me this!" (...) "And all pain calms and all hope blossoms and all grace flows for whoever comes to me and lays their head on my breast."                      
• Our Mother from Heaven never ceases to pray for us: "I pray for you. Remember it. The beatitude of being in Heaven, living in God's radiance, does not make me forget my children who suffer on earth. And I pray. The entire Heaven prays, for Heaven loves. Heaven is living charity. And Charity has pity for you.
  But, if it were only me, that would already be a sufficient prayer for the needs of those who hope in God, since I never cease to pray for you all: saints and depraved, to give the saints joy, to give the wicked the repentance that saves.
  'Come, come, my children of my pain. I await you at the foot of the Cross to grant you grace.'"              
• Birth of Jesus.
• Mary’s spiritual maternity.

In other sources

• In the celestial revelations of Saint Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373) .
• In the Mystical City of God by the Venerable Maria d'Agreda (1602-1665) .
• Excerpts of visions of Anne-Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) .
• Excerpts from "Mary, Gate of Heaven" by Consuelo (anonymous contemporary) .
• In the Protoevangelium of James .