Popped over to Lisa's blog to leave a message to the effect that I'd had a stab at answering her question, but Keir had already said:
Well, it's a question of opinion, not a dogma of faith. Theologians are still open on that question, and more importantly, so are the Catholic Bishops.I've never met Keir, but I have no particular reason to distrust him that I can think of, so I thought "If it's still an open question then 'why did my church use a bidding prayer that talked about Mary's labour pains?!'", back at the start again.
So now I have a different answer. I still think that it's reasonable to assume that Mary suffered from labour pains, but, being informed that I have no particular reason to the defend the notion (should perhaps check it out - no offence to Keir), am equally happy to suppose that she didn't. Now as to the bidding prayer...
I didn't really think up this idea so much as apprehend it rather rapidly from a cursory google search; mightn't your prayer have been allegorical? I mean that, by looking about some of the language used about Mary the Mother of the Church, it's a pretty easy transition to make to see Mary's "labour pains" in your prayer actually as the afore-mentioned sword which Simeon prophesied, piercing her soul at Jesus' passion as she [articipates in the borth of the Church.
On the other hand, if it's new-fangled literalism on your church's part, perhaps you should
