Mary Page News

February 09, 2001

Mary Page News items give insight into our interest areas, our outreach, and the myriad ways people honor Our Lady. We welcome your input and your comments.

Features Spring 2001 course schedule New Exhibit: The Scheufelen Collection Pope John Paul II Message for World Day of the Sick 2001 Mary in the Secular Press Additions to the Mary Page web site

Items Revisited News Archive

Features

Spring 2001 course schedule

The International Marian Research Institute is offering several seminar courses this semester with the first scheduled to start on Feb. 26, 2001. For more details click into 'Academic Program' from the far left of our home page. The course schedule for Summer 2001 may also be seen there. For additional information, please write or call Rev. Johann G. Roten, S.M., Director at the International Marian Research Institute/Marian Library, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio 45469-1390, (937) 229-4214 or (937) 229-4258 (FAX).

We are also preparing a series of courses to grant credit through distance learning. The first course in the on-line series will be "Mary and the New Testament" with Fr. Bertrand Buby, SM as moderator. It will cover the same material as on-site course MRI611. The on-line course will also award 3 quarter hours credit and will be billed at the same rate as the on-site course. The course will be taught using Lotus Learning Space and will be accessed through the Internet. Applicants are required to use a Windows-based PC with Internet access and email capability. The course will begin on March 5, 2001 and will conclude on April 27, 2001. Weekly readings and assignments may be done anytime, but attendance at an interactive discussion forum will be required each week. These sessions will be held Tuesdays from 7:30-8:30 PM EDT (i.e. 3/6; 3/13; 3/20; 3/27; 4/3; 4/10; 4/17; and 4/24).

For additional information, please write or call Rev. Johann G. Roten, S.M., Director at the International Marian Research Institute/Marian Library, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio 45469-1390, (937) 229-4214 or (937) 229-4258 (FAX).

New Exhibit: The Scheufelen Collection

A closing event of U.D.'s Sesquicentennial Celebration will be an exhibit of religious art prints on loan from the collection of Ulrich Scheufelen, chairman of the European Art Paper Association. The exhibit is entitled From Barlach to Baselitz: Religious Print Art of the 20th Century. 75 pieces of signed print art from some of the world's most noted 20th-century artists will be on display Feb. 22-April 30 at the Roesch and Marian Library galleries and the Law School [all on the University of Dayton campus].

Dr. Sheufelen and Br. Raymond Fitz will host the opening reception at 7 PM on Thursday, February 22, at the Roesch Library gallery, which will be followed by a lecture on the art of Marc Chagall and Georges Rouault by Fr.Johann G. Roten.

The exhibit and lecture series is sponsored by the Roesch and Marian Libraries and by Mr. and Mrs. Burnell and Karen Roberts. During March and April, a series of lectures will be presented on the following topics in relation to the works on exhibit:

March 8 Giving Body to Inspiration: Printing Techniques and Expression by Professor Raymond L. Must from Wright State University

March 22 Giving Form to Feeling: Early 20th Century German Expressionism, an Overview by Dr. Carol A. Nathanson from Wright State University

April 5 Giving Context to Art: Expressionism and German Culture by Dr. Robert C. Conard from the University of Dayton

April 19 Balance of an Exhibit: Panel on Art and Christianity in 20th Century Expressionism with Dr. Roger J. Crum, M. Dominique Vasseur, Dr. Eugene B. Cantelupe, Rev. Joseph W. Goetz, Dr. Judith Huacuja-Pearson and Rev. Johann G. Roten.

Pope John Paul II Message for World Day of the Sick 2001

A message addressing the communities that help the sick. Also contains thoughts on medical advancement, the spread of the Gospel word through health centers and ends with a prayer to Mary for the sick.

Mary in the Secular Press

Commentary on Mary in various news articles from January 17 through February 7, 2001.

The director and editors of Mary Page under the auspices of the International Marian Research Institute do not necessarily endorse or agree with the events and ideas expressed in this feature. Our sole purpose is to report on items about Mary gleaned from a myriad of papers representing the secular press.

• A shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary and marking the popular overthrow of a dictator more than a decade ago was again the focal point for people power as half a million Filipinos celebrated the imminent fall of Philippine President Joseph Estrada, Agence France Presse said in two releases issued January 19. In an eastern Manila suburb, a four-night-old protest vigil around the shrine shifted into a party mood after the army and police swung over to the protestors' side. The shrine is a memorial to the popular overthrow of dictator Ferdinand Marcos 15 years ago.

• Philippines Business World reported on February 2 that in this Magnificat Year, writer-book author Visitacion "Chit" dela Torre has organized a Marian pilgrimage tour. Highlights of the 19-day tour include a audience with the Pope, a tour of the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel, and visits to well-known Marian sites such as Fatima in Portugal, Lourdes in France, St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome, and Notre Dame Cathedral and the Miraculous Medal chapel of St. Catherine Laboure in Paris.

• In December Knoxville's Hispanic Catholics gather at Sacred Heart Cathedral for a traditional Mexican observance of the feast day honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe. The feast honoring the Patroness of the Americas is a relatively new addition to East Tennessee's cultural calendar, the Knoxville News-Sentinel said on January 28. Hispanics make up the fastest growing immigrant group in the region, bringing local history full circle. The first European to set foot in the region was Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto, who ventured into the Tennessee Valley in 1540, just nine years after Juan Diego reported seeing the Virgin Mary in Tenochtitlan.

• Artist Steve Heilmer sees the Virgin Mary in the flowing milk and jagged rock of his sculpture, but also the sacrifices he made - his marriage, life savings and even his health - to create it, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote on January 18. Heilmer, of Greenville, began the project four years ago when Seattle University selected him to create a statue of Mary for its new contemporary Chapel of St. Ignatius. He expects to ship the 2,300 pound sculpture to Seattle in the next few weeks. Father Jerry Cobb, chapel project manager at Seattle University, said the sculpture is a vision of Mary for the new millennium.

• St. Paul's Episcopal Church recently dedicated a triptych depicting Our Lady of Walsingham, an image inspired by the seal of an ancient shrine in Norfolk, England, the Washington Post said on January 20. Norfolk is the traditional site of an 11th-century apparition of Mary. The five-foot-tall three-panel painting was created in 14th-century Italianate style by Davis d'Ambly, an ecclesiastical artist from Philadelphia.

• The January 21 Travel Letter of The London Independent, responding to a query about voodoo festivals in Haiti in July, states that the festivals tend to coincide with, and are named after, Catholic feast days. Sant d'Eau or Vyej Marak, Virgin Mary, occurs on July 16 at the village of Vile-Bonheur, 30 miles from Port au Prince. Pilgrims bathe in a sacred waterfall and visit a church built where the Virgin is said to have appeared in a palm tree in 1884. As Catholicism and voodoo blend, Haitians hold their passports up to a statue of the Virgin Mary, praying that she will intercede with a US visa.

• Wayne Weible, expert on the apparitions and events in Medjugoje, was to lead a discussion on the message the Virgin Mary has bestowed on the world on January 23 at St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church in Jensen Beach, Florida's Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News said on January 20.

• After Judy Liska found a 17-inch block of ice in the form of the Virgin Mary standing next to her house in Kiski, she put it in her freezer, taking it out periodically to show reporters and other visitors. After three weeks it lacked some of the visual wallop it first had, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on January 21. Liska found the ice sculpture after dreaming that her cat was outside and couldn't come in from the cold.

• The London Sunday Telegraph researched other recent manifestations after two lumberjacks in Equatorial Guinea found a three foot-long human footprint on a tree, said to be one of a number of mysterious signs announcing Christ's imminent Second Coming. On January 28 the newspaper reported that tears were seen to cross the face of a statue of the Virgin Mary in Uruguay on December 8, Immaculate Conception Day, and that an apparition of the Virgin Mary has been appearing regularly above the Orthodox Coptic Monastery of St. Mark on a hill outside Asyut in Upper Egypt.

• A New York Times article about the "possibility of a promotion for the Virgin Mary" prompted the Allentown Morning Call to ask three local Catholic priests for their input on Franciscan University Professor Mark Miravalle's belief that Pope John Paul II will proclaim the Virgin Mary a co-redeemer with Jesus in the redemption of mankind. The priests doubt the pope will make such a pronouncement, the Call wrote on January 22. The U.California-San Diego Guardian on January 25 discussed the controversy, saying Marian scholar Father Rene Laurentin's statement, "There is no mediation or co-redemption except in Christ," summed up the opinions of the majority of Christians on the matter. The writer concluded that "The Pope...should not and will not make a statement that is unnecessary and will cause widespread division in the Christian world."

• The Peruvians have hit upon a low-tech but still smart wheeze to tidy up the filthy streets of Lima, by painting images of Christ and the Virgin Mary on walls lining some of the capital's filthiest thoroughfares, the London Independent wrote on January 21. Officials say the pilot projects are a huge success: God-fearing citizens think twice about tossing aside any rotten food or broken bottles in front of the Virgin Mary.

• The Virgin Mary was featured or mentioned in artistic productions:

  The underlying theme of "Revelations, " performed by the Hilliard Ensemble in Salt Lake City January 16, was the foretelling of the birth of Christ, with emphasis on odes to the Virgin Mary, "the rose of such virtue." The four English vocalists sang contemporary as well as Medieval and Renaissance motets, the Salt Lake Tribute said on January 18.

  The Palestrina Choir performed Palestrina's rarely heard Mass based on the chant, "Regina Coeli," one of a number of medieval melodies devoted to the Virgin Mary, at a free noontime concert at the Church of the Epiphany on January 16. The Washington Post the following day said the group's approach to the Mass underscored all the appealing traits of Palestrina's multi-voiced soundscapes and preserved the transparent textures central to Renaissance expression.

  A Peruvian viceroy's mistress donates his carriage to the church and claims the Virgin Mary told her to do so, in "Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement," Lord Berner's only opera, a classical CD reviewed in the London Sunday Telegraph on January 28. There are few arias in what is essentially a conversation-piece, its best feature being the orchestration, the reviewer said.

  A lot of saints are mentioned in "The Amati Girls," including the Blessed Virgin Mary herself, but the movie should be praying to St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes, according to a review in the Bergen County, NJ on January 20. The movie is about a large Italian-American family in Philadelphia.

  "Worship of the Virgin Mary did not arise out of the blue: it was built upon an already deep mythology," philosopher and embryology expert Mary Warnock said in an article on motherhood in The London Guardian writer on January 25. Motherhood is somehow sacred, she states, but she questions why having children has become the Holy Grail of modern womanhood.

  In a letter to the editor of the London Daily Telegraph, published on February 3, the writer states: "Throughout his campaigns, Lord Wavell believed he was fighting against the powers of darkness, and his spirit was sustained by a painting of the Virgin Mary with child. 'For all that loveliness, that warmth, that light/Blessed Madonna, I go back to fight,' he wrote. Had he lived to see women in the front line, he wold have said that the darkness had prevailed and he had fought for nothing."

• The following was reported by L'Osservatore Romano on January 17:

  "The Mother of Christ is now repeating to us, the men and women who confidently face the new millennium, her invitation to the servants during the wedding at Cana: 'Do whatever he tells you' (John 2:5)," the Holy Father said before praying the Angelus on January 14. With these words, he said, Mary wants to encourage us not "to be afraid of the limitations and failures that can sometimes mark our experience as individuals, as families and as ecclesial and civil communities."

  The Holy Father called on the "Blessed Virgin, filled with the Holy Spirit and a pilgrim in faith," to help Legionaires of Christ and members of the Regnum Christi movement when he met with them on January 4.

  To 60,000 pilgrims from Italy and many other countries who had gathered in St. Peter's Square for the last audience of the Jubilee year on December 30, the Pope expressed the wish that the grace of the Holy Year would encourage Christians everywhere "to make Jesus our Saviour better known and loved. He is our true hope! He is the world's true wealth!" During his address he called on the Virgin Mary, who, informed of her cousin Elizabeth's needs, went with haste to her, to be a model and support for all. He asked that Mary, "whom we contemplate togther with Joseph beside the cradle of God's Son, to support your work in the service of life."

  The media must never forget the moral dimension of the communications field, the Holy Father said to the directors and staff of Italian Radio and Televison (RAI), when he met with them during their Jubilee on November 27. "May Mary, star of Evangelization, help you to be faithful to your mission, and may St. Clare of Assisi, your protectress, intercede for you," he prayed.

Our Mary Page web site is updated frequently. Please stop in again and see what's new. We've added answers to seven new questions submitted by our readers. Just click into "Your Questions" from our home page. The most recent postings are listed at the top. We've also added several foreign-language links to our instructions on praying the Rosary. To see these, go to FAQ from the home page and choose question #7. Also, we've posted reviews to several texts about the Virgin Mary: "Guadalupe, Mother of the New Creation" by Virgil Elizondo; "Mary is for Everyone: Essays on Mary and Ecumenism"; "The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty" by John Saward; "The Virgin Mary in Recent Ecumenical Dialogues" by Jared Wick;"Ex Abundantia Cordis: a Study of the Cordimarian Spirituality of the Claretian Missionaries" by Jose Hernandez Martinez; "Mary's Flowers: Gardens, Legends , Meditations" by Vincenzina Krymow; "Mary and the Fathers of the Church" by Luigi Gambero; and "Lourdes, Body and Spirit in the Secular Age" by Ruth Harris. To find these reviews, select "Resources" from our home page and go to the Marian Book Reviews subsection. Titles are indexed by author's last name [or at the top under 'no author'].

Prayer Corner Requests

You are invited to help us pray for our prayer corner intentions.

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