Mary Page News

April 20, 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.

• The Liturgical Season with Mary
• News from the ML/IMRI
• News from Around the World
• Marian Events
• New Resources
• Documents, Pronouncements (Magisterial, doctrinal)
• Mary in the Secular Press
• Prayer Corner
• Marian Themes in Magisterial Documents
• News Archive
  

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News from the ML/IMRI

Personal thoughts and reflections about Mary from our readers 

We've added a section to our Research and Publications section showing selected personal comments from our readers about the Virgin Mary.  Click here to see comments received within the past month.  From this page, feel free to submit your own personal thoughts on Mary.  

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Last chance to see the Scheufelen Collection on exhibit

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 until April 30 at the Roesch and Marian Library galleries and the Law School [all on the University of Dayton campus]. More information on the exhibit may be found under Current Exhibit in the Gallery section of the Mary Page.

Open Every Day:
Monday thru Wednesday and Friday, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Thursday, 8:30 a.m. - 10 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday, noon to 6 p.m.
Tours available Saturdays at 2:30 p.m. or by special arrangement (937) 229-4214

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The Mariological Society of America's 52nd Annual Program        

May 30-June 2, 2001
        University of Dayton
        Dayton, Ohio

WEDNESDAY, May 30, 2001

4:00 p.m.

    Board of Trustees Meeting

7:30 p.m.

    Mary of Nazareth: From Icon to Woman"--Premiere Showing 
            (Holy Cross Family Ministries, Family Theater Production)

    Panel Discussion
            Moderators:    Fr. Sam Maranto, C.Ss.R. and Fr. John Phalen, C.S.C.

 THURSDAY, May 31, 2001

7:15 a.m.

    Eucharist

9:00 a.m. 

    Opening Registration

9:15 a.m.

    Biblical Perspectives on Marian Mediation
        Fr. Francois Rossier, S.M.
        Moderator:    Fr. Thomas A. Thompson, S.M.

10:15 a.m.

    Conceiving the Word:
    Patristic and Early Medieval Sources for Franciscan Discussion of Mary's Active Motherhood
        Mr. James Bell
        Moderator:    Fr. James McCurry, O.F.M. Conv.

    Forming Her Only-begotten Sons by Adoption: The Marian Spirituality of Bl. Guerric of Igny (+1157)
        Deyanira Flores, S.T.D.
        Moderator:    Bro. John Samaha, S.M.

3:15 p.m.

    Theotokos as Mediatrix in Eastern Church Hymns
        Virginia Kimball
        Moderator:    Sr. Jean Frisk

FRIDAY, June 1, 2001

9:15 a.m.

    The Marian Spirituality of the Medieval Religious Orders
        Fr. Eamon R. Carroll, O.Carm. - The Carmelites
        Fr. Conrad Borntrager, O.S.M. - The Servites
        Fr. James McCurry, O.F.M. Conv. - The Franciscans
        Fr. Denis Vincent Wiseman, O.P. - The Dominicans
                Moderator:    Fr. Sam Maranto, C.Ss.R.

1:30 p.m.

    Patristic Intuitions of Mary's Role as Mediatrix and Advocate: The Invocation of the Faithful for Her Help
        Fr. Luigi Gambero, S.M.
        Moderator:    Fr. Louis Bonacci, S.J.

3:00 p.m.

    Business Meeting – Elections

3:30 p.m.

    Reports on Dissertations - Works in Progress

5:00 p.m.

    Eucharist
    Reception    Banquet (reservations necessary)
    Dinner 

 SATURDAY, June 2, 2001

7:15 a.m.

    Eucharist

9:00 a.m.

    How Can Spirituality Be Marian?
    Fr. Johannes G. Roten, S.M.
    Moderator:    Fr. Myles Murphy

10:30 a.m.

Attendance is open to all.  You need not be a member to register.  For more information, contact the MSA Secretariat at (937) 229-4294 (If no answer, leave message on Voice Mail).

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 Marian Events

This section which lists all of the current Marian Events by geographical position.

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Mary in the Secular Press

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.

Commentary on Mary in various news articles from April 12 through April 16, 2001.

• Amid Spain’s Holy Week ceremonies, it was reported that the Black Virgin of Montserrat, one of the nation’s most revered religious icons and the foremost symbol of Catalan nationalism, was originally white, the London Daily Telegraph said on April 13. Renovators working for the government said the black hands and face of La Moreneta, a statue of the Virgin Mary in the monastery of Montserrat, 30 miles north of Barcelona, had undergone a change in color, transformed either due to prolonged exposure to candle smoke or a chemical reaction caused by a varnish used as a pain sealant. The statue was repainted black by successive generations of restorers. A series of tests, including X-rays, revealed the statue’s original color and also showed that the last repainting took place at the turn of the18th century. Over the years, the theory that the statue was not black had been aired several times and the new report appeared not to surprise Montserrat’s Benedictine community. Father Josep Maria Foses said: "In Montserrat we have assumed for some time that the statue is not black."

• Mother of God Catholic Church in Conyers, Georgia’s only Byzantine-Ukrainian Rite church, was spotlighted in the Religion Faith and Values section of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution on April 14. The church is located near the farm of Nancy Fowler, site of Fowler’s apparitions of the Virgin Mary that attracted tens of thousands of pilgrims to Conyers. The profile was "a look at one of the many places in metro Atlanta where people regularly gather to pray and seek spiritual fulfillment."

• Hundreds of pilgrims congregated at a Nigerian air force base over the Easter weekend after a warrant officer’s wife claimed that the Virgin Mary had appeared to her while she was in the lavatory, the London Times said on April 17. Christiana Ejembi said she first saw the vision at 5 a.m. Thursday morning in the window of her private lavatory and the Virgin Mary had reappeared every day at about 7 p.m., delivering messages on topics including entreaties to housewives to have faith in God and advice on crowd control.

• Marc Semplice, a 25-year-old laborer in Pittsburgh’s Public Works Department, first noticed the two-foot-high illuminated figure of the Virgin Mary on a closet door as he tapped at an electric keyboard on the third floor of his family’s home the Tuesday before Easter. After a night in which the faithful and the curious had tromped through his home, Marc said, "I wish the Catholic Church would at least send someone to take a look at this, so we could know if it’s true." His mother, Lynn, said, "I don’t know what it is. It’s a peaceful thing. I know that. A lot of people feel very peaceful when they leave. Some people are crying." Reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette April14.

• The Diocese of Pittsburgh has a skeptical but hands-off attitude toward the reports that the Virgin Mary appears at night on a closet door in the Semplice home and doesn’t investigate "unless the media brings so much attention to it that we’re forced to," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote on April 16. quoting a spokesman for the diocese.

• Members of a Columbian family arriving from Spain arrested by Columbian customs agents who found $1 million in cash stuffed into their baggage claimed that the money suddenly fell into their hands after an apparition of the Virgin Mary, Reuters reported, according to an Airline Industry Information bulletin on April 13.
  

•  A medieval wall painting depicting the martyrdom of St. Thomas a Becket, uncovered in a Gloucester church, includes a representation of the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus, the London Times said on April 16. The discovery was made by a wall-painting conservator brought in as part of an extensive conservation program at St. John the Baptist Church, Cirencester, one of England’s most important late medieval churches. The wall paintings survived because they were whitewashed over with limewash during the Reformation. The painting is 40 feet above floor level and dates from about 1500.
  

•  Eunice Kennedy Shriver and her son, Bobby, talked about their collaboration in producing "Mary, Mother of Jesus," for Gannet News Service on April 12. The TV movie, made for NBC, was rerun on Easter Sunday.

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News from Around the World

From L’Osservatore Romano March 28 & April 4

• The good seed of Christ’s Gospel has been planted in the rich soil of Japan and pastoral planning must meet the needs of Catholic immigrants, Pope John Paul II told the Bishops of Japan, making their ad limina visit to Rome, on March 31. The Pope entrusted the bishop’s priests, religious and all Christ’s faithful in Japan to Mary, "Mother of the New Creation and Mother of Asia."

• On the occasion of the 750^th anniversary of the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the Pope sent a Message to Fr. Joseph Chalmers, Prior General of the Carmelites, and Fr. Camil Maccise, Superior General of Discalced Carmelites, in which he spoke of the important role of devotion to Mary in Carmelite spirituality and expressed the hope that "this Marian year will help all the men and women religious of Carmel and the devout faithful who venerate her with filial affection to grow in her love and to radiate to the world the presence of this Woman of silence and prayer, invoked as Mother of Mercy, Mother of Hope and Grace." The Holy Father’s Message was dated March 25.

• Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe, NM, has protested the "the trashing of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe" in a photo collage that depicts her dressed in a bikini made of roses and held up by a bare-breasted angel, Catholic News Service wrote on March 30. The digital photo image, titled "Our Lady," was created by 33-year-old California artist Alma Lopez and is part of an exhibit, "Cyber Arte: Where Tradition Meets Technology," that recently opened at Santa Fe’s state-funded Museum of International Folk Art. Archbishop Sheehan said he finds it "offensive that the Catholic symbol of Guadalupe has been so disrespectfully treated" and urged the museum’s Board of Regents "to see that the offensive image is removed and that those responsible for this unfortunate decision to display it apologize."

• The Holy Father invoked the constant protection of the Virgin Mary, Mother of Unity, on participants in the 25^th conference of Bishops who are friends of the Focolare Movement in a letter written February 14.

• "Lent is an important season that invites us to forgive and be reconciled. It is a difficult task, which also concerns relationships within the family," the Holy Father said on March 4 during the Mass he celebrated at St. Andrew the Apostle Parish in Rome. "May the Virgin Mary, faithful disciple of the Lord, help us to understand the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection; may she help us to confess with our lips that Jesus is our Lord, and to believe in our hearts that he has conquered death, opening the gates of the kingdom to all humanity," the Pope said.
  

• As the Pope reflected on the feast of the Annunciation during the Angelus on March 25, he expressed the hope that humanity would "experience a new springtime of life, with respect and acceptance for every human being, in whose face shines the image of Christ." He recalled presiding in the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth last year on this date and kneeling "in the humble grotto where Mary heard the angel’s words and said her ‘fiat’, making herself totally docile to God’s will."

• On March 23 the Holy Father presided at a Liturgy of the Word at the new Pontifical Korean College in Rome to celebrate its inauguration. He praised the witness to the faith given by Korean Catholics and asked "Korea’s patron saints, especially St. Andrew Kim Taegon, to watch over all who live here." He asked the Immaculate Virgin, Mother of the Redeemer and Star of Evangelization, to give them her special protection.
  

•  Feminine holiness is indispensable, the Pope said in his Message of March 7, sent to the president of the General Assembly of the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations. He entrusted all of them to the protection of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer.
  

•  On February 15 the Holy Father met with the Commissioner, officials and officers of the Italian State Police, whom he thanked for their efforts and sacrifice during the Jubilee Year. He entrusted them to the loving intercession of Blessed Mary and St. Michael the Archangel, their special patron.
  

•  On February 24 the Pope visited the Roman Major Seminary, as he does each year for the feast of their patroness, Our Lady of Trust. He reflected on a former student of the Roman Seminary, "the Servant of God Bruno Marchesini, who died dreaming of the priesthood when he was only 23," and on his sincere devotion to the Blessed Virgin. "May she whom you learn to call upon as Our Lady of Trust, a title so dear to Bl. John XXIII who also passed through your seminary, be your hope and comfort," the Pope said.
  

• Mary, pilgrim in faith, star of the new millennium, was the subject of the Holy Father’s catechesis at the General Audience on March 21. The Pope said, "This symbol of the pilgrimage in faith sheds light on the interior history of Mary, the believer par excellence, as the Second Vatican Council already suggested: "The blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son onto the cross." He said the Blessed Virgin Mary continues to "go before" the People of God and "guides all who turn to her to the encounter with God the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit."
  

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New Resources

We've added the answers to three new questions submitted by readers. 

• Who is "Our Lady of the Rock"?
• Who wrote the Angelus prayer?
• Who is "Our Lady of Tears"?

Another fresh aspect of the Mary Page is our Recap of Lenten Meditations using Grieshaber's Polish Way of the Cross.

We have also added works from two new Artists to our Gallery section, He Qi and Fr. Antonio Larocca.

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Documents, Pronouncements (Magisterial, doctrinal)

This section contains full-text official documents from the Catholic Church on matters related to the Virgin Mary and other points of Catholic Doctrine. This week's selection is "Mense Maio: On the Occasion of the First of May", a message from Paul VI on 4/30/1965.

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Marian Themes in Magisterial Documents

This section contains an index to Marian references within various official documents from the Catholic Church. As the recent Paschal Triduum  recalled the initiation of human redemption, this week's topic is Mary and Jesus Christ: First/Fully Redeemed of Her Son.

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News Archive

This section contains excerpts from past editions of the Mary Page news.

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Our Mary Page web site is updated frequently. Please stop in again and see what's new. 

Prayer Corner Requests

You are invited to help us pray for our Prayer Corner intentions.  Please take a look!  This site has been updated and enhanced and now allows users to directly submit prayer requests or to volunteer as a prayer partner for these intentions!

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