Major Exhibit Coming Next Year

The University of Dayton will be among the few venues permitted to exhibit a collection of multicultural, multi-century art devoted to Mary, the Mother of God, outside its permanent home in the Vatican.  

"The Mother of God: Art Celebrates Mary," a collection of 38 pieces spanning the early 4th century through the late 20th century, will arrive at UD in September 2003, for a two-month exhibit in the Roesch Library first-floor gallery and the seventh-floor Marian Library gallery.

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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CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, SEPT. 15, 2002 (Zenit.org)

Here is a translation of the address John Paul II delivered at midday today, before he prayed the Angelus with pilgrims gathered at the papal summer residence.

* * *

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

1. The feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, which we celebrated yesterday, is followed today by the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows. Two liturgical celebrations that invite us to undertake a spiritual pilgrimage to Calvary. They encourage us to unite ourselves to the Virgin Mary in contemplating the mystery of the cross.

Christianity has its principal symbol in the cross. Wherever the Gospel has put down roots, the cross is there to indicate the presence of Christians. In churches and homes, in hospitals and schools, in cemeteries -- the cross has become the sign par excellence of a culture that draws truth and liberty, trust and hope from the message of Christ.

In the process of secularization, which characterizes a great part of the contemporary world, it is all the more important that believers fix their gaze on this central sign of Revelation and gather its original and authentic meaning.

2. Also today, in keeping with the teachings of the early Fathers, the Church presents the cross to the world as "the tree of life," from which one can gather the ultimate and full meaning of every single existence and of the whole of human history.

Since Jesus made it the instrument of salvation, the cross is no longer synonymous with a curse but, on the contrary, with a blessing. For man, tormented by doubt and sin, it reveals that "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life" (John 3:16). In a word, the cross is the supreme symbol of love.

Because of this, Christian young people carry it with pride through the streets of the world, entrusting to Christ all their worries and all their expectations of liberty, justice and peace.

[John Paul II then greeted pilgrims in French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and Italian. The Pope spoke the following words in English:]

3. Trusting in the loving care of Our Lady of Sorrows, whose feast we are celebrating today, I commend the English-speaking visitors and pilgrims to her maternal intercession. Upon all of you I invoke abundant divine blessings.

[At the end, speaking again in Italian, the Pontiff concluded his address with this message:]

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.  

Mary in the secular news from August 13 through August 25

Inside the guard box near the Brandenburg Gate is a Pieta statue of the Virgin Mary cradling Jesus, by the East German sculptress Kathe Kollwitz. Since the Second World War this guard box has been an anti-war symbol, and on August 25, with anti-war sentiment growing, Germany took the unusual step of celebrating its military past by restoring two statues of Prussian generals, which originally stood outside the guard box, to the center of Berlin, The London Times said on August 26. The statues of Generals Bulow and Scharnhorst, which contain special anti-graffiti chemicals, were placed in a nearby garden where they are under continual police guard.

The re-establishment of the French school and the Farmers’ Bank in Rustico are but two signs of the perseverance of the Acadian people there, signs that Island Acadians are intent on preserving their history and culture, the Charlottetown Guardian said on August 19. That’s the purpose behind National Acadian Day, celebrated on August 15^th each year in Canada, a day when Acadians recognize the accomplishments they have made. Because Acadians are so religious, in 1884 they chose the date August 15 to celebrate their heritage because it fell on the same day as their Lady of Assumption Day, which honors the blessed Virgin Mary.

One of the oldest paintings in Hamilton, Ontario, is an image of the Holy Family attributed to Pieter Coecke van Aelst, born 500 years ago, the Hamilton Spectator said on August 17. Painted around 1530, the oil painting depicts the Christ Child, his mother the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph accompanied by an angel. It is the central panel of a triptych, and the two side panels, by an unknown artist, depict the Annunciation to Mary and the Rest on the Flight into Egypt. The triptych is on display as part of a small exhibition at the McMaster Museum of Art, which owns the work.

An anti-dairy campaign that is causing quite an uproar across North America centers around a billboard put up by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The ad displays the Virgin Mary breast-feeding Jesus, saying "If it was good enough for Jesus..." CANADA AM on August 16 interviewed Bruce Friedrich about PETA’s intent.

A singing day entitled Ave, Virgo, Renaissance Music for the Virgin Mary, is to be held at Stoke Climsland church on September 21, the Western Morning News (Plymouth).said on August 23. The day is sponsored by the South West Early Music Forum, part of a nationwide association to promote and further the interests of early music for singers and instrumentalists.

"Jesus’s house in England is a popular place to visit" headlines a story in the Irish News Limited August 22. It tells of the Virgin Mary’s appearance to a widow named Richeldis who lived near the village of Walsingham, of Mary taking her in vision to the Holy Land to show her the Holy Family’s house, and the building of a "little Nazareth" in England for people who could not go to the Holy Land.

Wales on Sunday on August 18 interviewed comedian Johnny Vegas, who is filming his first movie, The Virgin of Liverpool, which tells of a young girl’s fight to save a statue of the Virgin Mary when it is thrown out of her church. The Liverpool Daily Post & Echo told of the movie on August 13.

A folder containing a business-sized condolence card mimicking that which would be given to a bereaved family is among the funeral cards and death threats received by Columbian Independent MP Gustavo Montealegre Almario since his arrival in Australia, AAP Newsfeed said on August 16. "It’s all very well organized and nicely done with images of the virgin (Mary) and all this religious stuff," the MP’s translator said of the condolence card.

Mike Westley’s new take on the traditional crucifixion scene has caused quite a stir, the Birmingham Post wrote on August 13. The usual format for paintings of Jesus’ execution takes a viewpoint down among the crowd, looking up at the central figure of Christ on the cross. Usually, mourners, including the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen, are also depicted at the foot of the cross. Westley’s diptych of drawings of the crucifixion show the scene through Christ’s eyes, revealing in the two pictures the view along his right arm, and then his left, The drawings are on display at St. Philip’s Cathedral, Colmore Row.

La Tomatina, the world’s largest tomato war, is now the central event in a week-long fiesta in honor of Bunol’s patron saint, San Luis Bertran, and the Virgin Mary, the London Daily Telegraph said on August 17. Bunol, 30 miles from Valencia in Spain, celebrates the fiesta August 26 to September 1.

Lourdes is one of the holiday destinations recommended by Bonnier Media Limited Trading as Business a.m. on August 16. An estimated 6m visitors go each year because in 1858, at a small grotto called Massabiele, the Virgin Mary appeared 18 times to Bernadette Soubirous and directed her to uncover a water source. Virgin Mary water bottles are kitsch souvenirs of Lourdes.

The Russian Orthodox Church on August 14 observes the feast of Procession of Honorable Wood of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, the first of three major August feasts commemorating the power of the Savior, TASS News Agency said that day. On the same day, the Church recalls two extraordinary events that occurred in the 12^th century. Russian troops engaged in battle with pagans saw bright rays of light emanating from the icons of Virgin Mary and the Savior, embroidered on the standards. A similar vision of rays appeared to the troops of the Byzantine emperor Emanuil on the same day. To commemorate the event, the Church established a feast to venerate the Holy Cross, Savior the Merciful and Virgin Mary.

A mother and daughter out for their nightly neighborhood walk found a panaghia, a religious medallion worn by a bishop of the Orthodox Christian Church, its gold sparkling in the middle of the street, the Anchorage Daily News said on August 18.. "I saw that it had a picture of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus, and I just figured it belonged to a church," Skyler Poff said. She began to watch for a flier or newspaper notice and e-mailed Bishop Nikolai’s assistant after her mother saw an article about the missing necklace. "Our prayers were answered," said Bishop Nikolai, who had been given the panaghia when he became a bishop. The case containing the necklace had been placed on top of a car and had fallen off during a drive from the chancery to the cathedral.

The San Antonio Express-News ran a photo August 17 of Brian Garcia, 16, preparing some of the three tons of limestone he used for his Eagle Scout candidacy project: a grotto for a statue of the Virgin Mary at Little Flower Parish’s school. He had help from a stonemason and other volunteers, including fellow Boy Scouts.

A replica pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima helps the faithful of San Ysidro Parish bolster their religious devotion, the Albuquerque Tribune wrote on August 20. The parish recently purchased the statue, which will visit parishioners in their homes for two week periods. Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared to a group of children in the village of Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, where she revealed secrets about the world to the children.

Nuns lift their voices in prayer is the caption for a photo showing Sister May Kay Hadican of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet as she joins almost 1,000 members of various Catholic religious orders under the Gateway Arch to pray for world peace and the healing of broken relationships. The event was part of the national meeting of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which installed as its president Sister Mary Ann Zollmann, member of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote on August 21.

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