We have posted a reflection, Evangelization with Mary, written by our Director, Fr. Johann G. Roten,  under Meditations.

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Article from our Director

THE ROSARY ROCKS

See http://alumni.udayton.edu/NP_Story.asp?storyID=907

New Advisory Board for The Mary Page

In the Service of Our Marian Mission

On All Saints 2002, scholars from across the country converged at The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute at the University of Dayton to evaluate the Mary Page and establish criteria for its future. They came from Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Wisconsin, California, and as far away as Costa Rica. Lay men and women, Marianists, and members of other forms of consecrated life were united in their love for Mary and their conviction that the Mary Page website will be an ever-growing effective tool to further knowledge and service of her and her mission to continuing giving birth to Christ in our contemporary world.

Two days were spent in intensive study and evaluation of the website. On November 1, digital presentations provided input on topics such as: What marian pages are already out there on the web? How can we publicize Mary Page? How can we inform others about the resources available? What actually goes into producing Mary Page, and who are the contributors? What can be done to let the public know that this a web page sponsored by a Pontifical institute and whose contributions are written by theologians and mariologists who are authorities in their fields?

Johann G. Roten, SM, Director of The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute, foresees a future with ever-increasing technologies that provide knowledge and a means for deepening our Catholic faith and our marian spiritualities. Says, Roten, "From the homemaker with small children who works from her home office to the pastor quickly searching for a marian homily, to the teacher who wants ideas, activities, and lesson plans about Mary, all should consider Mary Page as a tool at their service! Not to forget those who want to reflect on a beautiful image or submit their prayer intentions to our prayer corner." Mary and social justice issues, Mary and the poor, Mary and moral theology, Mary in music and art, these are but a few of the varied themes to be tackled.

When the thirteen participants summed up their gathering, Albert Nolan’s pithy statement was called to mind, "Faith can’t be taught; it has to be caught." It is said that the web presents no barriers. The Church encourages evangelization and outreach through these means. Like never before, the message of the Incarnation can reach the world.

Each participant left with a bundle of homework: writing articles, researching themes, and continuing critical evaluation of Mary Page. The vision includes meeting yearly for such a conference. It is hoped that future collaborators will be found who dearly love Mary and will underwrite this venture with their prayerful support and their financial contributions to make the continuation of this work possible.

At present our Advisory Board is composed of the following members: Rev. Johann G. Roten, SM, Director; Rev. Benedict O’Cinnsealaigh; Rev. Sam Maranto, CSSR; Bro. John Samaha, SM; Rev. Gerald T. Chinchar, SM; Rev. Robert Hughes, SM; Sr. Mary Catherine Nolan, OP, STD; Dr. Ron Novotny; Dr. Deyanira Flores; Mr. Michael Duricy; Sr. M. Danielle Peters; Mr. Alejandro Cañadas; Sr. M. Jean Frisk; Ms. Kris Sommers; and Ms. Virginia Kimball.

Immediately below is a prayer which our readers might be interested in using.  The text at the far left was adapted by Sr. Danielle Peters and recited by the board to open each session.  The original, in Latin, from www.catholic.org/isidore/oratio.htm is also shown below.  Translations of the original into English and other languages may also be found on that site.

Prayer Before Logging Onto the Internet

Oratio ante colligationem in interrete* necnon in Foro Catholico

Almighty and eternal God, who created us in your image and likeness and bade us to seek after all that is good, true and beautiful, especially in the divine person of your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant we beseech you that, through the intercession of Our Lady of the Marian Library, during our journeys through the internet we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to you and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Omnipotens aeterne Deus, qui secundum imaginem Tuam nos plasmati et omnia bona, vera, pulchra praesertim in divina persona Unigeniti Filii Tui Domini nostri Iesu Christi, quaerere iussisti, praeta quaesumus ut, per intercessionem Sancti Isidori, Episcopi et Doctoris, in peregrinationibus per interrete**, et manus oculosque ad quae Tibi sunt placita intendamus et omnes quos covenimus cum caritate ac patientia accipiamus. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen J. T. Zuhlsdorf ... with ecclesiastical approval * olim: "in rete contexto" **olim: "per rete contextum"

Alumni Update

The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute has received final copies of Fr. Louis Bonacci's S.T.D. thesis, A Study of the Images of Mary and Women in the Life and Works of St. Ignatius Loyola with Explorations in Jungian Psychology and Feminist Theology.  Fr. Bonacci successfully defended his doctoral dissertation on February 28, 1998.  Fr. Johann G. Roten, S.M., was the thesis director. 

Michael Duricy, IMRI graduate and long-time webmaster for the Mary Page, is now an independent filmmaker.  He recently co-produced a documentary short, Journey to Point Pleasant, with Robert Leach.  The production has been aired several times on Dayton-area cable access stations and is next slated to air on CATV [channel 23 on the Miami Valley Cable Council network] on November 8 at 8:40 p.m., November 16 at midnight and November 24 at 11:40 p.m.  MVCC serves the Kettering, Oakwood, Centerville and Bellbrook areas.  We are also expecting cablecasts on Yellow Springs TV in the near future.  For further details on the film, see the thorough review written by A&E Assistant Editor, Patrick Hunt, for the 10/25 issue of U.D.'s Flyer News.

Mr. Duricy is now certified for Field production at Dayton Access Television.  Expect A/V projects related to UD and ML/IMRI in the future.  Presently, his research database of films with content related to Mary and his streaming versions of the Marian Library's documentary video are available through the Mary Page web site.

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New Exhibit

The Marian Library is currently exhibiting GOD BLESS AMERICA: Artistic Variations on 9-11, by John Solowianiuk.  This exhibit will run from October 7 thru November 22, 2002; hours 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Monday-Friday  or by special arrangement [call (937) 229-4214].

Digitized photos of the items on display in the Marian Library can be seen under Current Exhibit in our Gallery section.

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Major Exhibit Coming Next Year

For more information see also the article by Pamela Gregg in the August 22 issue of U.D.'s Campus Report.

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International Marian Research Institute Course Schedule

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.  

We also encourage our readers to submit their opinions on various styles of Marian Art through an on-line art survey.

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MARIAN X: A CINCINNATI TRADITION

A concert of "Advent and Marian Music for the Journey" will be held on Sunday, December 8, 2002 at 7:00 p.m. in Mother of God Church at 119 West 6th Street in Covington, Kentucky.  Their second concert will feature Pärt, Vaughn-Williams, a new Magnificat by Robert Campbelle, and Charpentier's Messe de Minuit pour Nöel.  A local tradition, this concert always celebrates beautiful music in a grand setting.  Tickets: $12.

To reserve tickets, call Justin at 859-441-4715.  For general or concert information, call Chris Miller at859-491-2363.  For periodic updates visit http://home.fuse.net/cincinnaticamerata.

Click this link for a list of all of the current Marian Events by geographical position.

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From ZENIT

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 October 24 through November 4, 2002

What was in the past called the "traditional" holiday stamp has been renamed the "Christmas" stamp by the Postal Service, the St . Louis Post-Dispatch said on November 4. The 2002 issue features a portrait titled "Madonna and Child" by Flemish painter Jan Gossaert. The painting, from the early 1500s, shows the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus. It is part of the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Songs dedicated to the Virgin Mary, known in Spanish as Las Cantigas de Santa Maria, will be performed November 9 at Connecticut College in a program recreating the musical, poetic and spiritual ambience of 13^th-century Iberia. Three ensembles led by the Boston Camerata will play, the New York Times said, on November 3. The other groups are the Camerata Mediterranea from France and the Sharq Arab-American ensemble.

In what might be the first hate crime linked to the clergy abuse scandal roiling the Boston Archdiocese, vandals scrawled the word "whore" on a statue of the Virgin Mary and spray painted a profanity, the word "lies," and an inverted cross in red on the front doors of Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church, the Boston Globe said on November 2. Everett police were treating the incident as a hate crime. The Rev. Bernard J. Lane, a former pastor of Our Lady of Grace, is one of several priests accused in civil lawsuits of sexually molesting children in his care.

In her debut novel, "The Virgin Blue," originally published in 1997, Tracy Chevalier uses the 16^th century persecution of the French Huguenots as a backdrop, the London Guardian wrote on November 2. In the book Isabelle Tournier wakes up one morning with red hair. "From that day she was called La Rousse after the Virgin Mary." Accusations of witchcraft follow. In the 21^st century an adventurous American settling into village life near Toulouse, tormented by dreams of all things blue, traces her genealogy back to Isabelle.

Toby Litt is working on a new book he describes as "a country house novel with a bit of Big Brother and a bit of Virginia Woolf," the Melbourne Herald Sun said on November 2. The English author fills his works with kooky characters and off-centre plots. In "Dreamgirls," which takes the reader inside the narrator’s head, a cast of women from his dreams come into his life. Among them is the Virgin Mary, who tells the protagonist to "call me Mary."

Marina Warner, in an interview published by The Scotsman Publications on November 2, said she is about to publish selected essays from the past. "In Europe, Warner would be feted as a public intellectual even if she had produced only one book - ‘Alone of All her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary’," the interviewer wrote.

A back and forth debate on an Internet chat room about whether Mary, the mother of Jesus, was in fact a virgin all her life, comes in the aftermath of what some scholars and Christians believe is a groundbreaking archeological find, the St. Petersburg Times said on November 1. Earlier this month, an article in the Biblical Archaeology Review announced the discovery of an ancient bone box called an ossuary. Thought to be from the year 63 AD, the box has inscribed on it the Aramaic words "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus."

Thousands are expected to flock to a Catholic church in the small Texas town of Devine to see the statue of Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos, the Houston Chronicle said on October 27. The pastor of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church called the visit to the Devine church a miracle in its own right because the statue is in high demand. The statue is named for the town in the Mexican state of Jalisco, where the devoted believe a young girl killed in an acrobatic performance was miraculously brought back to life in the 1600s through the Virgin Mary’s intercession. The small 350-year-old Virgin is a replica of the original image and has traveled around the United States and Mexico for almost three centuries.

In "The Miracle," John L’Heureux’s new novel, the rectory housekeeper finds her daughter lying faced down in bed, immobile and "deathly white." All who examine her are certain she’s dead. But the housekeeper orders everyone out of the room and prays fiercely to the Virgin Mary, demanding that her child be returned to life. When she lets the priest back into the room, the girl is sitting up in bed, complaining of a headache. "It’s a miracle," the priest whispers to his housekeeper.

In an interview published in The Observer October 27, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, reveals that everywhere she goes she takes a statuette of the Virgin Mary that a close friend, Carolyn Cotterell, gave to her on her death bed. "She took the Blessed Lady and she handed it to me and she said: ‘Your need is greater than mine, Fergie.’ And since she has gone I have taken the statuette everywhere," the Duchess said.

Oil from a weeping fibreglass statue of the Virgin Mary is producing miracles, according to the priest of the parish church in which it stands. He tells of a cancer sufferer, a Buddhist, "cured" after spending three hours looking at the statue, the Melbourne Sunday Herald Sun wrote on October 27. The statue, bought by a Rockingham resident in Thailand eight years ago, began "crying" almost two months ago and is now displayed at Our Lady of Lourdes church.

A Tampa Tribune story, October 27, headlined "Celebrating Life’s Moments" begins with this sentence: "From my second-story balcony, above the Blessed Virgin Mary Lavanderia, I can look out on sunny, rain-soaked streets in Barra de Navidad." Discussing the merging of religions in Mexico, the writer says a recent example is the canonization of Juan Diego, the native peasant to whom the Virgin of Guadalupe was revealed. "The pope headed the proceedings where indigenous Mexicans, in traditional costumes, played music and danced in harmony with Catholic ceremony while the first native Mexican saint was canonized."

"I’ve never been much for ‘signs’ although it has intrigued me that we see these in the oddest places," says a columnist for the Tampa Tribune, October 27. "Crowds will drive for miles to see what seems to be an image of the Virgin Mary on a window in Clearwater...But the announcement the other day of the discovery of a small limestone box in a cave near Jerusalem is different. It is something that can be traced to a certain place at a certain time."

A few paragraphs on "The Holy Family Tree" in Newsweek, November 4, discuss the "discovery of the ossuary, which renews interest in James, as well as other siblings of Jesus" and include this statement: "With the rise of the cult of the Virgin Mary, the ‘brothers and sisters’ of Jesus were seen either as children of Joseph by a previous marriage or as extended-family kin." 

Greek singer Savina Yannatou, who sings both early music and avant-garde jazz, made one appearance only for the Melbourne Festival, the Age Company Limited said on October 26. The most popular CDs by Yannatou and a hand-picked group of musicians performing under the name Primavera en Salonica that accompany her have focused on Sephardic songs from Thessaloniki and the north of Greece, music from around the Mediterranean perimeter, and widespread musical views of the Virgin Mary.

Eight passengers leaped on a man who went berserk during a flight from Frankfurt, attacking people and screaming about Jesus and the devil, the Montreal Gazette said on October 25. He was with a group returning from a pilgrimage to Medjugorje in Bosnia, where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared.

Shock and horror accompanied the appointment of Alan Bookbinder, who was "not even a Christian," as new Head of BBC Religious Broadcasting 15 months ago, the London Times said on October 24. Boookbinder, who describes himself as "an open-hearted, open-minded agnostic," said he finds faith both fascinating and increasingly important. In the next few months he will be offering a two-part television drama on Martin Luther and major programs on Moses and on the Virgin Mary. He says he appreciated the need to reassure churches that religious broadcasting was not gradually dwindling and being pushed to the margins of the schedule.

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

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