St. Peter in Chains Cathedral, in cooperation with The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute, will offer an exhibition of 26 nativity scenes representative of the cultures and nationalities from around the world.  The exhibition will be at the cathedral from now through Sunday, January 1, 2006.  Hours are Sundays from 12:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. (Closed on Christmas day); Saturdays from 12:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.; weekdays from noon to 2:00 p.m.  This year's exhibit will feature nativities from the American Southwest.

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.

Vigil for Vietnam's 'weeping' Virgin
[Source: The Australian, November 3, 2005]

A "WEEPING" Virgin Mary statue has drawn crowds of devotees to Ho Chi Minh City's Catholic cathedral since Saturday, annoying government and church officials.

However, communist authorities in southern Vietnam's main city have so far done nothing to disrupt the vigil, illustrating a more relaxed attitude to displays of religiosity, at least those that don't disturb state order.

More than 1000 people gathered around the Virgin Mary in the square outside Notre Dame Cathedral on the weekend and even yesterday more than 100 Catholics, mainly women, maintained their vigil.

According to local word of mouth, a boy selling lottery tickets saw a tear streak the face of the 3m statue on Saturday afternoon. A crowd quickly gathered and by Sunday traffic was disrupted and hawkers were doing a roaring trade in photographs of the weeping Virgin.

"There was still a fair crowd there (on Monday) night, 300 to 400 people but the police have made no effort so far to discourage them," a foreign scholar holidaying in Ho Chi Minh City told The Australian yesterday.

"But they have started to enforce a ban on the sale of photographs -- the hawkers had been making a killing selling pictures of the statue," said the man, who asked not to be named.

"Basically, it seems the Government treats this purely as opportunistic elements taking advantage of the Catholic faithful."

Speaking for the city diocese at Sunday mass at Notre Dame, Father Huynh Cong Minh suggested the tears were rain streaks on the dusty statue and warned that "bad elements" were trying to exploit religious fervor.

Local Catholic leaders regard the weeping Virgin with skepticism but are watching how the episode plays out for indications of how the prickly church-state relationship is evolving.

The church claims 5.5 million practicing adherents among Vietnam's 82million people. The Ho Chi Minh City diocese has about 583,000 Catholics, or 11.5 per cent of the local population.

Catholicism is one of Vietnam's officially recognized religions, but like the others it has been kept on a short leash. The recognized churches are required to be affiliated with the Communist Party's cultural arm, the Fatherland Front, and the Government expects to be consulted about Vatican appointments of Vietnamese bishops.

The Government continues to take tough measures, including lengthy imprisonment, against Catholics it regards as challenging the state's authority.

Amnesty International has been campaigning since 1996 for the release of Brother Nguyen Thien Phung, who was arrested in 1987 with 22 other monks and priests for distributing religious books without authorization.

The US State Department last year put Vietnam on its register of "countries of particular concern" under the US International Religious Freedom Act, but has imposed no sanctions.

Can Anyone Explain?
[Source: The Daily Telegraph (London), November 3, 2005]

SOME HINDUS have complained because the 68p Christmas stamp shows an old Mughal painting of the Virgin Mary and St Joseph in Indian dress and wearing on their foreheads dots now generally known as bindis.

The traditional red bindi (a Hindi word from the ancient Sanskrit for a "drop") has been made for centuries with a simple deft application of red coloring such as turmeric and the vermilion ochre called sindoor. The bindi has been called a "caste mark", but this is a misleading term. Many other words relate to the forehead mark. "Tilaka", meaning "a mark", signifies any kind of forehead marking used by Hindus. Devotees of different gods wear marks in different colors and configurations.

The bindi is placed between the eyebrows at the site, in Hindu culture, of meditative energy and wisdom. There is a deep connection between the bindi and Hindu worship. Red represents strength, and red pigments are offered in temples before being used on the forehead. Married women wear a red mark as a sign of their status; widows stop wearing one.

Satellite television soap operas in India have recently provoked a vogue for bindis in outlandish shapes and colors. It is not the soap heroines who have set the most fashionable trend, but the women baddies with bindis in the shape of skulls or snakes.

Putting Faith in Relics of Saints
[Source: The Buffalo News (New York), November 1, 2005]

The Rev. Michael H. Burzynski makes no bones about it: He collects relics of saints.

From the well-known, such as St. Thomas of Aquinas and the Virgin Mary, to the obscure, including Donatus and Fidelis--name a saint--and Burzynski probably has a relic that some consider sacred.

He has amassed one of the largest private relic collections in the country. It is on display today--All Saints Day in some Christian denominations--through Nov. 14 in St. Mary of the Cataract Catholic Church, 257 Fourth St., where Burzynski is pastor.

Since the late 1970s, Burzynski, 51, has collected more than 1,000 relics. Most are tiny shards of bone, no more than the size of a sunflower seed, housed in small glass and metal or wood boxes known as reliquaries.

Since the earliest days of Christianity, some Catholics have venerated these memorials as physical contact to the saints, who are believed to intercede on behalf of the faithful.

"The original church was searching for the resurrection, and that's where it developed from," Burzynski said.

His collection began with a relic of St. John Neumann--a gift recognizing Burzynski's research leading to Neumann's canonization. In the late 1830s, Neumann spent considerable time in Western New York as a missionary, and Burzynski chronicled some of his work here.

Over the years, parishioners donated many items to his collection.

The display currently includes a piece of wood said to have come from the cross of Jesus, a tiny shred said to be from a veil of Mary and fragments of bones claimed to be from apostles.

The piece described as part of a veil was cut from a cloth once housed in the Cathedral in Chartres, France.

During the French Revolution, monks shredded it into quarters before fleeing the Cathedral, according to Burzynski. The quarters eventually were cut into tiny pieces, which were then sent to every Catholic bishop.

Burzynski said Bishop John Timon, Buffalo's first prelate, who served from 1847 to 1867, received the piece now in his collection.

But what of the shards of bones?

"It's usually kneecaps," said Burzynski, because they're easily removed from a corpse.

Burzynski has a small piece of a Father Nelson Baker's vestments in a reliquary--in anticipation of Baker's possible elevation to sainthood.

Relics have long been a delicate subject within the Catholic Church. Out of concern that the practice could encourage fraud, trafficking and superstition, the Vatican issued guidelines in 2001 asking Catholics not to start any new collections.

"I'm probably the last of an age," said Burzynski, who, when he retires, plans to donate his collection to a parish or to the University of Notre Dame, his alma mater, which has an extensive relic collection.

Burzynski says he understands the church's caution.

"With the Internet now, I hate to say it's almost like baseball cards," he said.

But the tiny links to the saints continue to be a powerful presence in the lives of some Catholics.

Howard Jones traveled from Depew to spend a few hours praying in St. Mary of the Cataract while Burzynski set up his display.

"It's not too often you get to say your daily prayers in the presence of these holy relics," Jones said. "This is a treat beyond belief. It's very touching. I didn't want to miss it."

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