November 17, 1998
Mary Page is a link to a variety of information. The items give insight into our interest areas, our outreach, and the myriad ways people honor Our Lady. We welcome your input and your comments.
Arts by Catholic Nuns
Crèche International
Magnificat Meal
Marian Conference in Dayton
Marianist Dies Defending the Poor
Mary, Apocalyse, and the Millennium
Hidden Treasures of the Church: Arts by Catholic Nuns
Are you interested in the history of Marian art in the United States? You will want to have a copy of the Fall 1998 issue of Christianity and the Arts (Vol 5:4). The issue bears the subtitle: "Hidden Treasures of the Church: Arts by Catholic Nuns" and contains a wealth of articles and illustrations. Among them:
The editor writes in her introduction to the issue:
For years, I had this recurring dream. I was back a Marycliff High School in Spokane, Washington, sitting under pine trees. Behind me was Gordon Mansion, donated to the Franciscan nuns to start a girls' school. In the sun-dappled shadows, my friends and I would talk about growing up and leaving the ivy-colored walls and the grotto with the alabaster Virgin.After waking from such a dream, I would have a sense of profound sadness. I had grown up. And the school and the nuns, whose habits swept the floors, were gone . . .
The grotto, where we said the rosary to the Virgin Mary in the early days of spring, is a gap- toothed hole in the hill. All Christianity has been sanitized from the landscape. There isn't even a single memorial to the nuns who had lived, worked, cried, and laughed amidst the thicket of pines. Still the trees stand.
This issue is dedicated to the artistic expression of women religious . . . I would like to suggest that this story belong to all of us.
The 80-page magazine is indeed a treasure trove worth exploring. You can obtain a copy by contacting:
The University of Dayton's Marian Library presents: Crèche
International
Sunday, December 6, 1998 Sunday, January 10, 1999
Gallery St. John
at Bergamo/Mount St. John
Hours: Wednesday 1-8 p.m.
Thursday through Sunday 1 -5 p.m.
or by appointment: 937.229.1005
Suggested donation: $5 per person; $10 per family
Mary Page has been asked several times at the Catholic Church's stand on the movement in
Australia known as Mary Magnificat Meal. Mary Page has received the letters of Bishop
William Morris, the ordinary responsible for the diocese of Toowoomba, Queensland,
concerning the Magnificat Meal movement. The most recent published letter is dated 27 October
1998 and follows here.
STATEMENT BY BISHOP WILLIAM MORRIS
Under ordinary conditions, priests in Australia are generally presumed to have faculties to
administer the sacraments anywhere in Australia within the framework of the Catholic Church.
Exceptions to this occur where there has been a specific direction by any Bishop, within his
diocese in some way limiting those faculties or by virtue of a limitation indicated in the Code of
Canon Law.
I have twice made public statements that the Magnificat Meal Movement is not a movement of
the Catholic Church. Neither I, nor any other Bishop in the world, can grant to any cleric the
faculties to preach or administer the sacraments for any group which is not a recognized
movement of the Catholic Church, nor give permission for the reservation of the Blessed
Sacrament.
The only legitimate clergyman in the Catholic parish of Helidon is Father John Ryan or someone
who legitimately replaces him. Anyone else intending to minister in the parish must have my
direct permission, or permission arranged through Father Ryan. For some time now, there have
been no such requests for clergy visiting the Magnificat Meal Movement premises. The
Magnificat Meal Movement has no right to dictate to the parish of Helidon how to celebrate any
Sacramental Rite or Eucharistic Celebration nor does it have permission from myself or any other
Bishop, including Bishop Issam Darwish, to reserve the Blessed Sacrament on its premises, or in
any private residence.
To my knowledge, the parish of Helidon always follows liturgical rites as set down in the Roman
Missal or the Roman Ritual: Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass.
Given its public statements and actions, there is some considerable doubt as to whether the
Magnificat Meal Movement is a genuine Christian movement. However, if the Magnificat Meal
Movement wished still to become a recognized movement within the Catholic Church, the means
are always there for it to do so.
WILLIAM M. MORRIS, DD
BISHOP OF TOOWOOMBA
Dayton Marriot Hotel
Theme: MARY . . . GUIDE TO THE NEW MILLENNIUM,
"The Mother of Fairest Love will be for the Christians on the way to the Great Jubilee of the
third millennium THE STAR which safely guides their steps to the Lord."
Speakers:
Fr. Robert Hughes, S.M., active in the Marian Movement
Marianist Dies Defending the Poor
Excerpts from an article by Christy Allen in Flyer News, November 13, 1998, at the
University of Dayton:
Marianists tell that similar threats are received around the world where they work for the poor
and because they work with the poor. Intimidation of this type does not prevent the Marianists
from persisting in their Marian work of caring for the poor. Rev. Joseph Tedesco stated, "Bro.
Miguel's death gives us the strong idea that Marianists are in the right place, because you don't
get martyred if you're not where the Gospels are on the front line."
Mary, Apocalypse, and the Millennium
The fever mounts as the millennium draws to a close. What will the future hold? A great new
horizon, death and destruction, the end of the world? We should move to the future with
trust in God's saving plan for humanity and not give in to doomsday spleen and ? Concerning
Mary's part in the turn of the millennium, Mary Page offers you an answer at:
Mary Page Your Questions: Mary and the Millennium:
The Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Mary Page wishes to recommend a Marian site for Marian studies:
The Society usually meets on the first Saturday of May and October, typically in or near
Washington, DC. Special meetings are also arranged for common worship and exploration of
Mary's role.
Mary Page offers a series of themes on the Blessed Virgin Mary found in magisterial documents
of the Church. Such titles as Mary's relationship to the Blessed Trinity, Mary and the Church,
Mary as a human person, Marian devotion are but a few of these resource titles. You
will find this site at:
A web search resulted in the discovery of a review of an article in Society magazine titled,
"Young Adult Catholic Survey," The article gives insights into a survey of the social life and
customs of young adult Catholics in the United States conducted by William Dinges, Dean R.
Hoge, Mary Johnson and Juan L. Gonzales Jr. Among several questions was one on devotion to
Mary. The following is quoted directly from the site:
Mary is a central icon of the "Catholic Imagination," to use Greeley's phrase, who reveals the
passionate love of God. That Mary remains high on the list of essential and unifying symbols of
Catholic identity may be attributed to several causes: the media visibility of John Paul II's
unabashed Marian piety; the proliferation of Marian apparitions and devotionalism at the level of
popular religious culture; and the Virgin's centrality in Catholic ethnic culture.
Mary is also one of the most ubiquitous icons in Catholic material culture (churches, statues,
rosaries). Her image also serves in contemporary culture as a mother symbol or symbol of the
feminine dimension of God. She also remains a distinctive marker of Catholic identity given the
decline in the knowledge of and perceived value of devotion to the saints.
More significant than these factors, Mary's role as a marker of Catholic identity contrasts
sharply with the flattening of denominational distinctions and with the tendency on the part of
young adult Catholics to deny substantive theological differences between Catholics and
Protestants. Devotion to Mary, therefore, remains one of the few elements of a distinctive
Catholic identity in the face of diminishing theological and liturgical distinctions between
mainstream expressions of the Christian tradition.
To read more of the survey: Society.
You are invited to help us to pray for our prayer corner intentions.
Please keep in mind the intentions of the Holy Father for December 1998:
Mary Page, maintained by The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute,
Dayton, Ohio 45469-1390, was last modified April 19, 1999 by J.C. Tierney. Please send
any comments to
ROTEN@data.lib.udayton.edu.
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Crèche International takes place on
Closed December 24, 25, 31 and January 1
4400 Shakertown Road, Dayton, Ohio
1414 South Patterson Boulevard (Exit 51, I-75 East on Edwin C. Moses Boulevard)
Dayton, OH 45409
(Pope John Paul II, Tertio Millenio Adveniente #59)
Michael Brown, Author of 16 books. His latest: The Last Secret
Ivan Dragicevic, Resident of Medjugorje
Sr. Isabel Bettwy, Director: National Shrine of the Divine Mercy, Stockbridge, MA???mber feast day of the three Spanish marianist martyrs, 26-year-old Bro.
Miguel Angel Quiroga stood between the poor of Colombia and the armed paramilitary,
and in that moment, lost his life and joined company with martyrs Carlos Erana, Fidel
Fuidio, and Jesus Hito. Since that day in September, Quiroga's death has affected the
Marianist community. Quiroga was born in Bogota and received his Marianist vocation
at the parish of Our Lady of Charity, becoming a brother on Dec. 12, 1992 . . . On Sept.
18, Quiroga was doing what he loved most, which was working with the poor of his
parish. While traveling to another community, he and his group were stopped by an
illegal paramilitary who killed him as he stood between the military and the
people.
Devotion to Mary as the mother of Jesus is part of the Catholic tradition that has
not waned significantly in the decades following Vatican II in spite of the council's implicit
diminishment of Mary in the Catholic economy of salvation. The cult of the Virgin Mary
continues to find enduring expressions and forms in various cultural settings.
Original source is: Society, Sep/Oct98, Vol. 35 Issue 6, p2, 3p.
For the victims of drugs and for all those who work towards their human and social recovery.
That the spreading of "sects" may stimulate the local Churches to appreciate with a renewed
vitality the true gifts of the Spirit.
URL for this page is http://www.udayton.edu/mary/news98/1117.html
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