Posts Tagged ‘Mary’

Marian apparitions – You don’t have to believe in them. But I do.

Monday, May 13th, 2024
Marian apparitions

This week, the Vatican is set to publish a new set of guidelines on apparitions, including Marian apparitions, that is, reports from individuals or groups that the Virgin Mary has appeared to them. There are many kinds of apparitions and visions, but Marian ones predominate in the Catholic Church. The last major Vatican document addressing Read more

Devotion to Mary is something I never understood, then …

Thursday, May 18th, 2023
devotion to mary

My relationship with Mary, like that of many women, is complicated. Mary embodies some of my most deeply held values. As a young, poor woman from Galilee, she represents how God chose to enter into human existence in the most radically humble way. Her “Magnificat” is one of the most powerful passages in the Gospels. Read more

Weeping statues: What’s going on when the Virgin Mary appears?

Monday, May 8th, 2023
weeping statues

Claims of appearances of the Virgin Mary and weeping statues have been common in Catholicism. Now they will get a closer look – but on a worldwide scale. The Pontificia Academia Mariana Internationalis, or PAMI, recently announced an “observatory” to investigate claims of appearances of the Virgin Mary and reports of statues of her weeping Read more

The Gift

Thursday, December 8th, 2022
the gift

December tends to be the busiest month of the year, but beneath the advertising, shopping, tinsel, and Christmas trees, there is a profound stillness. The Christ child is sleeping in the arms of his mother. The silence that gathers around them ushers in a new world. Mary is not aware of this, but we who Read more

Giving birth to Christ in the world

Thursday, December 9th, 2021
Christmas

Spiritually, we are all called to be pregnant with God and to give birth to Christ in the world. Men and women alike, this is our mission, and the mother of Jesus gives an outline of what that birthing is all about. Scripture doesn’t offer a lot of information about Mary. But if we look Read more

The Assumption: What difference does the location of Mary’s body make?

Monday, August 16th, 2021
The Assumption

The Assumption matters because it reminds us, with almost embarrassing boldness, of the shocking materiality of Catholic belief in the afterlife—a facet of our faith that we’d often rather forget. Most of us learn something like this in catechism: At the end of our lives we will all be judged by God. Depending on the Read more

Mary returns as an icon for pop stars and social justice warriors

Monday, August 2nd, 2021
mary

Lil Nas X, Bad Bunny and Princess Nokia all work their spirituality into their music, but you’re not likely to think of them as virginal. They are nonetheless helping to spread a craze for Mary, mother of Jesus, wearing designer Brenda Equihua’s splashy coats made from San Marcos cobijas: blankets found in many Latinx homes that Read more

NZ bishops to commission artwork commemorating dedication to Mary

Monday, October 5th, 2020
artwork

Aotearoa New Zealand’s Catholic bishops are seeking an artist to create artwork commemorating Bishop Jean-Baptiste Pompallier’s 1838 dedication of the country to Mary the Mother of Jesus. The bishops’ National Liturgy Office has begun advertising for an artist who will create a work incorporating Mary for a special commemoration next August 15, the Feast Day Read more

Pope wants to stop Mafia from exploiting symbols of the Virgin Mary

Monday, September 21st, 2020

A new Vatican group backed by Pope Francis is taking a whack at stopping Mafia members from exploiting the Virgin Mary and other Catholic imagery in order to recruit members and whitewash their dark underworld image. Read more

The absence of Golgotha

Monday, April 6th, 2020
failure

As we prepare to celebrate Holy Week and Easter within the Christian tradition and persons clamour to post and then log onto opportunities to experience a “virtual” Easter, I would like to offer an alternative and that is to do nothing. Or, rather, experience “absence” in a very real way. The absence that Mary and Read more