There is a story about Mary, that she was stitching a cloth for the tabernacle when Gabriel visited her. Maybe. Maybe not. She could have been sweeping the floor. Or grinding corn for a meal. Those activities can also be sacred. We are reminded of times when God has been manifest in simple household tasks. Read more
Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), the first African-American painter ever to gain international acclaim, treats the classic Annunciation motif in a rather unconventional manner: he reckons the simplicity of the scene, rather than its theatrical recreation. In the intimacy of a chamber, Mary is portrayed as a dark haired Jewish peasant girl, seated at the edge Read more
Where there is the presence of Jesus, there is the presence of His Mother. – Fulton J. Sheen The Catholic devotion to Mary has never come easily to me. I know Mary is, for some people, the way they discovered and really developed a relationship with Jesus. But for me, it was the opposite. Jesus Read more
In 1977, work began on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel ceiling to remove 500 years of incense and candle smoke from Michelangelo’s paintings. When the chapel was opened again in 1989, not everyone was happy with the result. The colours were so bright some people saw them as gaudy, and believed Michelangelo’s masterpiece had Read more
It is that time of year again when someone somewhere has to write an article lamenting the commercialisation of Christmas, though it has to be said that these type of articles have faced some competition of late from articles lamenting the campaign by the politically correct to abolish Christmas altogether. Poor old Christmas: attacked on Read more
Mary will be at the heart of the next three World Youth Days, Pope Francis says. All three will take participants on a spiritual journey with Our Lady when she finds herself chosen by God. World Youth Day (WYD) sees young people from all over the world work to build and strengthen the bonds of Read more
A minor miracle occurred on a dark train platform in a provincial Cuban town in 1981. I had been a Cuban-American exile for two decades, and had managed to wrangle a visa to visit my sick mother. After seeing her, I had traveled to the train station with some unfinished business. The middle-aged woman in Read more
Many people, Catholic or not, are unaware that the city of Los Angeles is dedicated to and named after the Virgin Mary. On September 4, 1781, Spanish governor Felipe de Neve, with the assistance of two Franciscan priests, gave the village its official name, El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Read more
A long-venerated icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help turned 150 this year, and many Filipinos’ Marian devotion has never been stronger. “There is one clear reason for the thousands of devotees who flock to Baclaran: the special Marian piety of the Filipino people,” Fr. Joseph Echano, CSsR, rector of the National Shrine of Our Read more
Stories of decline, church closures and a shortage of priests are a regular feature of Catholic life in our generation. Despite the apparent gloom there is one area where there seems to be new growth: devotion to Our Lady. Several months ago I wrote about the exciting and encouraging developments that are taking place at Read more