‘Mother Without Borders’
December 12, 2007, 10:17 am
Posted by David Gibson
Reprising Marianne Tierney’s previous post on Our Lady of Guadalupe, check out a story in today’s NYTimes about the play, “La Virgen de Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin,” which takes place at the cathedral in Los Angeles. Great slide show, and video. Is this the Passion Play of the American Catholic future? Another story this from from CNS, “Our Lady of Guadalupe called ‘Mother Without Borders’ in Los Angeles,” shows the broadening appeal of this quintessentially Mexican Mary. The LATimes goes even further with “Saint’s following is more diverse: Non-Latino Catholics in L.A. are drawn to the Virgin of Guadalupe.”
I encourage everyone to read “Truly Our Sister” by Elizabeth Johnson for a realistic assessment of the Mother of Jesus. Johnson and numerous women writers cite making Mary some idillyic lady in blue creates false images of women. Mary lived a difficult peasant’s life as the quintessential spokesman for the hungry “who will be filled with good things while the rich will go away empty.” We cannot take an uncritical approach to the history of the devotion of Mary which makes one wonder whether this has bettered the behavior of those who practice this veneration. And more precisely whether this has hurt rather than helped the advancement of women.
In point of fact in South America where Guadalupe is a staple in many countries, there have been many attempts to make Mary the fourth person of the Trinity. It is not my intention to belittle anyone’s feelings about the matter. Just a reminder that faith must be informed by reason.
I would suggest critical consideration of the Johnson book.
David
There also appears to be Episcopalian enthusiasm!
When I was a girl I never had a devotion to Mary. No rosaries for me. By the time I was 12 I realized that her image as represented on holy cards, etc, falsified who she was. When a large plaster statue of her w as given to me at my Confirmation, I painted her hair and eyebrows black and her clothes in colors that a hard-working Jewish woman might wear. Still, even with my new image, I rarely prayed to Mary.
However, when I was in my 50′s I visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe outside of Mexico City and was extremely moved by her picture. I even had tears in my eyes for no explainable reason. Now I sometimes pray to her. What is it about that icon?
How dare these people do this thing in a Catholic Church! It isn’t the way OUR ancestors did things. Nothing European about it at all and, therefore, it is very suspect.
Dancing!
Cavorting in costumes!
Heathen-style music (it ain’t Gregorian so it has to be heathen).
What is this church coming to?
Joseph,
More than Episcopalian enthusiasm — Episcopalian turf claims. Some years back I made my one and only trip to Texas to do research in the archives of the Episcopal Church in Austin, and since it was summer time, I was allowed to stay at the seminary where the archives are located. In my bedtable I found a flyer from a conference recently held on “Great Episcopal Women of the Southwest,” which included a number of properly WASPy names that meant little to me, and then included Our Lady of Guadalupe.
When I checked out and paid my bill, I showed the woman behind the cash register the flyer, and said, “I thought she was one of ours, not one of yours.”
No response, unfortunately, so I dropped the subject. Perhaps Texas Episcopalians lack any sense of irony.
Adding to David’s list of stories: see this one by Dianne Solis in the Dallas Morning News:http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/121207dnmetvirgin.2a44322.html
Excerpts:
Immigration enhances the Catholic icon’s appeal and staying power, said Enrique Hubbard, Mexico’s consul general in Dallas and a former ambassador. “No matter where you go, you adapt and take on new customs, but the Virgin of Guadalupe is like a surrogate mother who is always protecting you. It is a very powerful image.”
…. Immigration is frequently a “theologizing experience” because of the challenges and psychological traumas that it poses, said Rubén Rumbaut, a sociologist at the University of California, Irvine. “The Virgin of Guadalupe is a vivid expression of that process,” he said.
So important is the mediating role of a church, temple, mosque or synagogue, that when there is not such a religious venue to meet newcomers, the newcomers organize one, Dr. Rumbaut said.
That’s precisely the history of the gothic cathedral in downtown Dallas. Our Lady of Guadalupe church was founded by refugees from Mexico’s revolution on the western fringe of downtown Dallas. It merged with the Cathedral of Sacred Heart but took the Guadalupe name in an official dedication on Dec. 12, 1977.