Divine Mother

Divine Mover

A Marian Spirituality of Pilgrimage

Michael J. Sanem

1st Annual Mother Mary Dinner

TO FOLLOW ALONG ON YOUR PHONE:

https://sites.google.com/view/divinemother/home

I. Mary, the Mother of Pilgrims

II. Mary, the Mover of Pilgrims

III. Mary, the Model of Pilgrims

Do we really need more names for Mary?

Ark of the Covenant

Comfort of the Afflicted

Gate of Heaven

Health of the Sick

Help of the Afflicted

Holy Mary

Holy Virgin of Virgins

Immaculate Heart of Mary

María, Reina de las Américas

Morning Star

Mother of Christ

Mother of Mercy

Mother of Sorrows

Madonna Della Strada

Mother of the Church

Mystical Rose

Our Lady of the Annunciation

Our Lady of Bethlehem

Our Lady of Charity

Our Lady of Chartres

Our Lady of Combermere

Our Lady of Compassion

Our Lady of Grace

Our Lady of Lebanon

Our Lady of Light

Our Lady of Loreto

Our Lady of the North

Our Lady of Providence

Our Lady of Ransom

Our Lady of Solitude

Our Lady, Star of the Sea

Our Lady of Stockholm

Queen of All Saints

Queen of the Americas

Queen of the Angels

Queen of Apostles

Queen of Confessors

Queen of Families

Queen of Martyrs

Queen of Patriarchs

Queen of Prophets

Queen of Virgins

Queen of the World (in Latin Regina mundi)

Refuge of Sinners

Salus Populi Romani (Salvation of the People of Rome)

Tower of David

Untier of Knots (also, Undoer of Knots)

I. Mary, Mother of Pilgrims

Pilgrimages are sacred journeys or wanderings undertaken for spiritual or personal reasons, with specific shrines or holy places venerated along the way or at a particular destination. They are present in almost all cultures and religions.

One essential component of Pilgrimage is transformation. St. James the Apostle is the Catholic patron of pilgrimage because he witnessed Christ's transfiguration. In doing so, he was transformed. On pilgrimages we have the opportunity to encounter reality and ourselves transfigured by the divine presence.

In Catholicism, Mary plays a unique role as a Mother of Pilgrims. She consoles and protects us in our sacred wanderings, and she gives birth pilgrimage sites by her apparitions.

Madonna Della Strada (Our Lady of the Way)

Beloved by Jesuits and all influenced by their spirituality, St. Ignatius first encountered this icon while he preached on the streets in Rome. She became the beloved patroness of the Jesuits as they spread across the globe, and a fitting image of Mary the Mother of Pilgrims, who cares for us pilgrims as she cared for her son, Jesus.

Madonna Della Strada Chapel, Loyola University Chicago

Marian Shrines are some of the most popular Catholic pilgrimage destinations:

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City, Mexico : 10+ million pilgrims per year

Our Lady of Fátima, in Fátima, Portugal, 6-8 million pilgrims per year

Our Lady of Lourdes, in France, 5 million visitors per year

Other Apparitions and Destinations:

Our Lady of the Pillar, Spain, 40 (to the Patron Saint of Pilgrimages!)

Our Lady of the Snow, 4th Century Rome

Our Lady of Walsingham, England 1061

Our Lady of the Rosary, France 1208

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 13th Century

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico 1531

Our Lady of Šiluva, Lithuania 1608

Our Lady of Laus, France 1664

Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, France 1830

Our Lady of La Salette, France, 1846

Our Lady of Lourdes, France, 1858

Our Lady of of Hope, France, 1871

Our Lady of Gietrzwałd, Poland, 1877

Our Lady of Knock, Ireland 1879

Our Lady of Fátima, Portugal, 1917

Our Lady of Beauraing, Belgium, 1932

Our Lady of Banneux, Belgium, 1933

Coptic Orthodox Church Approved:

Our Lady of Zeitoun, Cairo, Egypt, 1968

Our Lady of Assiut, Egypt 2001

Our Lady of Warraq, Egypt, 2009

II. Mary the Mover of Pilgrims:

Dante's Divine Comedy

[Dante:] "But I, why should I go? Who gives permission?

I am not Aeneas, nor am I Paul!

Not I nor anyone else would judge me worthy.

....

[Beatrice as quoted by Virgil:]

"In Heaven there’s a gentle lady [MARY]—one

who weeps for the distress toward which I send you,

so that stern judgment up above is shattered.

And it was she who called upon Lucia,

requesting of her: “Now your faithful one

has need of you, and I commend him to you.”

Lucia, enemy of every cruelty,

arose and made her way to where I [BEATRICE] was,

sitting beside the venerable Rachel.

She said: “You, Beatrice, true praise of God,

why have you not helped him who loves you so

that—for your sake—he’s left the vulgar crowd?

Do you not hear the anguish in his cry?

Do you not see the death he wars against

upon that river ruthless as the sea?”

[Beatrice then travels to Limbo to convince Virgil to seek out Dante]

.........

[Virgil, to Dante, after being convinced by Beatrice]:

"What is it then? Why, why do you resist?

Why does your heart host so much cowardice?

Where are your daring and your openness

as long as there are three such blessed women

concerned for you within the court of Heaven

and my words promise you so great a good?”

As little flowers, which the chill of night

has bent and huddled, when the white sun strikes

grow straight and open fully on their stems,

so did I, too, with my exhausted force;

and such warm daring rushed into my heart

that I—as one who has been freed—began:

“O she, compassionate, who has helped me!

And you who, courteous, obeyed so quickly

the true words that she had addressed to you!

You, with your words, have so disposed my heart

to longing for this journey—I return

to what I was at first prepared to do.

Now go; a single will fills both of us:

you are my guide, my governor, my master.”

These were my words to him; when he advanced

I entered on the steep and savage path.

Inferno, Canto 2

The Triple Movement of Divine Love:

We are moved by love, we move in love, and in moving, we move others by our love

Mary, moved by God's love, moves to speak to St. Lucia

St. Lucia, moved by Mary's love, moves to speak to Beatrice

Beatrice, moved by St. Lucia's love, moves to speak to Virgil (even to hell)

Virgil, moved by Beatrice's love, moves to help Dante

Dante, moved by all their love, moves to continue his journey and write his story

And we, after reading Dante, are moved, and so we move others

Mary the Mediatrix of God's Grace

"Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. ... Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix" (Lumen gentium, 62).

As the Body of Christ, we are all "co-redeemers" with Christ.

But Mary, by virtue of her Immaculate Conception and her special relationship with Christ, is the most effective.

III. Mary, Model of Pilgrims

From Paolo Pasolini's Gospel According to St. Matthew (1965)

Mary's life as Pilgrimage:

From unwed, pregnant teenager, to woman giving birth in a stable, to refugee seeking asylum in Egypt, to a widow witnessing her beloved son be crucified, her life displays a radical trust in God and a willingness to move and move others through God's mysterious plan of salvation.

Mary's Scriptural Pilgrimage:

from a Woman in Galatia to Mother of God in Ephesus

St. Paul's Letter to the Galatians, 54-55 (A Woman)

"...but when the designated time had come, God sent forth his Son born of a woman, born under the law, to deliver from the law those who were subjected to it, so that we might receive our status as adopted sons..." (Galatians 4:4-5; 4:28-29)

The Gospel of Mark, 65- 70 AD (Mother of Jesus)

Then [Jesus] went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” (Mark 3:20-21)

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters[c] are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:31-35

“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon…?” (Mark 6:3).

Gospel of Matthew, 85 AD (Mother Mary)

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus. (Matthew 1:18-25)

Gospel of Luke, 85 - 95 AD (Mary's Gospel)

Annunciation, Visitation, Magnificat, Nativity, Presentation in the Temple, Prophecy of Simeon, Finding of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 1 - 2)

"Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart." (Luke 2: 51)

The Gospel of John, 90 AD (Unnamed Mother of Jesus)

The Wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11)

Present at the Crucifixion (John 19:26-27).

Book of Revelation, 95 CE (The Woman of Revelation)

A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. (Revelation 12:1-2)

Council of Ephesus, 451 CE

Mary is affirmed as Theotokos, God-Bearer, or Mother of God.

"The Gospels exhibit an increasing fascination with Jesus’s mother. The earliest, Mark, portrays her in the barest of terms, calling Jesus the “son of Mary” and preferring instead to focus on spiritual kinship. Matthew and Luke augment Mary’s role in Jesus’s story with the infancy accounts. Finally, in John, Mary becomes an important witness to the end of Jesus’s life. This fascination with Jesus’s mother does not end with the Gospels but continues to grow in the succeeding centuries." - Stephen C. Carlson, "Portraits of Mary in the Gospels", n.p. [cited 19 Sep 2019]. Online: https://www.bibleodyssey.org:443/people/related-articles/portraits-of-mary-in-the-gospels

An insight into the Catholic devotion:

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother.” (John 19:26-27)

Two Contemporary Images:

Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception

Kansas City, MO

Mother of the Universe by Claire M. Wing, 2003

Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Kansas City

Mystical Rose by Michael Pilla, 2003

Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Kansas City

Why Mary Still Moves Us

An excerpt from Dorothy Day's On Pilgrimage:

"When I was a very little child, perhaps not more than six, I used to have recurrent nightmares of a great God, King of heaven and earth which encompassed all, stretched out over all of us in a most impersonal way, and with this nightmare came also a great noise like that made by a galloping horseman which increased in volume until the sound filled all the earth. It was a terrifying dream and when I called out, my mother used to come and sit by the bedside and hold my hand and talk to me until I fell asleep. That passed, and then a few years later I met a little girl by the name of Mary Harrington who told me about the Blessed Mother and a heaven peopled with saints, and this also was a great comfort to me...

Later, it was my own motherhood which finally brought me into the Church, the joy and thankfulness I felt at the birth of a child. I had to thank God. ... the Hail Mary and the Salve Regina and the Memorare were new to me. I was soon introduced to the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, from which children used to be taught to read in the Middle Ages, and the versicles and hymns became part of my prayer life from then on....

God was our Father, so I could approach Him, daring to say, Our Father. But it was reading of Jesus Christ in the New Testament that made me want to put off the old man and put on Christ, as St. Paul said. And who had given me our Lord but the Virgin Mary? It was easy to pray to her, repetitious though it might seem. Saying the rosary as I did so often, I felt that I was praying with the people of God, who held on to the physical act of the rosary as to a lifeline, a very present help in time of trouble.

From Reflections during Advent: Dorothy Day on Prayer, Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience

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