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In the News: March 28, 2017
By Michael P. Duricy
Read recent items about Mary in both Catholic and secular news. Also see International Marian Research Institute news and updates.
Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute Features
Updates
Reciprocal Conference News
One of the ways that We plan to promote this year's Annual Meeting of the Mariological Society of America is via a post on the website for The Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. In return, they have asked that we inform our readers about their Convention on Religion and the Social Sciences, scheduled for late September, 2017. For details, contact Amy Fontecchio by email at registration@catholicscholars.org or visit their website at URL https://www.catholicscholars.org/. Please note that their website includes a Job Announcements section.
TOPMary in Media: Books, Films, Music, etc.
New DVD about Mary's house in Ephesus
The Journey of Sister Marie de Mandat-Grancey is a new EWTN docu-drama with Michael O'Neill about the finding of Mary's house in Ephesus. Click here for more details.
From the Marian Treasure Chest
Brother John Samaha sent us the text below with the following comments: "This article was published in Vocations and Prayer, October-December 2016. All hail to St. Joseph!"
Focusing on Saint Joseph: Head of the Holy Family by Brother John Samaha, S.M.
How much do we know about and appreciate the man who was the husband of the Mother of Jesus and the guardian of our Redeemer? How do we honor him? St. Joseph is often overlooked. Scripture says little of him. We seem to give him scant attention. Yet devotion to St. Joseph has deep roots in Christian tradition.
Joseph is often the overlooked member of the Holy Family. Do you remember as children when we wrote "J.M.J." at the top of our papers in Catholic school? We did that to remind ourselves to have the intention that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph had in life as we did our own work. We pictured the members of the Holy Family side by side.
Husband of Mary
Remember that Mary and Joseph are a couple. And Jesus is their child. They belong together. When separated, their significance in God's plan of salvation is clouded, because their importance lies in their relationship to each other. While honoring the perpetual virginity of Mary, we cannot disregard Joseph's privilege and happiness of being Mary's husband. In past centuries many works of art depicted Joseph as an old man. Most likely this was done to disallow any threat to Mary's virginity. This tended to undervalue the loving relationship of Mary and Joseph as husband and wife. Despite the tendencies of her times, St. Teresa of Avila always insisted that Joseph was a young man when he married Mary. The Divine Liturgy reinforces this positive approach regarding Joseph: "With a husband's love he cherished Mary, the Virgin Mother of God."
Foster Father of Jesus
Since Joseph is the husband of Mary, he is also father to Jesus. We know that he was not the physical father of Jesus. But in the gospel account about Jesus being lost in the temple, Luke has Mary saying to Jesus: "Son, your father and I have been searching for you in sorrow." And the Divine Liturgy testifies: "With fatherly care he watched over Jesus Christ your son, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit."
If one might think that Joseph's fatherhood was not quite real or effective because he did not physically procreate Jesus, let that person speak with adoptive parents, especially those who have conceived a child of their own and adopted others. They will let you know how real Joseph's fatherhood is.
Head of the Holy Family
Joseph played a very important role as Jesus "grew in wisdom, age, and grace before God and men" In the Jewish tradition, children were, until the age of five or so, in the special care and tutelage of their mothers. But beyond that age children came under the special guidance of their fathers. Joseph by duty and privilege was the rabbi of the Holy Family to teach Jesus the Jewish faith and practices. Joseph led his family in the worship of God in their home at Nazareth.
At meal times both Mary and Jesus looked to Joseph at the head of the table to offer the prayer of blessing. Each year when the great evening of the Passover was celebrated, the youngster Jesus played his role and addressed the ritual question to Joseph: Father, why is this night different from every other night? Then he listened with his Mother to Joseph's narration of the glorious events of the Exodus and the explanation of the meaning of the paschal lamb. Later Jesus would hear John the Baptizer proclaim him, the Son of Joseph and Mary, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.
When Jesus was of age, Joseph introduced him to synagogue worship. Jesus was faithful to the synagogue rituals throughout his life. Joseph also taught Jesus the skills of a carpenter. Through the practice of this trade Jesus supported himself and his Mother after Joseph's death.
Jesus' human experience of fatherhood was drawn from his relationship with Joseph, his own earthly father. When Jesus said, "What father would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf, or a poisonous snake when he asks for a fish?," surely he had in mind how kind and gentle Joseph was to him as he was growing.
When Jesus told the parable of the prodigal son, Joseph must have been the model of that loving father. As Jesus described how the father hugged and kissed the son who had been lost, perhaps he was recalling how Joseph hugged and kissed him after he had been lost in the temple for three days.
When Jesus taught us how to pray, he began with the same loving title with which he had addressed Joseph all his life, abba. His deep affection for Joseph is evident in the circumstances of the gospel. Joseph made a profound impression on Jesus.
St. Joseph's relation to us
Has Joseph made an impression on us? How do we think of St. Joseph, honor him, and pray to him? Do we appreciate the special place he has in Christian spirituality and in our own heritage? Let us revere wholeheartedly the husband of Mary, the foster father of Jesus, the patron of the universal Church. After all, he is the man who is closest to Christ, our Redeemer.
Marian Events
Event: ESBVM USA Annual Conference
Date: July 12-15, 2017
Theme: Mary, Disciple of the Lord: Prayer and Holiness
Place: Misericordia University, 301 Lake Street, Dallas, Pennsylvania 18612
The Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary USA (ESBVM USA) will hold its annual conference July 12-15, 2017 at Misericordia University in Dallas, PA. This is an ecumenical society and all Christians from every Christian tradition are invited to attend. For more information, contact the ESBVM USA president, Dr. Maura Hearden Fehlner, at maura.hearden@desales.edu. Please put "ESBVM USA Conference 2017" in the subject line.
Mary in the Catholic Press
God Makes Impossible, Possible (Zenit) March 25, 2017
"Nothing is impossible for God." (Luke 1:37): thus ends the Angel's answer to Mary. When we believe that everything depends on our capacities, on our strengths, on our myopic horizons, when, instead, we are ready to allow ourselves to be helped, to let ourselves be counseled, when we open ourselves to grace, it seems that the impossible begins to become possible.
Pope Francis said this while reflecting on how God can make the impossible, possible, during his homily in Monza Park today, March 25, 2017, when making a pastoral one-day visit to the northern Italian city of Milan.
Below is a Zenit working translation of the Holy Father's homily:
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The Holy Father's Homily
We just heard the most important announcement of our history: the Annunciation to Mary (cf. Luke 1:26-38)--a dense passage, full of life, which I like to read in the light of another announcement: that of the birth of John the Baptist (cf. Luke 1:5-20). Two announcements that follow one another and that are united; two announcements that, when contrasted, show us what God gives us in His Son....
Mary in the Secular Press
The director and editors of All About Mary under the auspices of the International Marian Research Institute do not necessarily endorse or agree with the events and ideas expressed in this feature. Our sole purpose is to report on items about Mary gleaned from a myriad of papers representing the secular press.
Lenten Mission (Downtown Dayton Catholic Parishes Bulletin) March 26, 2017
This year's Mission, March 27-29, 2017, on "The Identity of Mary and Our Christian Life" will be given in the basement of Emmanuel Church at 7 pm by Father Emmanuel Fale who is completing his S.T.D. studies in Mariology. Father Fale will offer a picture of Mary from Sacred Scripture [Old and New Testaments], plus the four Marian dogmas: Perpetual Virginity; Theotokos; Immaculate Conception; and Assumption.
The theme of the mission will be: "To know Mary is to know Jesus, and knowing them both enhances our Christian life. A Christian life modeled on Mary will be a life of purity, love, and discipleship with all that these entail."