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. And her own "yes" to God is, of course, the ultimate model of how a human being should relate to God.

These lessons, though, often become muddled when Mary is presented only as a model for women.

As the theologian Elizabeth Johnson wrote in her book on Mary, Truly Our Sister, Mary is often seen as "the ideal embodiment of feminine essence." She continues,

Whether her perfection then serves to disparage other women or to inspire them, her obedient, responsive, maternal image is at play in the community as the norm for women in contrast to men. When combined with an understanding of God and Christ as essentially masculine, the result reproduces in theology, spirituality and church polity nothing less than the patriarchal order of the world, now with divine sanction.

When viewed through this lens, Mary represents an impossible double standard.

The poet Mary Szybist told me that encountering Mary this way damaged her own sense of self-worth: "The message is that [as a woman] you are valued for your virginity and you are valued for being a mother.

To grow up to be neither a virgin nor a mother leaves the puzzle, under that kind of pressure of imagination, how does one value oneself?"

Mothers, too, struggle with how to relate to Mary's virginity and the emphasis the church places on it.

No one, after all, is both a virgin and a mother.

It was that double standard and the way Mary was invoked as "divine sanction" for the "patriarchal order of the world," that led me to keep her at arm's length through much of my life.

I often told people that, intellectually, I just didn't understand the appeal of Marian devotion.

What it was about Mary that, for example, led some of the most progressive Catholics I knew to pray the Rosary every day.

Mary, despite my hesitations, has always been present to me.

At times it feels I have been haunted by her, to borrow a phrase Dorothy Day used to speak about God.

Perhaps it is my many years of Catholic school, or my teenage habit of praying a Rosary on my morning drive every day, but I have always found myself reflexively reciting Hail Marys in life's liminal moments: washing my hands, waiting for a red light to change, watching hot coffee drip into the carafe.

Without ever really thinking about it, I am always talking to her, always in the same words, echoing the Annunciation ("Hail Mary, full of grace…"), and finally asking her to remember me now and at the hour of my death.

My mental hangups with Mary, though, kept me from talking to her beyond these almost unconscious recitations.

I tried to separate the liberating images of Mary from the oppressive ones, but I never could.

I found that the figure of Mary was too entangled in arguments that did not resonate with me or my understanding of myself as a woman.

Then I became pregnant, and my struggling relationship with Mary became impossible to ignore. Continue reading

The Family Pilgrimage was organised by the Centre for Marriage and Family (CMF) to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother to three shepherd children Lucia do Santos, Francisco and Jacinta Marto at Fatima, Portugal during the height of World War I. Continue reading

About 1,000 people from 20 groups representing different communities within Asia and the Pacific Islands participated in the Mass in honour of Mary.

The various communities marched into the Basilica with a different statue of Mary in her various manifestations as Our Lady of Antipolo, Our Lady of La Vang, Our Lady of Samoa and the golden Our Lady of Good Health, Vailankanni, as she is known among Catholic communities in India.

Alex Chow, a boy whose family attends Our Lady of China Pastoral Mission in Washington, crowned a statue of Mary.

Then Catholics with roots in India, Samoa, the Philippines, Vietnam and South Korea led the congregation in praying the Luminous Mysteries of the rosary in their own languages, joined by the congregation who prayed the Hail Marys in English.

Clara Cole, a Samoan who works for the Environmental Protection Agency, said their Catholic faith "was instilled in us at a very young age. We carry it with us still, and I pass it down to my daughter. She's 17."

Cole said that faith "keeps us going. Without it, we'd have no hope, and without Mother Mary, we wouldn't have our Savior Jesus."

Johnny Toma who works at the Georgetown University Medical Centre, reflecting on the journey he took across the world from American Samoa the United States for college said, "He (Jesus) has always been with me."

In his homily, Cardinal Wuerl praised the Asian and Pacific Island Catholics for representing the richness of their diverse cultures and the harmony of their shared faith in Christ.

Prayers of the faithful were offered in different languages, including Cambodian, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Samoan, Indonesian, Konkani (from India), and English.

Source

• cathstan.org
• Image: cathstan.org

Although the Australian narrator , understandably struggles a little with Maori pronunciation the video provides a concise and accurate account of the history and significance of the shrine of Our Lady of Pukekaraka.

The church at Otaki is the oldest Catholic Church still in use in New Zealand.

The adjacent marae, meeting houses and cemetery contain some interesting historic features.

Watch the You Tube video