The Assumption.
Well Jesus's physical body went somewhere at the Ascension. I had it explained to me that what Mary got is what we will get. Take it or leave it. Seems fair enough to me.
The thing about RCs is that we are the opposite of monolithic. A lot of the outward expression is culturally conditioned. And popular piety and even political inclinations will influence what you see in churches.
Co-redemptrix has never been official dogma. Pope Francis wrote this "Faithful to her Master, who is her Son, the only Redeemer, she never wanted to take anything from her Son for herself. She never presented herself as a co-redeemer. No, she was a disciple."
If it’s a resurrection body (like Jesus’) then it most certainly is physical with bones, blood etc. Jesus made a huge big deal of that exact point when he came to his disciples.
<snip>
So he did, but I can't quite get my head around the idea of a physical body in a physical heaven...
Sorry if I'm getting tangential, but just where is this physical milieu, which contains Jesus and Mary?
I try to keep in mind that we know very little about the structure of reality--it wasn't that long ago that we figured out the earth went round the sun!--and so when someone asks where a physical body can be located other than earth, my working assumption is that God has that handled--but probably not in a way that can be explained to us in our current state of knowledge. Sort of like God's overall answer to Job--"You wouldn't understand me if I told you."
I think it was Lewis who pointed out that we are living in a "historical period," like all the various "periods" of history, and that we too have our pet schemas for understanding the universe around us--which may seem just as laughable to our descendants as the systems of past thinkers do to us today. It's a useful corrective to the way most people seem to think--that we have mostly got things figured out, or even if we haven't, that the things we think we know are in fact correct. Our ancestors thought so too, until new discoveries came to light.
Yes, fair comment. Someone once remarked (possibly on these boards) that Jesus, post-Resurrection, was able to walk through walls, appear in different places almost simultaneously etc. because his body was actually far more real IYSWIM than everything else...
The Assumption.
Well Jesus's physical body went somewhere at the Ascension. I had it explained to me that what Mary got is what we will get. Take it or leave it. Seems fair enough to me.
The thing about RCs is that we are the opposite of monolithic. A lot of the outward expression is culturally conditioned. And popular piety and even political inclinations will influence what you see in churches.
Co-redemptrix has never been official dogma. Pope Francis wrote this "Faithful to her Master, who is her Son, the only Redeemer, she never wanted to take anything from her Son for herself. She never presented herself as a co-redeemer. No, she was a disciple."
Sure.
The Orthodox aren't monolithic either but whilst we might have a go at 'the Latins' for over-egging things and ratcheting some aspects up to a tighter degree than we do ourselves, there are things we tend to 'standardise' and regulate more rigorously.
Iconography is one of those.
It's something of a standard canard to dismiss icky Russian or Romanian icons as the result of nefarious Jesuit infiltration or Austro-Hungarian influence.
If anything's wrong, blame 'The West'. 😉
I stubbed my toe today. It's that dang filioque clause's fault.
But RCs not lighting candles nor invoking the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary / Our Lady / The Theotokos is a new one on me.
I do not spend a lot of time worrying about whether something is appropriated or not or whether I ascribe to this doctrine or not. I work out that if Our Lady thinks it is appropriate she will let me know. She seems to have no difficulty with doing that. The first time I sat down to pray while others were saying the rosary, not only was a rosary thrust into my hand but I was asked to lead a decade. From what I know since then that group ain't normally pushy.
I have never lit a candle to a human in church in all of my 75 years. Neither has my wife as far as I know. It's just not something that happens very much around here. I have never seen more than a couple of tea lights lit in our place. Often by kiddies encouraged by adult relatives, going "aaah!"
But I dare say it is more common in Latin countries. Cultural, innit.
Actually in Italy one doesn't normally like a candle but rather press a button which lights up an electric candle.
That's not to say that there are no churches where one can actually light a taper of some sort, but they are very uncommon.
Real candles on the altars ,of course.
Plenty of candles lit around St Obscures, and last I looked we were not anywhere particularly close to the mediterean. Indeed I did a quick calc a could of weeks ago and about 150 per week spread between the shrines seems about right, with perhaps 75 on a Sunday and the rest through the week.
I do not spend a lot of time worrying about whether something is appropriated or not or whether I ascribe to this doctrine or not. I work out that if Our Lady thinks it is appropriate she will let me know. She seems to have no difficulty with doing that. The first time I sat down to pray while others were saying the rosary, not only was a rosary thrust into my hand but I was asked to lead a decade. From what I know since then that group ain't normally pushy.
Hi @Jengie Jon may I ask how this fitted into your ircc URC background?
Plenty of candles lit around St Obscures, and last I looked we were not anywhere particularly close to the mediterean. Indeed I did a quick calc a could of weeks ago and about 150 per week spread between the shrines seems about right, with perhaps 75 on a Sunday and the rest through the week.
People lit candles at the basilica in Edmonton Canada, aka The Gateway To The North. There's some contribution to the Catholic culture from Italians, Filipinos etc, but historically, heavier on Ukrainians, French Canadians and other "northern" groupings.
Plenty of candles lit around St Obscures, and last I looked we were not anywhere particularly close to the mediterean. Indeed I did a quick calc a could of weeks ago and about 150 per week spread between the shrines seems about right, with perhaps 75 on a Sunday and the rest through the week.
What @Alan29 originally said about looking up the biography of the saint etc. Is very much where I'm at and I'm a proddy prot who wants to be standing in the big tradition
Thank you @Gamma Gamaliel and @Lamb Chopped for some of the things you've said since my previous post. They make sense to me.
The post, though, that has really intrigued me is @Jengie Jon's because I know you come originally from an even proddier background than me. What intrigues me is that clearly for you this is a real relationship, something founded on spiritual content and meaning rather than just going along with something because it's what Anglo-Catholics do, and because it's a Roman sort of thing, a bit theatrical and something that gets up proddy noses, which is something I have often felt uncomfortable about some piety from that end of the CofE - it sort of goes with gin and fussing about lacey vestments - what P. G. Woodhouse was taking the mickey out of when he referred to 'too many orphreys on his chasuble'.
I think it's the word 'pragmatic' that hints for me of the difference. This is probably a bit of an ask, particularly as it may be something that it's difficult to put into words, but could you say a little more about what it means for you and how? If you feel you'd rather not, I'd quite understand.
Our Place doesn't get through quite as many candles as St Obscure's, but Madam Sacristan is usually busy on a Saturday morning clearing away the dead tea-lights used at the previous Sunday and weekday services, and refilling the stands.
There are candle stands in front of the large statue of Our Lady, another in front of our Patron, and others (a bit smaller) in front of Our Lady of Walsingham, and in our All Souls chapel.
Altar candles were those horrid oil-filled things, until Madam S took over from her predecessor, and immediately replaced them with Proper Wax Candles.
Candles are pretty important for us. We had a mission parish service in a rural community hall yesterday, and 3 large candle stands (two somewhat like this, one a bit simpler...) were transported there -- as well as all the other liturgical items. The Anglican parish I went to for Christmas Eve had a sandbox for candles to the left of the church just before the altar area (unaware if this has a name...)
I completely accept the Orthodox teaching on Mary (I wouldn't have moved across if I didn't...note this is for me, I am not judging anyone, particularly anyone here who may have concerns around their own tradition; my thoughts on where I am in my own tradition are mine and mine alone and for me alone) but she does not feature greatly in my own piety. I have my moments of devotion, I am fine with the flowery language, I can explain why I believe what I do, but I feel more of a connection to others, such as St Mary of Egypt, my Saint, John Climacus... I wish in some sense I had more of a connection, because I do see her as very important (no doubt the fundamentalist church of my youth has left residues in many areas...not just theologically): perhaps I need to press a bit more, or perhaps I just plough on... The priest who received me did not turn me away, so I am somewhat comfortable in where I am, with a hope for a possible future change.
@Alan29 like @Climacus I wouldn't want to sit in judgement on anyone's practices but by lighting a candle and placing it in a sandbox before an icon of the Theotokos doesn't imply that I don't think of her as 'human.'
Anymore than when I light a candle to commemorate my late wife or my mother, mother in law or anyone else I want to remember.
I'm not saying my wife or any other departed relatives or friends weren't human by doing that.
You seemed to imply that by lighting a candle we are somehow denying Mary's humanity.
I know there are cultural differences and so on within the RCC but even if I find the interior of a Catholic church rather florid for my tastes - not all of them of course - I'll still light a candle or a T-light in them if there's opportunity to do so. Same in Anglican churches where they have that facility.
Your mileage may vary as they say here.
@Twangist sure, reading the biography or hagiography of the Saint (or saint) is a cool thing to do. I'll do that as well. It's one of my both/and things.
I'd also come up with some kind of mark of respect if I visited somewhere associated with John Wesley or William Booth or George Fox or Bishop Lancelot Andrewes or whoever else from one of the Protestant traditions. Indeed I seem to remember thanking God for the ministry of Lancelot Andrewes beside his monument or effigy in Southwark Cathedral.
There are some RC and Anglo-Catholic practices that give me pause. I'm uncomfortable with Benediction and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, for instance.
Oh, on the subject of discomfort, @Stetson, the 'clothed Madonnas' I referred to were those statues with clothes on like giant dolls. I find them creepy.
Nowadays venerating icons, lighting candles and using prayer ropes - not as complicated as rosaries - feels like second nature.
These things are quite regulated and ritualised in Orthodox circles of course but that doesn't mean they become entirely automatic.
As an aside, I've often wondered why charismatic evangelicals, for instance, can go in for hand-raising, swaying and other ritualised and symbolic actions - such as what I call 'spiritual gurning' - yet will freak out if someone crosses themselves or venerates an icon.
At any rate, candles or T-lights can be found in open evangelical or post-evangelical congregations these days. I know of Baptist churches where there'll be more T-lights than at the RC parish nearby.
But we are getting into 'externals' now, but physical actions and paraphernalia - be it processions, platform worship bands and drum kits or iconography, statuary or whatever else all communicate something of our 'inner' dispositions or beliefs.
If it’s a resurrection body (like Jesus’) then it most certainly is physical with bones, blood etc. Jesus made a huge big deal of that exact point when he came to his disciples.
<snip>
So he did, but I can't quite get my head around the idea of a physical body in a physical heaven...
Sorry if I'm getting tangential, but just where is this physical milieu, which contains Jesus and Mary?
I try to keep in mind that we know very little about the structure of reality--it wasn't that long ago that we figured out the earth went round the sun!--and so when someone asks where a physical body can be located other than earth, my working assumption is that God has that handled--but probably not in a way that can be explained to us in our current state of knowledge. Sort of like God's overall answer to Job--"You wouldn't understand me if I told you."
I think it was Lewis who pointed out that we are living in a "historical period," like all the various "periods" of history, and that we too have our pet schemas for understanding the universe around us--which may seem just as laughable to our descendants as the systems of past thinkers do to us today. It's a useful corrective to the way most people seem to think--that we have mostly got things figured out, or even if we haven't, that the things we think we know are in fact correct. Our ancestors thought so too, until new discoveries came to light.
Yes, fair comment. Someone once remarked (possibly on these boards) that Jesus, post-Resurrection, was able to walk through walls, appear in different places almost simultaneously etc. because his body was actually far more real IYSWIM than everything else...
As an aside, I've often wondered why charismatic evangelicals, for instance, can go in for hand-raising, swaying and other ritualised and symbolic actions - such as what I call 'spiritual gurning' - yet will freak out if someone crosses themselves or venerates an icon.
High-Candle Catholicism vs. Backwoods Pentecostalism is definitely one of those "Let them fight" situations for me. So, having established that perverse claim to objectivity...
I suspect the distinction for the penties would be that their holy rolling is inspired directly by the Holy Spirt, whereas Catholic ritualism comes from mortal-written texts containing cultural influences seemingly quite alien to those which produced the Bible.
Ultimately we are all part of the one family of God who is the 'creator of all things visible and invisible'.
As in every family there are people who are more interested in the history of the family and there are those who like to know all the details and share them with others.
Separated in time and space, in language and culture we have to try to keep the family together and recognise the value in that.
As an aside, I've often wondered why charismatic evangelicals, for instance, can go in for hand-raising, swaying and other ritualised and symbolic actions - such as what I call 'spiritual gurning' - yet will freak out if someone crosses themselves or venerates an icon.
High-Candle Catholicism vs. Backwoods Pentecostalism is definitely one of those "Let them fight" situations for me. So, having established that perverse claim to objectivity...
I suspect the distinction for the penties would be that their holy rolling is inspired directly by the Holy Spirt, whereas Catholic ritualism comes from mortal-written texts containing cultural influences seemingly quite alien to those which produced the Bible.
Sure. Whereas the reality, of course, is whether we holy-roll or light candles or sit in a pew being preached at, it's all culturally conditioned.
Which doesn't mean that God the Holy Spirit doesn't work in and through all that.
AS a former member of the Plymouth Brethren (a kindly, gentle sect, BTW) who eschewd all what we deemed as idolatory, I found this poem wonderfully helpful in understaning where my dear Catholic brothers and sisters were coming from:
@Gamma Gamaliel you seem to have misunderstood my meaning, or more likely I wasn't very clear. I was trying to make a distinction between altar candles which are connected to the divine and candles in front of statues. And I'm a kind of a one Mediator person, so I can't imagine why prayer to saints is necessary.
I judge nobody. We each have our own ways of expressing faith. We are diverse and that diversity is an aspect of the limitless creativity of the Creator.
Ultimately we are all part of the one family of God who is the 'creator of all things visible and invisible'.
As in every family there are people who are more interested in the history of the family and there are those who like to know all the details and share them with others.
Separated in time and space, in language and culture we have to try to keep the family together and recognise the value in that.
Treating "family" as metaphor, sometimes it's appropriate for families to break up and go their own way.
Sorry @Alan29, I don't wish to offend and am conscious that my puzzlement at your position on these things may topple over from bewilderment to implicit criticism.
If so, I apologise if I have caused any offence.
It may be that I am making assumptions about the RCC based on my own experience within Orthodoxy where we do similar things to yourselves but in different ways.
On the use of candles, there's a general protocol, with some regional variations, governing their use and the sequence in which we light them when we enter church for a service. It has never occurred to me to make a distinction between those lit before icons or to commemorate departed loved ones and those 'lamps' before the iconostasis or around the altar.
This may sound counter-intuitive given that much of the 'action' in an Orthodox service goes on behind a screen as it were - but perhaps it's because I've learned to 'read' what's going on and can interpret the symbolism and dramaturgy in a way I could only partially do when looking in from the outside.
But, and please don't take this the wrong way, if I visited an RC church tomorrow and lit a T-light before a statue of the Virgin Mary or a Saint, I wouldn't think of it as doing it 'to' the statue as it were, but 'looking through' the statue to the person it represents.
We often speak of icons as 'windows to Heaven.' Technically and theologically speaking, we don't look 'at' an icon but 'through' it to the deeper spiritual reality to which it points.
That's why icons are very stylised and have a kind of tilted perspective. It emphases that we are dealing with spiritual realities as it were. It isn't because the Orthodox can't draw properly.
That's also why we have something of an issue with statues. Orthodox rigourists and zealots might be horrified at my lighting candles or giving a reverent nod towards 'heterodox' iconography or statuary.
But I do it as a mark of respect. 'When in Rome...'
Equally, even though I wouldn't take communion in a non-Orthodox setting (but wish we could all celebrate together), I do go forward for a 'blessing.' Some Orthodox have queried why I do this but I choose to do so. Again, out of respect and to acknowledge the grace of God in whatever setting it might be.
I'm not saying it happens in a 'magical' way but if I venerate an icon of the Theotokos or a Saint I believe that veneration passes on to the original or 'prototype' as it were. Not that I'm saying that veneration is some kind of transmitted 'substance' as it were but if we are talking about 'liturgical time' then yes, past, present and future are all 'now' and made present in the Liturgy.
The Orthodox believe we are taken up into heaven during the eucharist. Even if our tummies are rumbling and we are thinking about the week ahead. In a different kind of way Calvin thought so too. As do RCs if I understand it correctly.
I thought this was a standard 'Catholic' understanding right across all the more sacramental traditions. I'm rather surprised to find RCs who appear to think differently and who draw such a sharp distinction between what's going on at the altar and what's happening elsewhere in the building.
@Gamma Gamaliel I'm away from home until tomorrow so I will reply when I have access to a proper keyboard more suited to my sausage fingers than this phone.
Plenty of candles lit around St Obscures, and last I looked we were not anywhere particularly close to the mediterean. Indeed I did a quick calc a could of weeks ago and about 150 per week spread between the shrines seems about right, with perhaps 75 on a Sunday and the rest through the week.
But is St. Obscure’s RC or Anglican?
St Obscures is Anglican though you might not know it on entering.
Plenty of candles lit around St Obscures, and last I looked we were not anywhere particularly close to the mediterean. Indeed I did a quick calc a could of weeks ago and about 150 per week spread between the shrines seems about right, with perhaps 75 on a Sunday and the rest through the week.
But is St. Obscure’s RC or Anglican?
St Obscures is Anglican though you might not know it on entering.
Heh! Thanks!
Awhile back, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) published a quarterly (I think?) centered on spirituality. I recall, and still have a copy of, one issue that was devoted to Mary. (See what I did there?) I need to dig it out and take a look at it.
The post, though, that has really intrigued me is @Jengie Jon's because I know you come originally from an even proddier background than me. What intrigues me is that clearly for you this is a real relationship, something founded on spiritual content and meaning rather than just going along with something because it's what Anglo-Catholics do, and because it's a Roman sort of thing, a bit theatrical and something that gets up proddy noses, which is something I have often felt uncomfortable about some piety from that end of the CofE - it sort of goes with gin and fussing about lacey vestments - what P. G. Woodhouse was taking the mickey out of when he referred to 'too many orphreys on his chasuble'.
I think it's the word 'pragmatic' that hints for me of the difference. This is probably a bit of an ask, particularly as it may be something that it's difficult to put into words, but could you say a little more about what it means for you and how? If you feel you'd rather not, I'd quite understand.
It is weird. However, as indicated Marian devotion did not for me start with becoming Catholic (Anglo-Catholic of the spikier kind which is what St Obscures, my local parish church is). It was there already. I do not mean lighting candles, we do that but I light more because I am a sacristan that I do because I am saying a prayer. My choice of place of prayer for a special time before the Blessed Sacrament. That just feels like a place close specially signified as close to God. Rather Marian devotion had practically been woven in to my thought. I would not say I prayed to Mary before I was part of a Catholic congregation, but imaginatively with and through her a lot. Equally, I cannot believe that my father named me, and my father did name me, would have not been aware he was giving his daughter a Marian name and that I was born on a lesser feast day.
So what happened for me was that I found a space where something that was already there was free to be more openly expressed. Intercessory prayer is still light. If I know someone has a particular devotion to Our Lady I will light a candle for them to her, but I am more likely to light a candle for a concern at the Sacred heart than to her. I do see Mary as in someways as gathering the prayers of the church and will use her to take up the prayers of St Obscures and ask her to present them to her son for me.
Oddly enough the one devotion that I will return to is Mary untier of knots but again it is two-way. Though I will pray the novena and ask Mary to untie situation in my life when I am really struggling and she does, yet I am also an 'untier of knots' both literally and figuratively in the church.
Basically she is on of the saints who chose me, I do have at least two others. I did not go looking for them, they came to me and they have been good to me.
It feels weird to me to going into gushing eulogies or to treat saints as if when you do some religious devotion then they owe you something. They are part of the Church Catholic, people like us, open to friendship with other saints and desiring of the growth of God's grace on Earth. I cannot constrain them to do my will but so often they have come to my aid and I try to remember to thank them when they do.
That all makes sense to me, @Jengie Jon even though I find some forms of Anglo-Catholic and RC devotion rather a fiddle-faddle.
It may sound counter-intuitive but I find Orthodox practices a lot simpler, although we can get het up about doing things in particular ways.
But in essence, I'm with you. I don't feel that I pray 'to' the Saints but with them.
It's not that I expect to see visions or receive 'messages' and so on but I do feel particularly 'close' to St Philip the Apostle (my patron), St David of Wales (who else?) and, increasingly, St Luke the Evangelist.
Somebody gave me an icon of him that they bought on holiday in Greece and didn't want. So he's in my living room with the other two. So I live with these guys. I ask them to pray for me.
As with the Mary stuff, if I can put it that way, it's all about the Next World as it were seeping into this one. There's a percolation process.
I get why Protestant Christians don't get it and I don't think they are 'diminished' because of that. They lead more godly lives than I do.
These things can be over-done. They can be over-egged.
But ultimately it's about that sense of connection across time and beyond time, the intersection of time and eternity.
Thank you for sharing that, Jengie; I found it beautiful to read. I can identify with 'Saints coming to me' and the "friendship" -- in my case a Patron Saint who explicitly wrote he struggled with something I do ("insensibility"), which gives me hope that is he could lead the life he did there may be hope for me (and I look to the living around me, the "ordinary Saints", in the same way -- the single mother slogging it out multiple jobs, demanding jobs, to care for her children, the parents who keep vigil not in church but over their sick children at night.., for instance: not in a Calendar, but known and loved by God, and known, thanks be to God, by me).
I can't help thinking about a close friend of mine, who is really a sister to me in all but blood. We knew we had passed a major turning point in that relationship when she had an emergency involving her family. Without asking me--she couldn't--she committed me to handling transport and other issues around a hospitalization. Later I did much the same in reverse by basically moving into her home during an emergency of my own, along with my infant. Neither of us would have ever dreamed of imposing on a friend that way, without asking; but when the need hit, we both committed the other person without asking and without stressing about it, and the other one accepted the burden and felt glad to have been trusted so. That's how we knew we were past friendship and into family.
Which leads me to wonder just what kind of relationship Mary had with God, to be "told" and not asked. Was she so close to him that he knew he didn't need to ask?
This is helpful. Thank you. Couching the matter in terms of the sort of relationship that Mary might have had with God and making the analogy to a kind of friendship makes a lot of sense to me.
I once drew the short straw, and had to give the homily at Mass on the Sunday nearest The Assumption (15th August).
I was complimented afterwards on my skill in preaching about a subject in which I did not believe...
Seriously, though, it's the assumption of soul and body that I jib at - so heaven is a physical place? Where, exactly?
Granted, I'm probably missing something important here, but...
Well, Jesus has a body and is in heaven per the Creed, and per the Creed we all will have bodies at some point after death. I think the idea is that Mary got a head start and doesn’t have to wait for the resurrection of the dead.
I once said, Jesus is a good Jewish boy to his mother. If a good Jewish boy had the power to raise the dead into heaven, there is no question he would do it to his own mother.
I look at the saints as older brothers and sisters. I haven’t been able to approach Mary as mother. I hope someday I can.
I tread carefully here, as I know from what you've shared before that your family relationships were troubled as you were growing up.
We've had threads before about the issues there might be in relating to God as 'Father'.
Now it seems we might have discussions about issues involved in seeing Mary as 'mother'.
I can only speak for myself. I regard Mary as the 'Mother of the Church' as it were, the Mother of us all. But - and I'm treading carefully again - I don't tend to couch that in sentimental or 'mumsy-wumsie' terms if I can put it that way. I'm not suggesting that you want to couch it those terms either.
I remember seeing an interview with the late John Tavener the composer. He became Orthodox of course, although he didn't always have a smooth relationship with the Church.
He said how he felt very moved whenever he saw an icon of the Theotokos with the infant Christ. I can't say I get an 'emotional' reaction, it's more a sense of sober reverence and awe. That's partly, I think, and as I've alluded to several times on this thread, because we Orthodox don't tend to go in for iconography and depictions that tug at the heart-strings in an obvious way.
Which is why, with all due respect to our RC and Anglo-Catholic sisters and brothers, I favour our iconography over theirs. I have no particular beef about statues in theory, but in practice they can be somewhat icky, creepy or sentimental - and many 2-D Catholic depictions can topple that way too.
I'm not saying I'm like Spock and lacking in what used to be called the 'religious affections.' Far from it. I still have the hwyl and can be very moved by hymnody, poetry, music, preaching and practices associated with all the Christian traditions I'm most familiar with.
As @Lamb Chopped has wisely said on previous occasions, a lack of an emotional 'hit' doesn't in any way devalue or diminish anyone's connection with the divine. I've mentioned the RC apologist Ronald Knox before. He claimed never to have had any kind of religious 'experience'.
I do believe in the 'affective' aspects of religious expression, but am wary of trying to marshall or drum up some kind of emotional response or inculcate particular 'feelings' or reactions.
Tavener also wryly cited a monk he'd come across who wrote very lovey-dovey and almost erotic poetry addressed to the Virgin Mary. 'You wouldn't get a Catholic writing stuff like that!' he quipped.
I'm not so sure that's the case, but at the risk of sounding po-faced and Puritanical, it's another area where we need to tread carefully, notwithstanding Donne and the Metaphysicals.
@Gamma Gamaliel I'm away from home until tomorrow so I will reply when I have access to a proper keyboard more suited to my sausage fingers than this phone.
Back home.
On candles, we have no protocol at all. Except that people nowadays wouldn't light them during Mass as they did in the old days of Latin when the Eucharist was what the clergy did while the people got on with their private devotions, lighting candles, saying the rosary etc. I don't think anyone imagines they are praying to statues when they have a word with the saint. They are seen like family photos, nothing more (apart from those places where they parade them round the streets as a tourist attraction.)
We are a diverse lot and there is room for cultural variation. I remember chatting to a priest who had visited a sister parish in West Africa who was non-plussed when the offertory was brought up by some bare-breasted young women. You certainly wouldn't see that in Tunbridge Wells!
I heartily concur with the Orthodox preference for icons over statues. Some of the stuff you see is totally unworthy. But my personal religion is not very emotional. In fairness there has been a massive clear out of tat since Vatican 2.
Maria Woerth,Maria Gail,Maria Saal,Maria Rain,Maria Lussari,Maria Luggau,Maria Dreieichen, Maria Taferl,Maria Potsch are just a random selection of Marian pilgrimage churches in Austria,almost all of them having as a focus of devotion a 'Gnadenbild' (holy picture)
They are not on any big tourist route but almost anyone passing them would go in.
My very favourite pilgrimage church of this type is Maria Plain, a beautiful church on the Plainberg (hill) just outside of Salzburg It is often said that when the icon was given a two dimensional crown (as happens sometimes for Orthodox icons,I think) that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote for this ceremony the 'Coronation' Mass.
Just a few weeks ago I visited an old friend in his own home. Usually we meet away from our homes. It was intriguing for me to see in a prominent place on the mantelpiece a musical box clock. As part of the item above the clock was a statue of a lady standing on a hill with a young girl kneeling before her holding a candle. I asked my friend if he knew what this was and he told me it was a musical box which he kept as a memento of his grandmother who had played a large part in his life after his father had died in 1943 at the Battle of Monte Cassino.
Underneath the clock face were inscribed two large letters N D. Again when I asked him what this was he said he didn't know.
If you wound up the musical box it played what I would know as the Lourdes hymn.
I found it fascinating that he saw this as a very personal possession with which he had often played as a child, while I saw it as a souvenir of a visit to the shrine of Notre Dame de Lourdes.
I followed a big statue of the Virgin Mary around the streets of a town in Northern Portugal last May. The crowd were almost exclusively locals as all the tourists were sat in restaurants or bars in the city centre oblivious to the procession.
I mentioned it to a few tourists the next day and none were aware it'd been going on.
I've had similar experiences on localised Saints' days in Spain.
What struck me this time was how sober and unemotional it was and how, although there was a sizeable crowd, it wasn't as large as one might have expected given the size of the town.
Really, @Alan29, I'm surprised you're still an RC. If I were RC and thought like you I'd have crossed the Thames or climbed the Alps to Geneva long before now ... 😉
Although Shipmates of a certain vintage will remember how long I sat on the fence before I became Orthodox and how calloused was my arse.
Really, @Alan29, I'm surprised you're still an RC. If I were RC and thought like you I'd have crossed the Thames or climbed the Alps to Geneva long before now ... 😉
I think @Alan29 might have had the same sorta Catholic upbringing that I did, at that minimalist, low-candle suburban church in western Canada. (Upon hearing an explication of my prefered ecclesiastical style, a friend once opined "Ah, so you're a roundhead.")
And I can say with assurance that, if I still believed in Catholic theology, I would remain within the Roman fold, regardless of my distaste for what is considered standard Catholic aesthetics.
Interesting. I once quipped to an RC priest whether anyone who converted to Catholicism has to undergo a good taste bypass operation.
He took it in good part and told me that many RCs, himself included, had problems with the aesthetic.
I quite like some of the South American RC art. I also like Romanesque architecture and early medieval RC art. It's when it gets to Mannerism and the Baroque that I start getting queasy.
Not with the music though ...
Aesthetics aside, it's genuinely come as a complete surprise to me that some RCs don't do the Marian thing, even in a kind of modified or post-modern kind of way.
Aesthetics aside, it's genuinely come as a complete surprise to me that some RCs don't do the Marian thing, even in a kind of modified or post-modern kind of way.
I'm genuinely stunned.
Back in my days of having broken-English conversations with Koreans on a daily basis, I would occasionally have someone(presumably not Catholic) say the single word "Maria", upon hearing a mention of Catholicism.
So, yeah, the connection between RCism and the Mother of Jesus is a pretty strong one. It wasn't a huge part of my Catholic upbringing, except we used to say the Hail Mary sometimes in Grade 5, but that wasn't enough to impart any sentiments either way about Marian veneration in me, until I was maybe in high school, when I REALLY turned against it.
Many years later, I had a fellow ex-but-still-respectful Catholic friend casually opine "I hate Mary", and knew immediately exactly what she meant.
I look at the saints as older brothers and sisters. I haven’t been able to approach Mary as mother. I hope someday I can.
I tread carefully here, as I know from what you've shared before that your family relationships were troubled as you were growing up.
We've had threads before about the issues there might be in relating to God as 'Father'.
Now it seems we might have discussions about issues involved in seeing Mary as 'mother'.
I can only speak for myself. I regard Mary as the 'Mother of the Church' as it were, the Mother of us all. But - and I'm treading carefully again - I don't tend to couch that in sentimental or 'mumsy-wumsie' terms if I can put it that way. I'm not suggesting that you want to couch it those terms either.
I remember seeing an interview with the late John Tavener the composer. He became Orthodox of course, although he didn't always have a smooth relationship with the Church.
He said how he felt very moved whenever he saw an icon of the Theotokos with the infant Christ. I can't say I get an 'emotional' reaction, it's more a sense of sober reverence and awe. That's partly, I think, and as I've alluded to several times on this thread, because we Orthodox don't tend to go in for iconography and depictions that tug at the heart-strings in an obvious way.
Which is why, with all due respect to our RC and Anglo-Catholic sisters and brothers, I favour our iconography over theirs. I have no particular beef about statues in theory, but in practice they can be somewhat icky, creepy or sentimental - and many 2-D Catholic depictions can topple that way too.
I'm not saying I'm like Spock and lacking in what used to be called the 'religious affections.' Far from it. I still have the hwyl and can be very moved by hymnody, poetry, music, preaching and practices associated with all the Christian traditions I'm most familiar with.
As @Lamb Chopped has wisely said on previous occasions, a lack of an emotional 'hit' doesn't in any way devalue or diminish anyone's connection with the divine. I've mentioned the RC apologist Ronald Knox before. He claimed never to have had any kind of religious 'experience'.
I do believe in the 'affective' aspects of religious expression, but am wary of trying to marshall or drum up some kind of emotional response or inculcate particular 'feelings' or reactions.
Tavener also wryly cited a monk he'd come across who wrote very lovey-dovey and almost erotic poetry addressed to the Virgin Mary. 'You wouldn't get a Catholic writing stuff like that!' he quipped.
I'm not so sure that's the case, but at the risk of sounding po-faced and Puritanical, it's another area where we need to tread carefully, notwithstanding Donne and the Metaphysicals.
No worries—I know this is a defect in me, though I did not choose it, and I trust it shall be healed in either the afterlife or the new Creation, when the time comes. And who knows, maybe sooner than that, as some things have been (or as healing has started with some things, rather). ❤️
Aesthetics aside, it's genuinely come as a complete surprise to me that some RCs don't do the Marian thing, even in a kind of modified or post-modern kind of way.
I'm genuinely stunned.
Back in my days of having broken-English conversations with Koreans on a daily basis, I would occasionally have someone(presumably not Catholic) say the single word "Maria", upon hearing a mention of Catholicism.
So, yeah, the connection between RCism and the Mother of Jesus is a pretty strong one. It wasn't a huge part of my Catholic upbringing, except we used to say the Hail Mary sometimes in Grade 5, but that wasn't enough to impart any sentiments either way about Marian veneration in me, until I was maybe in high school, when I REALLY turned against it.
Many years later, I had a fellow ex-but-still-respectful Catholic friend casually opine "I hate Mary", and knew immediately exactly what she meant.
Well, I didn't grow up RC of course so whilst I find the standard aesthetics troublesome and some of the theological excesses worrying - such as the Immaculate Conception - it doesn't particularly bother me what the RCs get up to.
I tend to see it rather like a tourist might regard a custom in a culture that is recognisable but different from their own.
Comments
Well Jesus's physical body went somewhere at the Ascension. I had it explained to me that what Mary got is what we will get. Take it or leave it. Seems fair enough to me.
The thing about RCs is that we are the opposite of monolithic. A lot of the outward expression is culturally conditioned. And popular piety and even political inclinations will influence what you see in churches.
Co-redemptrix has never been official dogma. Pope Francis wrote this "Faithful to her Master, who is her Son, the only Redeemer, she never wanted to take anything from her Son for herself. She never presented herself as a co-redeemer. No, she was a disciple."
Yes, fair comment. Someone once remarked (possibly on these boards) that Jesus, post-Resurrection, was able to walk through walls, appear in different places almost simultaneously etc. because his body was actually far more real IYSWIM than everything else...
Sure.
The Orthodox aren't monolithic either but whilst we might have a go at 'the Latins' for over-egging things and ratcheting some aspects up to a tighter degree than we do ourselves, there are things we tend to 'standardise' and regulate more rigorously.
Iconography is one of those.
It's something of a standard canard to dismiss icky Russian or Romanian icons as the result of nefarious Jesuit infiltration or Austro-Hungarian influence.
If anything's wrong, blame 'The West'. 😉
I stubbed my toe today. It's that dang filioque clause's fault.
But RCs not lighting candles nor invoking the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary / Our Lady / The Theotokos is a new one on me.
I do:
I do not spend a lot of time worrying about whether something is appropriated or not or whether I ascribe to this doctrine or not. I work out that if Our Lady thinks it is appropriate she will let me know. She seems to have no difficulty with doing that. The first time I sat down to pray while others were saying the rosary, not only was a rosary thrust into my hand but I was asked to lead a decade. From what I know since then that group ain't normally pushy.
But I dare say it is more common in Latin countries. Cultural, innit.
That's not to say that there are no churches where one can actually light a taper of some sort, but they are very uncommon.
Real candles on the altars ,of course.
Hi @Jengie Jon may I ask how this fitted into your ircc URC background?
People lit candles at the basilica in Edmonton Canada, aka The Gateway To The North. There's some contribution to the Catholic culture from Italians, Filipinos etc, but historically, heavier on Ukrainians, French Canadians and other "northern" groupings.
The post, though, that has really intrigued me is @Jengie Jon's because I know you come originally from an even proddier background than me. What intrigues me is that clearly for you this is a real relationship, something founded on spiritual content and meaning rather than just going along with something because it's what Anglo-Catholics do, and because it's a Roman sort of thing, a bit theatrical and something that gets up proddy noses, which is something I have often felt uncomfortable about some piety from that end of the CofE - it sort of goes with gin and fussing about lacey vestments - what P. G. Woodhouse was taking the mickey out of when he referred to 'too many orphreys on his chasuble'.
I think it's the word 'pragmatic' that hints for me of the difference. This is probably a bit of an ask, particularly as it may be something that it's difficult to put into words, but could you say a little more about what it means for you and how? If you feel you'd rather not, I'd quite understand.
There are candle stands in front of the large statue of Our Lady, another in front of our Patron, and others (a bit smaller) in front of Our Lady of Walsingham, and in our All Souls chapel.
Altar candles were those horrid oil-filled things, until Madam S took over from her predecessor, and immediately replaced them with Proper Wax Candles.
We are C of E, by the way.
I completely accept the Orthodox teaching on Mary (I wouldn't have moved across if I didn't...note this is for me, I am not judging anyone, particularly anyone here who may have concerns around their own tradition; my thoughts on where I am in my own tradition are mine and mine alone and for me alone) but she does not feature greatly in my own piety. I have my moments of devotion, I am fine with the flowery language, I can explain why I believe what I do, but I feel more of a connection to others, such as St Mary of Egypt, my Saint, John Climacus... I wish in some sense I had more of a connection, because I do see her as very important (no doubt the fundamentalist church of my youth has left residues in many areas...not just theologically): perhaps I need to press a bit more, or perhaps I just plough on... The priest who received me did not turn me away, so I am somewhat comfortable in where I am, with a hope for a possible future change.
@Alan29 like @Climacus I wouldn't want to sit in judgement on anyone's practices but by lighting a candle and placing it in a sandbox before an icon of the Theotokos doesn't imply that I don't think of her as 'human.'
Anymore than when I light a candle to commemorate my late wife or my mother, mother in law or anyone else I want to remember.
I'm not saying my wife or any other departed relatives or friends weren't human by doing that.
You seemed to imply that by lighting a candle we are somehow denying Mary's humanity.
I know there are cultural differences and so on within the RCC but even if I find the interior of a Catholic church rather florid for my tastes - not all of them of course - I'll still light a candle or a T-light in them if there's opportunity to do so. Same in Anglican churches where they have that facility.
Your mileage may vary as they say here.
@Twangist sure, reading the biography or hagiography of the Saint (or saint) is a cool thing to do. I'll do that as well. It's one of my both/and things.
I'd also come up with some kind of mark of respect if I visited somewhere associated with John Wesley or William Booth or George Fox or Bishop Lancelot Andrewes or whoever else from one of the Protestant traditions. Indeed I seem to remember thanking God for the ministry of Lancelot Andrewes beside his monument or effigy in Southwark Cathedral.
There are some RC and Anglo-Catholic practices that give me pause. I'm uncomfortable with Benediction and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, for instance.
Oh, on the subject of discomfort, @Stetson, the 'clothed Madonnas' I referred to were those statues with clothes on like giant dolls. I find them creepy.
Nowadays venerating icons, lighting candles and using prayer ropes - not as complicated as rosaries - feels like second nature.
These things are quite regulated and ritualised in Orthodox circles of course but that doesn't mean they become entirely automatic.
As an aside, I've often wondered why charismatic evangelicals, for instance, can go in for hand-raising, swaying and other ritualised and symbolic actions - such as what I call 'spiritual gurning' - yet will freak out if someone crosses themselves or venerates an icon.
At any rate, candles or T-lights can be found in open evangelical or post-evangelical congregations these days. I know of Baptist churches where there'll be more T-lights than at the RC parish nearby.
But we are getting into 'externals' now, but physical actions and paraphernalia - be it processions, platform worship bands and drum kits or iconography, statuary or whatever else all communicate something of our 'inner' dispositions or beliefs.
That was likely me, stealing from C. S. Lewis.
High-Candle Catholicism vs. Backwoods Pentecostalism is definitely one of those "Let them fight" situations for me. So, having established that perverse claim to objectivity...
I suspect the distinction for the penties would be that their holy rolling is inspired directly by the Holy Spirt, whereas Catholic ritualism comes from mortal-written texts containing cultural influences seemingly quite alien to those which produced the Bible.
As in every family there are people who are more interested in the history of the family and there are those who like to know all the details and share them with others.
Separated in time and space, in language and culture we have to try to keep the family together and recognise the value in that.
Sure. Whereas the reality, of course, is whether we holy-roll or light candles or sit in a pew being preached at, it's all culturally conditioned.
Which doesn't mean that God the Holy Spirit doesn't work in and through all that.
https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2024/12/29/for-our-lady-of-guadelupe-by-grevel-lindop-9/
I judge nobody. We each have our own ways of expressing faith. We are diverse and that diversity is an aspect of the limitless creativity of the Creator.
Does that mean I shouldn't ask you or anyone else to pray for me?
In the Orthodox Tradition we talk of the 'seamless robe.' Everything is connected with the divine.
So lighting a candle before an icon isn't substantially different to placing one on the altar.
Aren't the people represented by the statues connected with the divine?
Sorry to labour the point but you sound more Protestant than I was in my hot-Proddy days. 😉
If so, I apologise if I have caused any offence.
It may be that I am making assumptions about the RCC based on my own experience within Orthodoxy where we do similar things to yourselves but in different ways.
On the use of candles, there's a general protocol, with some regional variations, governing their use and the sequence in which we light them when we enter church for a service. It has never occurred to me to make a distinction between those lit before icons or to commemorate departed loved ones and those 'lamps' before the iconostasis or around the altar.
This may sound counter-intuitive given that much of the 'action' in an Orthodox service goes on behind a screen as it were - but perhaps it's because I've learned to 'read' what's going on and can interpret the symbolism and dramaturgy in a way I could only partially do when looking in from the outside.
But, and please don't take this the wrong way, if I visited an RC church tomorrow and lit a T-light before a statue of the Virgin Mary or a Saint, I wouldn't think of it as doing it 'to' the statue as it were, but 'looking through' the statue to the person it represents.
We often speak of icons as 'windows to Heaven.' Technically and theologically speaking, we don't look 'at' an icon but 'through' it to the deeper spiritual reality to which it points.
That's why icons are very stylised and have a kind of tilted perspective. It emphases that we are dealing with spiritual realities as it were. It isn't because the Orthodox can't draw properly.
That's also why we have something of an issue with statues. Orthodox rigourists and zealots might be horrified at my lighting candles or giving a reverent nod towards 'heterodox' iconography or statuary.
But I do it as a mark of respect. 'When in Rome...'
Equally, even though I wouldn't take communion in a non-Orthodox setting (but wish we could all celebrate together), I do go forward for a 'blessing.' Some Orthodox have queried why I do this but I choose to do so. Again, out of respect and to acknowledge the grace of God in whatever setting it might be.
I'm not saying it happens in a 'magical' way but if I venerate an icon of the Theotokos or a Saint I believe that veneration passes on to the original or 'prototype' as it were. Not that I'm saying that veneration is some kind of transmitted 'substance' as it were but if we are talking about 'liturgical time' then yes, past, present and future are all 'now' and made present in the Liturgy.
The Orthodox believe we are taken up into heaven during the eucharist. Even if our tummies are rumbling and we are thinking about the week ahead. In a different kind of way Calvin thought so too. As do RCs if I understand it correctly.
I thought this was a standard 'Catholic' understanding right across all the more sacramental traditions. I'm rather surprised to find RCs who appear to think differently and who draw such a sharp distinction between what's going on at the altar and what's happening elsewhere in the building.
St Obscures is Anglican though you might not know it on entering.
Awhile back, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) published a quarterly (I think?) centered on spirituality. I recall, and still have a copy of, one issue that was devoted to Mary. (See what I did there?) I need to dig it out and take a look at it.
It is weird. However, as indicated Marian devotion did not for me start with becoming Catholic (Anglo-Catholic of the spikier kind which is what St Obscures, my local parish church is). It was there already. I do not mean lighting candles, we do that but I light more because I am a sacristan that I do because I am saying a prayer. My choice of place of prayer for a special time before the Blessed Sacrament. That just feels like a place close specially signified as close to God. Rather Marian devotion had practically been woven in to my thought. I would not say I prayed to Mary before I was part of a Catholic congregation, but imaginatively with and through her a lot. Equally, I cannot believe that my father named me, and my father did name me, would have not been aware he was giving his daughter a Marian name and that I was born on a lesser feast day.
So what happened for me was that I found a space where something that was already there was free to be more openly expressed. Intercessory prayer is still light. If I know someone has a particular devotion to Our Lady I will light a candle for them to her, but I am more likely to light a candle for a concern at the Sacred heart than to her. I do see Mary as in someways as gathering the prayers of the church and will use her to take up the prayers of St Obscures and ask her to present them to her son for me.
Oddly enough the one devotion that I will return to is Mary untier of knots but again it is two-way. Though I will pray the novena and ask Mary to untie situation in my life when I am really struggling and she does, yet I am also an 'untier of knots' both literally and figuratively in the church.
Basically she is on of the saints who chose me, I do have at least two others. I did not go looking for them, they came to me and they have been good to me.
It feels weird to me to going into gushing eulogies or to treat saints as if when you do some religious devotion then they owe you something. They are part of the Church Catholic, people like us, open to friendship with other saints and desiring of the growth of God's grace on Earth. I cannot constrain them to do my will but so often they have come to my aid and I try to remember to thank them when they do.
It may sound counter-intuitive but I find Orthodox practices a lot simpler, although we can get het up about doing things in particular ways.
But in essence, I'm with you. I don't feel that I pray 'to' the Saints but with them.
It's not that I expect to see visions or receive 'messages' and so on but I do feel particularly 'close' to St Philip the Apostle (my patron), St David of Wales (who else?) and, increasingly, St Luke the Evangelist.
Somebody gave me an icon of him that they bought on holiday in Greece and didn't want. So he's in my living room with the other two. So I live with these guys. I ask them to pray for me.
As with the Mary stuff, if I can put it that way, it's all about the Next World as it were seeping into this one. There's a percolation process.
I get why Protestant Christians don't get it and I don't think they are 'diminished' because of that. They lead more godly lives than I do.
These things can be over-done. They can be over-egged.
But ultimately it's about that sense of connection across time and beyond time, the intersection of time and eternity.
Eliot again.
This is helpful. Thank you. Couching the matter in terms of the sort of relationship that Mary might have had with God and making the analogy to a kind of friendship makes a lot of sense to me.
I once said, Jesus is a good Jewish boy to his mother. If a good Jewish boy had the power to raise the dead into heaven, there is no question he would do it to his own mother.
I tread carefully here, as I know from what you've shared before that your family relationships were troubled as you were growing up.
We've had threads before about the issues there might be in relating to God as 'Father'.
Now it seems we might have discussions about issues involved in seeing Mary as 'mother'.
I can only speak for myself. I regard Mary as the 'Mother of the Church' as it were, the Mother of us all. But - and I'm treading carefully again - I don't tend to couch that in sentimental or 'mumsy-wumsie' terms if I can put it that way. I'm not suggesting that you want to couch it those terms either.
I remember seeing an interview with the late John Tavener the composer. He became Orthodox of course, although he didn't always have a smooth relationship with the Church.
He said how he felt very moved whenever he saw an icon of the Theotokos with the infant Christ. I can't say I get an 'emotional' reaction, it's more a sense of sober reverence and awe. That's partly, I think, and as I've alluded to several times on this thread, because we Orthodox don't tend to go in for iconography and depictions that tug at the heart-strings in an obvious way.
Which is why, with all due respect to our RC and Anglo-Catholic sisters and brothers, I favour our iconography over theirs. I have no particular beef about statues in theory, but in practice they can be somewhat icky, creepy or sentimental - and many 2-D Catholic depictions can topple that way too.
I'm not saying I'm like Spock and lacking in what used to be called the 'religious affections.' Far from it. I still have the hwyl and can be very moved by hymnody, poetry, music, preaching and practices associated with all the Christian traditions I'm most familiar with.
As @Lamb Chopped has wisely said on previous occasions, a lack of an emotional 'hit' doesn't in any way devalue or diminish anyone's connection with the divine. I've mentioned the RC apologist Ronald Knox before. He claimed never to have had any kind of religious 'experience'.
I do believe in the 'affective' aspects of religious expression, but am wary of trying to marshall or drum up some kind of emotional response or inculcate particular 'feelings' or reactions.
Tavener also wryly cited a monk he'd come across who wrote very lovey-dovey and almost erotic poetry addressed to the Virgin Mary. 'You wouldn't get a Catholic writing stuff like that!' he quipped.
I'm not so sure that's the case, but at the risk of sounding po-faced and Puritanical, it's another area where we need to tread carefully, notwithstanding Donne and the Metaphysicals.
Back home.
On candles, we have no protocol at all. Except that people nowadays wouldn't light them during Mass as they did in the old days of Latin when the Eucharist was what the clergy did while the people got on with their private devotions, lighting candles, saying the rosary etc. I don't think anyone imagines they are praying to statues when they have a word with the saint. They are seen like family photos, nothing more (apart from those places where they parade them round the streets as a tourist attraction.)
We are a diverse lot and there is room for cultural variation. I remember chatting to a priest who had visited a sister parish in West Africa who was non-plussed when the offertory was brought up by some bare-breasted young women. You certainly wouldn't see that in Tunbridge Wells!
I heartily concur with the Orthodox preference for icons over statues. Some of the stuff you see is totally unworthy. But my personal religion is not very emotional. In fairness there has been a massive clear out of tat since Vatican 2.
They are not on any big tourist route but almost anyone passing them would go in.
My very favourite pilgrimage church of this type is Maria Plain, a beautiful church on the Plainberg (hill) just outside of Salzburg It is often said that when the icon was given a two dimensional crown (as happens sometimes for Orthodox icons,I think) that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote for this ceremony the 'Coronation' Mass.
Just a few weeks ago I visited an old friend in his own home. Usually we meet away from our homes. It was intriguing for me to see in a prominent place on the mantelpiece a musical box clock. As part of the item above the clock was a statue of a lady standing on a hill with a young girl kneeling before her holding a candle. I asked my friend if he knew what this was and he told me it was a musical box which he kept as a memento of his grandmother who had played a large part in his life after his father had died in 1943 at the Battle of Monte Cassino.
Underneath the clock face were inscribed two large letters N D. Again when I asked him what this was he said he didn't know.
If you wound up the musical box it played what I would know as the Lourdes hymn.
I found it fascinating that he saw this as a very personal possession with which he had often played as a child, while I saw it as a souvenir of a visit to the shrine of Notre Dame de Lourdes.
I mentioned it to a few tourists the next day and none were aware it'd been going on.
I've had similar experiences on localised Saints' days in Spain.
What struck me this time was how sober and unemotional it was and how, although there was a sizeable crowd, it wasn't as large as one might have expected given the size of the town.
https://youtu.be/7fftjIxNauc?feature=shared
What made you follow it? I would have been heading the opposite way!
Really, @Alan29, I'm surprised you're still an RC. If I were RC and thought like you I'd have crossed the Thames or climbed the Alps to Geneva long before now ... 😉
Although Shipmates of a certain vintage will remember how long I sat on the fence before I became Orthodox and how calloused was my arse.
I think @Alan29 might have had the same sorta Catholic upbringing that I did, at that minimalist, low-candle suburban church in western Canada. (Upon hearing an explication of my prefered ecclesiastical style, a friend once opined "Ah, so you're a roundhead.")
And I can say with assurance that, if I still believed in Catholic theology, I would remain within the Roman fold, regardless of my distaste for what is considered standard Catholic aesthetics.
He took it in good part and told me that many RCs, himself included, had problems with the aesthetic.
I quite like some of the South American RC art. I also like Romanesque architecture and early medieval RC art. It's when it gets to Mannerism and the Baroque that I start getting queasy.
Not with the music though ...
Aesthetics aside, it's genuinely come as a complete surprise to me that some RCs don't do the Marian thing, even in a kind of modified or post-modern kind of way.
I'm genuinely stunned.
Back in my days of having broken-English conversations with Koreans on a daily basis, I would occasionally have someone(presumably not Catholic) say the single word "Maria", upon hearing a mention of Catholicism.
So, yeah, the connection between RCism and the Mother of Jesus is a pretty strong one. It wasn't a huge part of my Catholic upbringing, except we used to say the Hail Mary sometimes in Grade 5, but that wasn't enough to impart any sentiments either way about Marian veneration in me, until I was maybe in high school, when I REALLY turned against it.
Many years later, I had a fellow ex-but-still-respectful Catholic friend casually opine "I hate Mary", and knew immediately exactly what she meant.
No worries—I know this is a defect in me, though I did not choose it, and I trust it shall be healed in either the afterlife or the new Creation, when the time comes. And who knows, maybe sooner than that, as some things have been (or as healing has started with some things, rather). ❤️
Well, I didn't grow up RC of course so whilst I find the standard aesthetics troublesome and some of the theological excesses worrying - such as the Immaculate Conception - it doesn't particularly bother me what the RCs get up to.
I tend to see it rather like a tourist might regard a custom in a culture that is recognisable but different from their own.
I still find the dolls creepy though.