musical interlude of the month

;;;

I am old enough to remember when the USA had May processions to crown the Virgin Mary in the month of May. 

We still do such things here in the Philippines, but are these things still done in the USA, where the liturgists destroyed all the warm and fuzzy folk customs in the name of being modern?

The modern church post Vatican II often frowned on such folk piety, but now the US Catholic bishops are recognizing that this often speaks to the heart more about God's love than dry sermonizing.

All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature's motherhood.

In western Pennsylvania, our church had the weekly novena to Mary for the safety of the men working in the mines and a lot of folks had small shrines to Mary in front of their homes: Something that the sophisticated disdainfully call bathtub madonnas, because some of them buried a bathtub in the ground and placed Mary under the overhanging part to protect the shrine from rain and snow.>

 Photo by Joe Schallan, August 15, 2004.

but don't mock these pious folk too loud in that area: Our next door neighbor, a coal miner with five huskey sons, had a small shrine in front of his house.

Here in the Philippines, it is common for folk to have a small shrine of the grotto with the statue of our Lady of Lourdes in the garden of their homes. 

we also have a table with the statues of the favorite saints inside the bedroom, right next to the photos of our loved ones... and then they often have a picture of DaVinci's last supper in the dining room.

Why not? Because here, Mama Mary, Kuya Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all part of the family.

and indeed, Mama Mary is credited for stopping Marcos the elder from arresting a very Protestant General Ramos when he decided to support Tita Cory Aquino as the winner of the election. Marcos sent in troops from his area of the Philippines to do this, but  thousands of civilians sang hymns to stop the troops.

the troops did not shoot the protesters, and they explained that they saw a "beautiful lady in white"who came up to them and said "Don't shoot my people".

Many believe this was Mama Mary protecting her people.

Much later, Cardinal Sin (yes that's is name) who led the protest was asked about it,and he said: Well, it might have been one of the nuns dressed in white who they saw, but I know all those nuns and none of them are good looking". (This is typical Filipino humor).

In those days of the cold war, the belief was that the US should keep Marcos in power to stop the communists. and the liberation theology types said only a communist take over would help the Philippines.

But apparently prayer and a courageous Tita Cory resulted in a third option: the chaotic democratic country we have today.

the church on the EDSA now has a huge statue of Mary to commemorate the incident, commonly called the ugly Madonna, because it is the ugliest Madonna in the world.

there is another shrine that gets a lot of visits: Our Lady of Bon Voyage. Returning OFW (overseas foreign workers) like my husband usually visit there to thank her for their safety.