Mary in Our Life: Atlas of the Names and Titles of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and Their Place in Marian Devotion

By Nicholas Joseph Santoro

Mary In Our Life: An Atlas of the Names and Titles of Mary, The Mother of Jesus, and Their Place in Marian Devotion presents the 1,969 names, titles, and appellations used to identify the Blessed Virgin Mary over the centuries in terms of their history and related events. Within these titles and their history can be seen the official and private attitudes and prejudices of the times; government pressures, conflicts, and interdictions; internal problems within the Catholic Church; and startling examples of dedication, devotion, and piety. Taken together, Marian titles are a real-life story of the Catholic faith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462040223

Nicholas Joseph Santoro

Nicholas J. Santoro lives in Kansas City, Missouri, with his wife. . He is the author of Atlas of the Indian Tribes of North America and The Clash of Cultures (2009); Pivotal Events that Shaped a Nation 1789 - 2000 (2007); America in the 1930s: The Building Years (2007, privately printed); and Atlas of Slavery and Civil Rights (2006); Other works include a treatise The Bent Brothers of New Mexico and Colorado (2008) and Bank Operations Management (1992).

Book preview

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

MARY IN THE LIVES OF THE CONGREGATIONOF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

MARIAN NAMES, TITLES, APPELLATIONS, AND ADVOCATIONS

—Un peu d’histoire—

QUICK REFERENCE LIST TO MARIAN NAMES AND TITLES

KEY WORD INDEX TO MARIAN TITLES

SELECTED NOTES AND SOURCES

INTRODUCTION

Ave Maria Gratia Plena

Devoutly mediating on her [Mary] and contemplating her in the light of the Word made man, the Church reverently penetrates more deeply into the great mystery of the Incarnation and becomes more and more like her spouse. Having entered deeply into the history of salvation, Mary, in a way, unites in her person and re-echoes the most important doctrines of the faith: and when she is the subject of preaching and veneration she prompts the faithful to come to her Son, to his sacrifice and to the love of the Father.¹

Mariology is the area of theology devoted to the study of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, and her place in the daily life of believers in prayer, art, music, and architecture. It is also the study of Christianity as manifested and projected in and through the Blessed Mother throughout the ages. The Blessed Virgin, because she is the Mother of God, has a certain infinite dignity from the infinite good, which is God.²

Roman Catholic Mariology is ongoing and continuing. It is shaped and modified by Church doctrine, Papal encyclicals, and the interplay of human events, official and nonofficial, organized and unorganized. Devotion to Mary, the study of Mariology, and membership in Roman Catholic Marian Movements and Societies grew significantly in the twentieth century.

The purpose of this Atlas is to present the numerous and varied relationships of Mary in our lives and in the lives of our communities, our nations, and the world itself, in other words, the impact of popular Marian devotion past and present, as reflected in her many titles. Thomas A. Thompson, in the Preface to the 1993 report of the Proceedings of the Mariological Society, writes that popular devotions were not usually among the topics given serious theological study. Devotions fell under the broad category of nonliturgical ‘pious exercises,’ not on the same plane with the liturgy and other officially sanctioned practices.³ Nonetheless, he goes on to write, what was not treated in theology classrooms had and continues to have a great influence on the lives of many. This will become abundantly clear in the stories of the Marian titles presented in the following pages.

Marian devotion is universal. Mary by nature is a loving mother, a mother to the Son of her flesh, a mother to the church he represents, and a mother to the communion of believers who constitute the church congregation. As a mother, she assumes many roles. She feeds, teaches, protects, guides, intercedes and nourishes These roles are expressed and brought to life in the many titles assigned to her by her family of believers throughout the world. The focus of her motherhood makes her special and unique, preordained by the free consent of her will to be the beneficiary from God of special privileges—her Immaculate Conception, her freedom from original sin, and her ascent into Heaven.

This book is intended to serve as a comprehensive reference to Mary using her many names and titles as the portal of our acceptance and understanding of Mary and Marian devotion but also a little of the history of the Catholic Church and the impact of religion on society. I have pursued a extended search for those titles, epithets, invocations, appellations, and other words and phrases intended to identify or serve as a form of address for the Blessed Mother of Christ. They are all combined here under the caption name and titles. I would like to be able to claim that my search has been an exhaustive, meaning that I covered every possible nook and cranny. Regretfully, but I cannot. It seems that every turn I made and every avenue I walked produced new Marian name or title. I have no doubt in the world that there are any number of turns yet to make and avenues to walk that I failed to recognize. I can say with confidence that the titles presented in the following pages taken together comprise the vast majority of the Marian titles that have found their way into Christian history. I can also say that the little bit of history that I have provided represents my best efforts to parse the literature, notwithstanding my very limited ability to translate and interpret the many languages of Marian devotion. Regrettably, in many cases, little more is known than the name or title itself. This book contains a total of 1,969 entries. It is no magic number. It is where the counter stopped when I turned the last corner that I was able to identify.

My goal has been to inform and enlighten, not to list every instance where the Blessed Mother’s name appears, even if it were possible. For the purposes of this book, a title, which I refer to the primary title, is a form of address, a salutation, or a means of identification related to specific Marian feast day, shrine, image, patronage, or apparition or associate with a particular religious congregation or organization or the history of a specific local community—in short, whenever popular Marian devotion has been identified. I have attempted to differentiate between common-use appellations and one-time descriptive references. The great majority of Marian titles are known by more than one name. Very often the variants or secondary titles are a function of language. Enumerated within the respective texts are the variants or secondary titles found to reoccur in the literature, and not purely for the sake of translation. On the other hand, in a surprising number of cases, the variants are so different as to appear separate and distinct.

The primary title, whether it be in English, French, Italian or Spanish or other language, is that name or appellation that appeared to me to be the most popularly used, most easily recognized, or most frequently encountered in the literature. In the final analysis, however, selection of the primary title, has been purely subjective. The entries are listed alphabetically; however, because of the commonality of the words, alphabetical order means very little; but there had to be some method. As a consequence, except for the most obvious titles, a Key Word Index has been provided. Every title has at least one key word; most have two or three; and many have more. Mary is venerated throughout the world under the same title. In a number of cases, separate entries have been created where local devotion appeared to warrant individual treatment.

I would like to recognize the kind, patient, and generous assistance of all those individuals, institutions, and organizations that took time to provide responses to my innumerable queries and questions, often fighting through the gauntlet of foreign languages.

Nicholas J. Santoro

Kansas City, Missouri

June 27, 2011

MARY IN THE LIVES OF THE CONGREGATION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Mary and the Church

Joyful Mother, full of gladness, In your arms, your Lord was borne.

Mournful Mother, full of sadness, All your heart with pain was torn.

Glorious Mother, now rewarded, With a crown at Jesus’ hand,

Age to age your name recorded Shall be blest in every land.⁴

The early Church fathers mentioned Mary only rarely and then usually in contrast to Eve, thus the origin of the appellation New Eve. The Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) defined a new Catholic approach to Mary. While warning of the potential for excesses and exaggerations, the Council stated that Mary was deserving of special honor and reverence as Mother of God and Mother of the Redeemer. She was also to be honored as Mother of the Church insofar as she co-operated out of love and embraced God’s saving will with a full heart so that in Augustine’s words ‘there might be borne in the Church the faithful, who are members of Christ their Head.’ Moreover, she was to be hailed, venerated, and invoked, ‘as a preeminent and altogether singular . . . model and excellent example (of the Church) in faith and charity,’ free from all stain of sin and a model of holy virginity and motherhood.⁵ In March 1984, His Holiness Pope John Paul II, in communion with the bishops, consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; and, on October 8, 2000, he entrusted the world and the New Millennium to her Immaculate Heart.

Mary comes most forcefully into the lives of the members of the Congregation of the Church through Church dogmas. Marian dogmas present the infallible teachings of the Church about Mary and her relationship to Jesus Christ. They also praise Mary and, through Mary, the nature and work of her divine Son. At the present time there are four proclaimed Marian dogmas.

• The first Marian dogma is that Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos). The dogma was proclaimed at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Theotokos, meaning God-Bearer, is derived from the Greek Theos (God) and tokos (bearer)—in Latin, Dei Genetrix. This declaration acknowledged Mary’s part in the supremely creative act of Christ’s birth and resolved the ongoing controversy in which the Patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius, held that Mary was the Mother of Christ but not the Mother of God. The dogma of the Theotokos is celebrated annually on January 1, an appropriate date to mark a new beginning.

• The second Marian dogma is that of the Mary’s perpetual Virginity—that Mary was Ever-Virgin, before, during and after the birth of Jesus. The dogma was proclaimed at the Lateran Council in the Pontificate of Martin I in 649.

The Lateran Council declared that Holy, Ever-Virgin and Immaculate Mary [was] really and truly the Mother of God, inasmuch as she, in the fullness of time, and without seed conceived, by the Holy spirit of God, Jesus the Word Himself, Who before all time was born of God the Father, and with integrity brought Him forth, and after His Birth preserved her virginity inviolate . . .⁶

• The third Marian dogma, that of the Immaculate Conception, refers to the birth of Mary herself, a different concept from the Virgin birth of Christ with which it is often confused. On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX proclaimed that Mary, from the moment of her conception, was without sin. A few years later, in the apparitions at Lourdes, Mary declared, I am the Immaculate Conception.

• The fourth dogma, the Assumption of Mary, states that following the death of her mortal body (Dormition), Mary was assumed into heaven body and soul. Although belief in that idea can be traced to the second century of Christianity, and perhaps earlier, it was not until November 1, 1950, that it was proclaimed a dogma of the Church by Pope Pius XII. Mary, however, continues to manifest herself here on earth through her miraculous appearances to the faithful through apparitions.

There is ever-growing support in the Church for a proposed fifth Marian dogma—that of Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix of All Graces, and Advocate. The appellations have been used by many popes over the years, including Pope Leo XIII and Pope John Paul II. The contra argument is that the titles infringe upon the unique role of Christ. (More on these titles in the main section.)

Over the centuries, threats to Marian devotion have come from every direction, secular as well as religious, targeted directly at Mary or wrapped in the attacks on Christianity, on the Church, and on the religious community in general, as well as from public apathy. Both the Western and Eastern churches, however, remained staunch defenders of Mary’s role in redemption while at the same time warring over doctrine and ecclesiastical authority. Up until Nestorius’ fight over Mary as the Theotokos, he had been a staunch defender of the Church and had the fight against Arianism and other heresies. His denial of the dual nature of Christ—i.e . , the nature of God, is often credited with fathering the heresies that followed.

Nearly a thousand years after Nestorius, the Albegesian heresy rose in southern France. Among those called to answer the Albegesians was one Domingo de Guzman of Spain, better known as St. Dominic, who was sent to do battle by Our Lady herself. The Albigenses were a branch of the Catharistic or dualistic movement that explained the universe in terms of the perpetual interaction of two diametrically opposed and coexisting principles, such as good and evil. Earlier, this dualism developed a form of Gnosticism that became known as Manichaeism. This dualism denied Christ the person of God and made earth the only hell for the human soul.⁷

Another heresy, this targeted directly at Mary, was known as Jansenism. Active in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Jansenism challenged Mary’s place in humankind’s road to salvation and her position as the Refuge of Sinners. Adherents of this philosophy contended that the Mother of Christ was helpless to assist those who prayed to her for grace. This lead to a dramatic drop in devotion to Mary.⁸

Mary and the Faithful

Remember, O gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspirited by this confidence, I fly unto you, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother: to thee I come: before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy hear and answer me. Amen.

—Memorare or Prayer of St. Bernard

Recognition of Mary’s special role in the life of the faithful is everywhere. Her place in the minds and hearts of men and women is readily apparent in the ever-increasing number of visitors to her shrines and sanctuaries throughout the world. On April 26, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Square during which he canonized five new saints. One of those saints was the little known St. Nuno de Santa Maria Alvarez Pereira, a lay member of the Portuguese Order of Friars of the Blessed Sacrament. A hero of the Portuguese army in the late 1300s, he abandoned his military profession following the death of his wife. He gave his wealth to a Carmelite monastery and committed his life to serving the poor. He fasted three days a week in Mary’s honor so great was his dedication to the Lady.⁹ In Italy, it was not uncommon for children to be told to go and recite the invocation to Mary, Ave Maria Gratia Plena (Hail Mary, Full of Grace), so many times for their wayward transgressions. Anxious to get back to what they should not have been doing in the first place, they, in turn would often as not run the words into one as Avemariagratiaplena, but nonetheless quickly realized that Mary was part of their lives and the lives of their families.

Out of hope, love, faith or need or all the above, people see here everywhere. Only recently, customers and employees of the Las Palmas restaurant in the town of Calexico on the California-Mexican border were reported seeing the likeness of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the griddle. The griddle has since been placed in a storeroom that was converted into a shrine.¹⁰ Across the country in Springfield, Massachusetts, some claim to see an image of the Virgin in the mineral deposits collected between panes of glass in a hospital window.¹¹ Back in California, in the town of Merced, a man and his son reported seeing the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in a 14-pound caramel-brown and chalkboard black hunk of gneiss, a banded metamorphic rock.¹² Individually and as a group, the faithful continually draw on Mary, especially in times of stress. As her closeness brings strength, so it brings peace. A large stained glass window that fills one entire end of the parish church of Our Lady of the Lake in McCall, Idaho, depicts Mary sitting on a rock with her foot in Payette Lake. The idea behind the image is that Mary is part of the community. The image exudes peace, not just for the parishioners but for all those, Christian and non-Christian alike, who have the opportunity to observe the rendering.¹³

The Cult of Mary

The cult of Mary is driven by a commitment to Mary as the Mother of Jesus Christ and the Mother of the Church and manifests itself in her many titles; in the many shrines established and dedicated in her name; and in her patronage of literally thousands of churches, dioceses, cities, towns, countries, states, trades and businesses throughout the world.¹⁴ Mary, the Blessed Virgin mother of Jesus is counted pre-eminent among the angels and saints and pre-eminent among all humankind. Catholics of the Western and Eastern Churches, both Roman and non-Roman, exalt her. Some Protestants, including certain Anglicans, Methodists and Lutherans, embrace the veneration of Mary and hold to some of the Marian doctrines. Others, especially in the Reformed Tradition, question and even condemn the devotional and doctrinal position of Mary in the Catholic Church. They confuse honor and devotion with worship.¹⁵ This is in contrast to the revered position of Mary in the Islamic religion. While Mary appears only sparingly in the Christian Bible, she is mention several times in the Qur’an, which dates from the first half of the seventh century.¹⁶ And (remember) when the angels said: ‘O Maryam (Mary)! Verily, Allah has chosen you, purified you (from polytheism and disbelief), and chosen you above the women of the ‘Alamin (mankind and jinns) (of her lifetime).’¹⁷ St. Louis, King of France, who was a prisoner of Moslems in the Holy Land, was treated generously, and received a gift, an image of the Holy Virgin, from the hands of the Sultan. The Moslems venerated this image that was later enshrined in Le Puy, France.

Mary comes to the world first as a self-effacing young girl in Nazareth. Her presentment at the temple and her betrothal to Joseph brought no attention outside of the family. Her life, except for a few isolated incidents over the next thirty-plus years from the birth of Jesus to the crucifixion, was played out in the background. Devotion to Mary that began with the apostles, especially St. John and St. Luke the Evangelist, but this was a quiet devotion. With the reign of Charlemagne, Marian devotion grew many times over. By the eleventh century, devotion to Mary had spread through much of the known world, spread by legends, sermons, writings, and especially in the arts.

Devotion to one so reachable fills an emotional, spiritual, and psychological need and through Marian devotion, we acknowledge our participatory role in the ongoing understanding and interpretation of the Christ-event and then pledge ourselves to recognize and honor, however we can, the part that Mary plays in the ongoing event through some form of devotion, so that through the motivation of the devotion we can transform ourselves and the world.¹⁸

Abbot Mathieu Orsini writes of the phenomenon of universal Marian devotion:

Pilgrimages to the Mother of God have lost nothing of their fervour [sic] in Asia, and the Franks [Europeans] are sometimes astonished to meet Turkish women praying devoutly before the tomb of the Blessed Virgin,[ ‘]with the daughters of Sion [sic], the rich women of Armenia, the Greek women from beyond the seas, and the Catholic Arab women. The veneration of the Blessed Virgin among the nations of the East, is not one of those things least striking to travellers [sic]; they find that devotion worthy of notice which submits the destinies of men to the power of a woman, in a land where women are so little valued.’ ¹⁹

Devotion to Mary spread along with Christianity. England claimed itself Mary’s Dowry; the French believed their country Mary’s Kingdom. The Irish included her sweet name in their greetings to one another: God and Mary be with you ! and God and Mary and Patrick be with you !²⁰ The French and Belgians were second to none in placing images of Mary on their street corners and along their roads. The Portuguese passed laws that required men to fast on Saturdays in her honor. With all its churches and shrines to Our Lady, Italians knew their land to be Blessed Mary’s land; and in the East the icons of Mary held a cherished place in private homes and churches.

Explorers, missionaries, and adventures took Christianity and devotion to Mary from the old worlds of Europe, Africa, Eurasia, and the Middle East to the new worlds of the Americas, the sub-continent of India, the Pacific islands, and Asia. Not quite forty years after the fall of Constantinople, Columbus sailed off in his flagship the Santa Maria. By then, the Portuguese had already traveled with Mary down the western cost of Africa, and six years after Columbus reached landfall, Vasco d Gama sailed around the horn and put to shore in India in 1498. One of the first acts of these Portuguese sailors was to build a chapel to Our Lady. By 1542, Saint Francis Xavier was on his way to India. In the Philippines, devotion to Mary reached new heights. In order to fully appreciate these successes, it might be well to first consider challenges, and they were many. For the most part, they all occurred within a very short span of time.

These challenges included the practice of political appointment of church; the religious wars in France and the French Revolution; the War of the Roses in Great Britain; the ascension of the Huguenots; the Protestant Revolt and the break with Rome inspired by Luther and promulgated by Calvin; the Anglican heresy of Henry VIII. They all served to weakened commitment to Mary and to the Church in general. There followed a period of suppression of religious institutions. Into the mix was the Muslim invasion of Spain and the ascension of Muslims to power in Turkey and the Balkans. Exacerbating the situation further were the internal struggles within the church itself, including the great Western or Papal Schism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the suppression of selected religious orders, as in the case of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1773.²¹ The title of Jonathan Wright’s book on the Jesuits speaks for the times, Politics, Intrigue, and Power. The near constant wars over the Papal States alone were enough to decapitate the Church. The fight for the perpetuation of the temporal power of the Pope was a fight best lost. The fight, in blind support of Papal authority, not only brought non-Catholics down on the Church but nearly produced an irreparable split within the Church itself.²²

In the United States, the Church was forced to fight the prejudices carried in the baggage of the early Pilgrims and later groups such as Nihilists; Know Nothings (American Party); and the Ku Klux Klan. The Know Nothings believed that Rome posed a threat to the very foundation of the American way of life. A Catholic conspiracy of papal plot, Know Nothings cried, sought to subvert Americans’ republican institutions and to steal control of government from the hands of native-born Protestants.²³ The Ku Klux Klan, for their part, defined White rule as white Protestant rule, endorsing strict immigration laws particularly targeted against Catholics and Jews.²⁴ Yet, the Church survived, as did devotion to Mary.

Marian Devotion and Its Forms

Pope Paul VI in his 1967 encyclical Signum Magnum (Great Sign) that treats of the meaning and purpose of Marian devotion identified Mary as the Woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under Her feet.²⁵ Devotion to Mary takes the form of prayers and novenas; membership in organizations and associations; pilgrimages; visions and apparitions; shrines, sanctuaries and dedications; and writings, paintings and sculpture. There are hundreds of Marian prayers, some very likely known by only a handful. For the most part, the prayers are the gifts of the saints and the Popes. Many of these prayers are to Mary under a specific title, for example, Prayer to Mater Dolorosa, Prayer to Our Lady of Africa, Prayer to Our Lady of Life, Prayer to Our Lady of Montligeon, Prayer to Our Lady of Olives, Prayer to Our Lady of Pellevoisin, and Prayer to Our Lady of the Harvest, just to name a few. The author of the oldest known prayer to the Blessed Mother is unknown.

We turn to You for protection Holy Mother of God,

listen to our prayers and help us in our needs.

Save us from every danger, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin.²⁶

The most popular Marian prayer is the Hail Mary. Interestingly, to some it is no prayer at all, contending that the Angelic Salutation includes no petition.

Hail Mary, full of grace: the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.²⁷

From the Hail Mary came the Rosary, the perfect Marian prayer. Mary herself told the faithful over and over again, pray the Rosary, and in some cases offered inducements in the form of promises. The Rosary is typically prayed as a meditative practice or as group endeavor or as part of a Rosary Confraternity. Other popular Marian prayers include the Prayer of St. Bernard, better known as Memorare; the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, references to which appear frequently throughout this text; and Marian Novenas, typically nine-day prayer cycles generally associated with a Marian feast day.

In addition to the Rosary Confraternity referred to above, there are a number of confraternities, sodalities, pious unions, and prayer groups that have as their goal is the extension of Marian devotion. Their existence can be traced back to ancient times in Constantinople and Alexandria, Egypt. There were also references of confraternities in the laws of eighth and ninth century France. The first confraternity in the proper sense of the word is said to have been founded in Paris by Bishop Odo who died in 1208. It was under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

One of the most active Marian devotional prayer groups is the Militia of the Immaculata for both the religious and the laity. Founded in Rome in October 1917 by Franciscan Friar Maximilian Kolbe and six companions, it has grown to a membership of over four million in 46 different countries.²⁸ The members dedicate themselves to trying to imitate Mary in their daily lives and in their prayers and to help bring all persons to the greater love Mary Immaculate. The prayer group received full canonical approval by Pope Pius XI in 1926.

Among the strictly lay organizations are the Legion of Mary; the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; the Marist Laity; and the Sodality of Our Lady or Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1936, Karol Wyjtyla (Pope John Paul II) became a member of the Wadowice high school branch of the Marian Sodality devoted to the cult of Mary.²⁹ Among the other popular lay organizations is the Association of the Miraculous Medal with the mission to evangelize the Miraculous Medal message in particular and Catholicism in general.

Scapulars

Numbered among the devotional organizations are the associations or confraternities of the scapulars that offer a unique opportunity to participate in Marian devotion. The word scapular comes from the Latin scapula, meaning shoulder. Originally, it was a garment consisting of two wide, rectangular pieces of material, without sleeves, that slipped over the head. St. Benedict introduced the working apron or scapolare propter opera in the fifth century to protect the monks’ habits during physical work. The original scapular of the Dominican order was made so that it also covered the head as a hood. Over the years, the scapular became a symbol of one’s dedication to God rather than an item of protective clothing and later became a sign of acceptance into the religious community and helped identify members belonging to a particular religious order.

The scapular as it is most commonly referred to today is a sign of membership in a confraternity of lay people and religious devoted to prayer and good works. Each is associated with a particular religious personage or event and linked to a religious order. The majority of the scapulars are associated with devotion to the Blessed Mother. Their origins are often found in Marian apparitions where Our Lady asks for promotion of a particular scapular. Other scapulars are associated with St. Joseph, Saints Dominic and Benedict, and St. Michael the Archangel in addition to the Passion of Christ, the Holy Face, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The wearing of a scapular, first by the religious and later by the lay people, evolved over the years. Originally the scapulars were worn on the outside over one’s clothing or armor. Later, they began to be worn inside their clothing. Thus scapulars became smaller and smaller until today we have two small pieces of cloth, often decorated with an embroidered or painted picture, joined by two ribbons or strings that rest on the shoulders. Although they usually are, the two pieces of cloth need not be of the same size. If not, the larger piece hangs over the breast.

As popularized by the respective religious orders and their related confraternities, the scapulars became a powerful tool for drawing the laity deeper into their own spiritual life and the congregation of the faithful. In most cases, the Church endowed the wearing of the scapular with indulgences and established rules and conditions of investiture. Church authorities also regulate the shape, size, and the method of wearing them. Certain devotional practices associated with the scapulars, for example, kissing the scapular or medal, carry an additional, partial indulgence. The wearing of a medal in lieu of the cloth was approved with conditions in 1910.

Three of the four most well known scapulars are associated with the devotion to Mary. More on the Marian scapulars can be found under the respective titles.

* White Scapular of the Trinitarians of the Holy Trinity. The oldest, it dates back to the year 1198. (A number of scapulars established later also used white cloth.)

* Brown Scapular of Carmelites (Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel). It is arguably the best known and the most revered. It originated in 1251.

* Black Scapular of the Servites of the Blessed Mother of Sorrows (Black Scapular of the Seven Dolours of Mary). It was established in 1255.

Blue Scapular of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It had its origins in the founding the Order of Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary (Conceptionists) in Toledo, Spain, in 1484.

Other Marian scapulars include:

* Scapular of Our Lady the Help of the Sick associated with the Order of St. Camillus (or Camillius) known as the Camillians.

* Scapular of the Mother of Good Counsel associated with the Augustinians.

* Scapular of Our Lady of Ransom associated with the Order of Our Lady of Mercy for the Ransom of Prisoners.

* The Green Scapular of the Immaculate Heart of Mary originated with the Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. (There is also a separate Scapular of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary that owes its origin and spread to the Congregation of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart founded at Antwerp in 1873.)

The scapulars afford the laity the mystical protection of the mantle of the Blessed Mother. By wearing the scapular, the faithful avow to avoid sin and to live in union with God and are ensured of receiving the graces promised by the Blessed Mother and granted by the Church. Although hidden from view under one’s clothing, the scapular is an outward sign of one’s daily striving for holiness.³⁰

Marian Images

. . . [the]compelling ideal of incorruptible beauty—the Virgin . . . [her]image protected every house, church and wayside shrine.³¹

Picturing Mary is a painting by Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi. The image was among those featured in a documentary for public television that examined how Mary has been portrayed in art through the ages. The December 2006 production was made possible in part by the U.S. Bishops’ Catholic Communications Campaign. Marian images appear as originals and reproductions in almost every imaginable size, shape and material from miniatures so small that they could be lost in one’s pocket to mammoth stone edifices overlooking valleys and cites. They portray the Blessed Mother in all manner of poses and dress.

Thousands of glorious images of Mary have been created in portraits, statues, icons, stained glass, drawings, frescos, and mosaics in the two thousand years of Christianity, all to recognize, identify, venerate, contemplate, address, and honor the first disciple. Paintings and drawings are done in pencil, pen, oils, chalk, paints, and water colors on canvas, paper, masonry, woods and other natural and manmade materials—finished or unfinished. They are stylized or traditional, large and small. They are carved from various woods, hard and soft, from white to black and from stone and marble and twisted from malleable metals. Images are written, as in the case of Icons, and embroidered. As desirable as it might be for identification purposes, there is not a one-to-one relationship between title and image. The differences are often a matter of artistic expression. In other cases, the images are completely dissimilar. The images that adorn banners, tapestries, walls, drapes, curtains, flags, every-day clothing, and military uniforms.³²

The men of the Polish Calvary wore breastplates with images of Our Lady throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, and Polish soldiers continued to wear the image of Mary on their battle tunics into the Second World War.³³

. . . Poland’s fate

Is to enter the Battle

As Mary’s Breastplate.

In the thick of the Fight

She succors her Knight,

And Thee, Sweet Fatherland. ³⁴

Seventeenth century North America found the Blessed Mother venerated as intensely and as passionately by a different kind of soldier. Père (Father) Jacques Marquette, Jesuit missionary and explorer of the upper waters of the Mississippi River, never forgot that first and foremost he was a priest and a soldier of Christ; for the Jesuits were God’s soldiers. Father Marquette maintained a fervent devotion to the Mother of God. He prayed to her daily for her intercession and her aid. It was on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception that he received word that he was to accompany Louis Joliet on the exploration of the Mississippi River for France the following year, 1673. Of the time in June 1673 when the party entered the waters that would carry them towards the Mississippi, Marquette wrote: Before we embarked we began all together a fresh novena to the blessed and Immaculate Virgin, promising to say it daily, and placing ourselves and our voyage under her loving care.³⁵

To a large crowd of American Indians at the site of the Jesuit mission on the Illinois prairie a year and a half later, Fr. Marquette unfurled pieces of Chinese taffeta to which were attached four large pictures of the Blessed Virgin. He spoke of faith, of love, and of kindness and offered Easter Sunday mass to the assembled gathering. It was one of his last acts as a priest and missionary. He knew and they knew that he was a dying man. He never preached again. He left the new mission that he had christened the Immaculate Conception. His work would be taken up by another. He died May 18, 1675, at the age of only 38, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan where his body was buried under a simple wooden cross. Two years later, on June 8, 1677, a caravan of Indian canoes escorted his remains to the mission at St. Ignace at Michillimackinac at the northern tip of the strait between Lake Huron on the east and Lake Michigan on the west.

Marian titles and images also appear throughout the secular world. They have no direct religious meaning or connection; yet they reflect both the popularity of Mary and her universality. Hers is arguably the best known and most easily recognized image in human history to believers and non-believers alike. The two principal reasons for her popularity are the works of the Eastern World Icon writers and the Old World Renaissance painters. Mary’s images appear on Christmas and greeting cards, wine labels, stationary, and any number of promotional items.

Mary’s image is by far the most popular subject used for postage stamps throughout the world, not only at Christmas time. One collector has assembled more than 850 stamps from 197 countries and provinces depicting the Blessed Mother.³⁶ The United States Postal Service issues a traditional stamp featuring the Madonna annually during the Christmas season, in recent years, side-by-side with stamps of contemporary design.

Icons (or Ikons)

The icon, popularized in the Eastern Church, is a special form of image, often likened to the stained glass windows common in the West. The word icon (ikon or eikon) derives from the Greek eikón (likeness, image, or figure). Icons, whether they be of Christ, Mary, or the saints, trace their beginnings to the earliest days of the Church. For almost 2,000 years icons have been the object of prayer and contemplation for believers.³⁷ They are venerated as a path to spiritual enlightenment.³⁸ What sets icons apart from other images is the not the subject nor the style in the pure sense of the word but the fact that they are created according to strict standards set by the Church. They are said to be written, not painted. Most often, they have been sanctified and blessed by a priest inside the church.

With the icon, the likeness or artistic representation of the figure is enhanced by the concept of origin—as the son is the image of the father, in the case of the same specific nature, or as a king’s image is embossed on a coin, in the case of something of a different nature.³⁹ It is in this context, one proceeding from another, that an icon in the Byzantine Tradition must be understood. Icons make the Christian world visible to mankind and therefore are often described as Windows into Heaven. In that they imply procession or origin and therefore are of the person, they are regarded as the link between the Church Militant (the living souls on earth) and the Church Triumphant (the Saints in heaven), Christ, the Angels, and the Blessed Mother.⁴⁰

The icon, therefore, is not a picture . . . . The icon is a grace and a life. It is a life that penetrates and purifies and elevates. From the icon emanates a virtue that inspires the faithful with hope and gives him consolation. St. John of Damascus calls it a channel of divine grace, seeming to bestow on the icon an almost sacramental character. In another sense, one can say the icons relationship to the faithful is similar, though certainly not equal to, that of Holy Scripture. It may be for this reason that, in the vocabulary of the Byzantine Tradition, an icon is not painted, but written.⁴¹

Icons developed over the centuries to express the teachings of the Church and the Word as found in Holy Scripture. With the 7th Ecumenical Council, the icon was no longer defined simply as art but rather as a written communication between the icon and Scripture itself. [I]f the [Icon] is shown by [Holy Scripture], [Holy Scripture] is made incontestably clear by the [Icon].⁴² There follows that just as the word of Holy Scripture is an image, so the image is also a word. St. Basil the Great wrote, [I]t is not the material symbol that we are worshipping, but the Creator, Who became corporeal for our sake and assumed our body in order that through it He might save mankind.⁴³

St. Luke the Evangelist is generally credited with being the first iconographer with his image of the Blessed Mother, the Theotokos or Hodigitria Mother of God. It is the same Theotokos that many believe to be the Black Madonna of Czestochowa or Our Lady of Czestochowa. (more on that issue in the section on Mary’s titles). It has also been said, but with far less popular support, that St. Luke was also the creator of the icon Tenderness, also known as Mother of God Tenderness, among others.⁴⁴ Predating the icon or icons of the Holy Mother of God by St. Luke, is an icon of the face of Jesus Christ known as Not-Made-By-Hands Icon (in Greek, Acheiropoietos) that sacred tradition of the Orthodox Church tells was made during His lifetime. The Made-Without-Hands Icon is said to have been given directly to King Akbar’s servant by Jesus himself.⁴⁵

For the first fifteen hundred year, iconographic art was centered about the city of Constantinople. In 1204 at the time of the fourth Crusade, Eastern art suffered a severe setback at the hands of Western soldiers. To the soldiers, the Byzantines were suspect if not out-and-out heretics. They followed practices different from those practiced in the Western church and, most importantly, they did not recognize the Latin Pope in Rome as head of the church. What was not burned or otherwise destroyed was carted off. Artists, threatened and harassed, fled to Russia and the Balkans. Some years later when the Western soldiers withdrew, the artisans slowly began to return to the city, but it was a different city. Constantinople had lost its brilliance, and it never fully recovered. There was a brief resurgence in the arts thanks to the support of wealthy patrons, but the government could barely support itself. The decades of first half of the fifteenth century saw Byzantine art in a state of decline. On May 29, 1453, the city fell to the Ottomans led by Sultan Mehmet II.

By the time of the fall of the city, Eastern art had found a new home in the Muscovite state where it flourished. The golden age of Russian iconography, that is the turning point toward the uniquely Russian style of icon painting, is generally placed in the 12th and early 13th centuries, possibly as late as the year 1411with Andrei Rublev’s Trinity.⁴⁶ (The year 988 is given as the date of the conversion of the people to Christianity.) In contrast to the art from West Europe and the East, few Russian icon painters are known by name, but rather by region and type of icon.

The writing of icons is far from a lost art of early Byzantine and Russian history. Among the later-day writers is a 21st-century Benedictine priest from Conception, Missouri. An avid iconographer, he studied at Mt. Angel Abbey in addition to his theological studies. For Fr. Pachomius Meade, O.S.B . , the process of creating an icon is in itself a spiritual exercise that calls the artist to a state of deep contemplation and fasting. His icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe hangs in Conception Seminary College’s Holy Cross Oratory.⁴⁷

Historically, there are four basic types of icons of the Theotokos (Theotókos—Mother of God):

1. Praying (Orans or Oranta)

This type of image with her arms extended and her hands reaching upwards was first evident in the catacombs of the first Christians. The Theotokos is depicted in a prayerful appeal to God. For the Greeks it was the Panagia or All-holy. The Russians called the image, Our Lady of the Sign.

2. The Guide or Indicator of the Path or She who shows the way (Hodigitria or Odigitria in Italian)

This icon shows the Mother of God with her right hand pointing at the Child, who is seated on her left arm, telling the world that the true path to salvation is Christ. The heads of Christ and His mother do not touch. This is one of the most ancient types of icons and is believed to have originated with the first iconographer. The best known icons of this type are Our Lady of Smolensk, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Our Lady of Iveron, and Madonna di Montevergine.

3. Tender Mercy or Loving Kindness or Love and Mercy" (Eleusa)

The icons of the Tender Mercy type show Christ Child pressing his left cheek against His mother’s right cheek. With the Theotokos representing the Church of Christ, the image displays the love between God and mankind achieved within the bosom of the Church, our Mother. Among the icons of this type, Our Lady of Vladimir is the one most widely known and loved.

4. She who reigns in majesty or All Merciful (Kyriotissa or Panakhranta)

Following the Third Ecumenic Council at Ephesus in 431 we start to see Mother of God sitting solemnly on the throne with the Christ Child sitting on her lap. The throne symbolizes the royal glory of the Mother of God. The best known icons of this type in Russia are the Reigning and Queen of All icons.

A dispute raged for years among Christians over the use of icons in worship. That dispute has come down in history as the Icon Controversy. One the one side were the iconoclasts, those opposed to icons; on the other, the ikonodules, those in favor of icons. The question was whether the veneration of icons that included the kissing of images and the lighting of candles et cetera had reached the level of idolatry. As often happens, the issue was created by extremists on both sides. The controversy erupted in the eighth century when words turned to fire and sword when Emperor Konstantine the Fifth in Constantinople, ignoring ecclesiastical authority, issued an edict in 730 that banned all images. By 843 when the worst had ended, many of the artists had died and others escaped the city. Untold numbers of icons were destroyed. It would be a hundred years or more before new images would rival the earlier works. By that time great political changes were in the offing.

The Black Madonna

Hundreds of images of the Blessed Mother have been categorized as a Black Madonna although relatively few have garnered attention beyond their local environs.⁴⁸ Some of these images are black, some brown, some darkened, and some that would easily pass, for lack of a better word, as white. To many, the title Black Madonna brings to the mind the Virgin of Częstochowa. In fact the two titles have become so intertwined that the expression Black Madonna has become the best known appellation for the Our Lady of Czestochowa. The phenomenon of the black image warrants some discussion.

The pigmentation of a figure in a painting or sculpture is governed by artistic expression, the environment in which the painting hangs or the sculpture stands, and the original materials used, which is often governed by availability. It is also influenced by the skin pigmentation of the model or the person depicted, if known, and any subsequent repairs and restorations that may have been performed.

First of all, it must be recalled that the skin tones of early man and women were brown and black and that those later generations that lived in northern Africa, the Middle East, and the southern Mediterranean had dark complexions. Very early on, the phrase I am very dark, but comely from the Song of Solomon (1:5) became associated with the Blessed Mother. The color of the subject notwithstanding, some writers suggest that color black best expressed the difference between the gods and men. For works of sculpture in wood, stone, and marble, the black color came from the material used such as dark colored hard woods. Woods were also artificially heated to produce a blacked material, and fished sculptures were often painted. As to paintings and drawings, charcoal was used both as an implement and as a coloring agent. For other paintings, color choice was a brush away. The patina formed by the accumulation of soot accounts for the dark coloration of some paintings, but it hardly explains the universality of the black color throughout the East and Western Europe, especially the large number of black images of Our Lady in France.

The earliest concerted use of black material can be traced to the god Isis in Egyptian mythology and the statues of the Chinese gods. Black also appears prominently in the early Greek sculpture that found its way to Sicily and southern Italy (Western Greece or Creci D’Occidente). The natural geographic progression took the style to northern Italy, southern France, and beyond. The total number of black images of the Madonna has been put at between four and five hundred. At one time there were over three hundred Black Madonna sites in France alone. One hundred and fifty of those sites are still in existence.⁴⁹ Many were destroyed during the French Revolution. Trading on the reputation of Our Lady of Czestochowa and other popular black images, the assignment of title Black Madonna appears to grown into nothing more than a marketing strategy. As to the works of St. Luke, it often times seems that half the early paintings of the Madonna have been attributed to his hand.

Marian Apparitions

Apparitions are the most common form of miraculous phenomena known within the Catholic Church. The church has defined three types of apparitions or visions: intellectual, imaginative and corporeal. The intellectual is perception without the presence of a visual object. The imaginative also lacks a visual object, but the imagination creates a visual representation, most typically, during sleep. The third type, corporeal, is the type with which most people are familiar. It registers with the human eye and may produce physical effects. It may be the figure of a person or material object, or it may consist only of an arrangement of rays of light. Apparitions may be public or private, seen by a single individual or by groups of two or more.

There have been more than twenty thousand reported apparition of the Blessed Mother down through recorded history. One of the most famous is that which legend says occurred before she died—her appearance to Saint James in Spain, on which we will hear more later. Miraculous signs are usually associated with these appearances, and many of the titles by which Our Lady is known have their origins in these apparitions. Mary often wears clothing common to the area and the people of the region in which the apparition occurs. More often than not, the seers come from the ranks of the humble, the poor, the young, and the uneducated. Few of the reported apparitions have received the official recognition from the Church, but no one is obliged to believe in an approved apparition as a matter of faith or dogma.

Recognized or not, these stories are enchanting . . . be they legend, myth, folk tale, pure fantasy, or fact—or some combination thereof. Taken together, they present a picture of the Virgin Mary in her many guises.⁵⁰ It is to these guises that we now turn.

MARIAN NAMES, TITLES, APPELLATIONS, AND ADVOCATIONS

—Un peu d’histoire—

Why so many different titles? An insightful Brother of the Franciscan Friars put it simply and succinctly. [E]veryone wants Mary to be his or her Mother. Whatever age, whatever nationality, all see her as a model of Motherhood. Everyone wishes o experience the unconditional love that exists between a mother and her children. By claiming Mary as their own, they share a very special relationship with Our Blessed Mother.⁵¹

ABIGAIL THE WISE

Saint Bonaventure first called the Blessed Mother by the title Abigail the Wise, comparing her efforts for mankind to the Abigail in the Second Book of Samuel whose words always had a mitigating effect on King David. So it is, says St. Bonaventure, that Mary placates the justice of God by the intercession of her prayers.

ABRENMADONNA

The title was established at Salzburg, Austria. The image portrays the Blessed Mother standing dressed in a royal blue gown with gold accents. She is with Child and her hands are clasped in prayer. It is a young, serene face highlighted by a golden halo.

AQUEDUCT

God has filled Mary with all graces so that human beings may receive through her, as through a channel, every good that comes to them.¹

Mary is an aqueduct filled to capacity, that others may receive a constant flow of graces from her fullness. St. Bernard of Clairvaux called Mary an Aqueduct of Divine Grace. In his sermon for the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he wrote: This stream [Christ] from the heavenly source [God the Father] descends to us through an aqueduct [Mary]; . . . The aqueduct itself is always full, so that all may receive of its fullness, yet not the fullness itself . . . . an Aqueduct which, receiving the fullness of the Fountain from the Father’s heart, has transmitted it to us, if not as it is in itself, at least in so far as we could contain it.²

ADJUTRIX

The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church (November 21, 1964) passed during the Second Vatican Council, granted Our Lady the title of Adjutrix (or Adiutricem or Adiutricem populi). The title Adjutrix parallels those of Advocate, Auxiliatrix, and Mediatrix. The denotation of the word Adjutrix is female helper or assistant. When contrasted to the title Auxiliatrix in reference to Mary, Adjutrix is interpreted more as ‘Aid’ with Auxiliatrix interpreted as ‘Helper.’ As Pope Leo XIII put it in his encyclical on the Rosary: The mightiest helper of the Christian people, and the most merciful, is the Virgin Mother of God. How fitting it is to accord her honors ever increasing in splendor, and call upon her aid with a confidence daily growing more ardent. The abundant blessings, infinitely varied and constantly multiplying, which flow from her all over the whole world for the common benefit of mankind, add fresh motives for invoking and honoring her.³

ADVOCATE OF SINNERS

The title is related to those of Mediator and Co-Redemtrix. The title is also known as Advocate of the People of God; Advocate of Eve; and, simply, as Advocate. The title Advocate was granted by the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church (November 21, 1964) passed during the Second Vatican Council. Mary glories in being called the Advocate of Sinners. To Venerable Sister Mary Villani, she declared: After the title of Mother of God, I glory most in being called the Advocate of sinners.⁴

In the year 1654 at Cava de’Tirreni, Italy, tradition says that a painting of Our Lady of this title was removed unharmed from a damp cave after 48 years. Additional variants include Suppliant for Sinners; Hope of Sinners; Refuge of Sinners; and Avocate de Pécheurs. She is also known as The Mother of God, Confidence of Sinners, from the Icon of the same name.

ALBA MADONNA

The title takes its name from the painting The Alba Madonna by Raphael now in Mellon Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The figures include Mary, Christ, and John the Baptist. The setting is a field. The Blessed Mother is sitting on the ground with a book with Christ on her right leg and John on the ground looking up at a small cross held out by Jesus. The title is also known as Madonna di Casa d’Alba.

ALL WONDERFUL MOTHER

The title derives of the reported apparitions of the All Wonderful Mother to twelve-year-old Barbara Reuss at Marienfried, near Pfaffenhofen, Germany, on April 25, May 25 and June 25, 1946. The primary message was that of prayer, sacrifice, praying the Rosary, and the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The title is also known as Our Lady of Marienfried; Mediatrix of Graces; and Sign of the Living God

ALL-HOLY ONE

The title derives from one of the four basic types of icons called the Orans or Oranta, from the Latin for praying. The icon depicts the Blessed Mother usually just from her waist up with her hands opened, palms up, uplifted in prayer. This type of icon is also called Panagia from the Greek, treated separately. In Russian history, the image acquired the name Our Lady of the Sign. For more see the title Our Lady of Novgorod. Panagia is also written as Panaghia and Panayia.

ALMA DE LA VIRGEN

The title is also known as The Soul of the Virgin and The Virgin’s Soul. Doves and roses are common elements in graphic images of this title. It has also been interpreted as The Nourishing One.

AMIABLE MOTHER OF STARKENBURG

In 1847 the first people settled along the Missouri River in an area that came to be known as Rhineland or Loutre Island. They were from Hermann, Missouri. Soon thereafter, the area was named Starkenburg, and the people incorporated the religious traditions from their native Germany.* The small town of Starkenburg quickly became noted for its devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows that began with the veneration of a statue of the Blessed Mother, first in a barn (1847) then in the Church of St. Martin of Tours (1848).

The Germans named the statue Weisse dame or White Lady. The small statue was later replaced by a larger, more elegant statue. In 1888, the new pastor came upon the old, white faded statue of the Blessed Mother and placed it outside in the midst of the flowers of a dogwood bush, created a Mary garden and place of devotion, augmented by a few candles. A log hut was built to protect the Lady from the elements. It was dedicated on feast of the Seven Dolors, April 12, 1889; and a Way of the Cross was erected in the woods.

In 1890, the parish purchased a small statue of the Sorrowful Mother, a replica of the Pieta of Achtermann by an artist of Dusseldorf, Germany. The statue replaced the original White Lady in the Chapel, which was again placed in storage. The reputation of the chapel quickly spread, as did the incoming mail. A new U. S. post office was established that was given the name Starkenburg.

The log chapel caught fire in 1894; and although much of the contents was burned, there was no damage to the statue. The chapel was remodeled and expanded, and plans were made for construction of a new stone chapel. On July 16, 1910, on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a large copper cross was fixed to the steeple of Rhenish-Romanesque style chapel, and on the eve of the Feast of the Assumption, the statue of the Sorrowful Mother was transferred to the side altar.

The White Lady, now painted in colors was draped in a white German robe and placed in a niche above the high altar and consecrated on September 15, 1910, by Archbishop J. J. Glennon of St. Louis. In 1979, the parishes of St. Martin’s at Starkenburg and St. Joseph’s at Rhineland were combined to form the Church of the Risen Savior.

The title is also known as Our Lady of Sorrows (Starkenburg). Also see the titles Our Lady of Sorrows and Sorrowful Mother.

*Starkenburg is a historical region of the state of Hesse in Germany. Starkenburg castle was built above the Lorsch Abbey in 1065 to protect it. In 773, Charlemagne had given the area surrounding the castle to the abbey. The town of Heppenheim grew up around the abbey and the castle and flourished until the late 11th and early 12th centuries that saw the decline of the abbey. In the years 1229 and 1332, the town, the abbey and the castle were placed under the administration of the Archbishops of Mainz. Additional reorganizations followed, and Heppenheim later became Heissian.

ANG BIRHEN SA KASILAK

In the Philippines Our Lady of Light is known as Ang Birhen Sa Kasilak and Nuestra Señora de Kasilak. The Blessed image of the Kasilak has a rich history that dates back to the year 1597 when it was enshrined in a church in Butuan, Agusan del Norte. When the Moro bandits attacked the coastal village of Mindanao, concerned Butuanons sailed north towards Bohol bringing with them the wooden statue of Our Lady. Unfortunately, the Moros were also wreaking