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(The Catholic world marks Mary’s birth on September 8.
BM writer/columnist Tito Genova Valiente wrote about
last week’s remarkable exhibit of Marian images on the
Ateneo campus in Quezon City.)
THE room
of the Alumni Lounge at the Ateneo de Naga High School
was the perfect metaphor for the Marian exhibit held
there last week: the room was much too small for the aim
to reacquaint the believers with this woman named Mary.
The room could not contain as well the daring of Vince
Loiz, who, working under Philip Javier, the subject area
coordinator for Christian Life Education, faced the
logistics nightmare of mounting an exhibit that would
call for a number of Marian images to be transported
from various homes and shrines and into the exhibit
hall. But the exhibit worked.
Vince
Loiz is not your typical santo owner. I would
find out that those who owned the other images in the
exhibit hall were not also typical. They were young,
very young. For the student of culture, it would perhaps
surprise everyone that in the Philippines, a Marian
image and, I suppose, other images, are given as gifts.
Vince got his Nuestra Señora de los Martirez or
Our Lady of the Martyrs as a gift. The image is a regal
depiction of Mary, with a voluminous cape worthy of a
Queen.
Mary the
Mother. Mary the Queen. Mary the Virgin. Mary the co-Redemptrix.
These are varied names that would fulfill the personal
and unique devotions of a believer. Grand names that
encountered their own evolutions and histories. Vince,
true to his being a Marian devotee, recounted to me
stories how certain Orders favored certain names for
Mary. The Jesuits always had their Immaculate
Conception. It was said, Vince was telling me, that some
religious orders were not happy about this iconography
and, in Intramuros, during the Marian procession, some
of them would literally close the main door of their
churches as the image passed.
That was
history. Now, the entire Philippine Island has embraced
the splendor of Marian iconography. The proof was in
that small room. There was Mary the Child, with her
curly hair around which a colorful garland accentuated
the girlish charm. There were the small folksy
interpretations from the collection of Fr. Raymund
Benedict Hizon, S.J., the principal of Ateneo de Naga
High School. One was a Mary with a rotund lower half,
the blue skirt providing a warm lap to Child Jesus.
There was the Mary in terracotta brown, Celtic in
inspiration.
One of
the biggest icons in the hall was Nuestra Señora de
Buena Muerte, or Our Lady of Good Death. I almost
mistook it for a variant of a Dolorosa, the Grieving
Mother. While the Dolorosa always had the Siete Dolores
or the Seven Sorrows depicted by Seven Daggers, the
image of Nuestra Señora de Buena Muerte was really a
Pieta, without the Dead Christ on her lap. Marlon Buena
who shares the interest about and faith in Mary, owns
the image. Was this image the one used during the
funeral procession? I asked Marlon. In some towns in the
Philippines, the Sorrowful Mother is used for funeral
processions. Without the Dead Christ on her lap, the
image haunting and beautiful in sadness, appears to look
down on the coffin below her. It is a powerful icon,
assuring as it is overwhelming in her piety.
The
exhibit lasted until Saturday just in time for the
Marian Youth Camp held in the Ateneo de Manila High
School campus. The activity was a smaller version of the
activities done during World Youth Camp, the latest of
which was held in Australia. Mary and the Youth. Mother
and Children. No metaphors are needed. Just these images
of a woman who was scared one night when a stranger
appeared before her and announced that she would be
Mother of the Savior, and who, as the story of this old,
old faith goes, went up to Heaven, her body uncorrupted.
It is a story of magnificent faith and the beauty of
humility and acceptance all appearing in the different
images that were gathered in that small hall,
overflowing with tradition and story of beliefs. |
