Queen and Mother: Mary as the Embodiment of Mercy in Polish Religiosity, in P. Krasny (ed.) (2016) Maria Mater Misericordiae, Exhibition Catalogue (National Museum in Kraków) (original) (raw)

Mary in Poland: A Polish Master Symbol

[with Cathelijne de Busser], in: Hermkens A-K, Jansen W. and Notermans C. (eds.) (2009) Moved by Mary: The Power of Pilgrimage in the Modern World, 2009

Co-authored with Cathelijne de Busser Published in: Moved by Mary: The Power of Pilgrimage in the Modern World, Edited by Anna-Karina Hermkens, Willy Jansen and Catrien Notermans Marian veneration is deeply rooted in Polish history, culture, and society. Images of Our Lady can be found all over the country, and an estimated seven hundred shrines are devoted to Mary (Datko 2000: 312). In this chapter, we discuss several practices of Marian devotion in Poland and the manner in which Mary empowers people to deal with all kinds of problems in private and public life, both in the past and in present times. We focus on the enduring popularity of Marian veneration in Poland—and more specifically, the veneration of Our Lady of Częstochowa—by classifying Mary as a Polish “master symbol” who seems to “enshrine the major hopes and aspirations of an entire society” (Wolf 1958). Mary as Polish master symbol derives a significant part of her power from her ability to combine and link two different levels: one that refers to the sphere of private religious practices—Mary as mother of individual people—and one that is deeply embedded in the Polish national myth of origin—Mary as queen of the Polish nation.

The Virgin Mary in the narratives of contemporary Catholic and Muslim mothers in Poland

LUD Organ Polskiego Towarzystwa Ludoznawczego i Komitetu Nauk Etnologicznych PAN

In this paper, we demonstrate how the figure of the Virgin Mary functions as an important element of the lived religion of contemporary Catholic and Muslim mothers in Poland. Based on the analysis of in-depth interviews and observational data we argue that the figure of Mary is recognized as a religious ideal and a role model by mothers identifying with both religions. We trace similarities and differences between Catholic and Muslim mothers in their reflexive engagement with ideas, symbols, and prescriptions attached to Mary and discuss how they reinvent the figure and ascribe it with personalised meanings: embrace some of the traditional attributes of Mary, challenge, and contest others, and construct new meanings firmly embedded in their daily life mothering experiences.

Pilgrimage, Partitions, and Patriarchy: Polish Women and the Virgin Mary

Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies, 2016

“We are all born into stories that began long before we arrived, and we become self within their borders.” Marie Tondreau We build our life story incrementally—linking moment to moment, each episode contributing to the construction of our identity. While the tales of the generation before us also play a role, framing our perspective, they sometimes overwhelm the story that is ours to convey. Overshadowed by the dramatic tale of my parents' arranged marriage and twenty-year separation due to the Second World War and its aftermath, I am mining the past for facts and context. In peeling away the layers that comprised their identities, I am revealing my own. Situated within the context of my family's experiences, this paper considers the origins of Poles' reverence of the Virgin Mary and its impact upon Polish women. It suggests that the Polish Catholic hierarchy promoted Mary as protector of the nation, especially during the Partition Period of Poland’s history. They also presented Mary as a feminine role model for women to emulate, defining her as a patient and humble servant while filling the roles of wife and mother. The gendered construction of Mary by theologians is considered, especially her role as mediatrix to God, as well as the self-sacrificing image of the Matka Polka (Mother Poland). Ultimately, the influence of the Church’s messaging—carried over to Polish American women—reveals the dichotomy of suffering yet comfort gleaned in the guise of Marian reverence.

Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary (review)

Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 2011

This is an astonishingly wide-ranging and detailed account of Marian devotion from the time of the early Church to the seventeenth century, with afterthoughts on Mary's significance for the modern world. In twenty-three chapters, Rubin asks how and why Mary emerged from relative obscurity in the Gospels to become a "constant presence" (p. xxi) in European history. Drawing with great sensitivity on a variety of sources-theological and devotional writings, music, poetry, and images-Rubin explores Mary's significance not just for leading churchmen and nobles but also for ordinary laymen and-women. The heart of this book may be its description of the Western European Marian devotion of the Middle Ages, but its chronological and geographical span give it a significance that no more narrowly focused study could possibly have.

Enthroned Above: How Mary is used to justify women’s oppression in the Catholic Church

The purpose of this paper is to identify and examine the ways in which traditional characteristics ascribed to Mary are used to justify women’s oppression in the Catholic Church. By isolating standard Marian attributes, I hope to clarify the differences between the Marian fantasy of what women are, what they should be and what they should aspire to, with a realistic understanding of flesh and blood human females.

Constructing Mary through Pilgrimages: Lived Catholic Mariology in Poland

Religions, 2023

This article presents selected aspects of Marian pilgrimages in the context of lived Catholicism in Poland. Lived Catholic Mariology is a concept introduced in this paper and discussed in terms of the intimate as well as communal relationships people establish with Mary through and in various rituals (e.g., pilgrimages), sites (e.g., shrines) and objects (e.g., images). Links between materializing Mary through images; affective, sensual and corporeal religious experiences; and community bonding are presented. They are discussed by drawing on approaches that refer to material religion, religion as mediation, concepts of sensational forms, and aesthetic formations. When examining the centrality of Marian images in Polish pilgrimage practices, this paper focuses on earlier developments, especially (1) those connected with the growth of Marian shrines during the Counter Reformation period and (2) the role played by traditional and innovative Marian pilgrimages during the Communist period in Poland (1945–1989). The final part of the paper refers to the recent changes connected with political polarization of Polish society, the process of radicalization through right-wing discourses that embrace Marian imagery and pilgrimages, the decline of Roman Catholicism and Catholic practices among Poles, and emerging alternative currents relating to Mary and pilgrimages in religious and secular contexts. Referring to various historical and current examples, this paper proposes seeing pilgrimages through the lived religion approach with a focus on materiality and mediatory dimension of religion.