I'm With Mary — Let's Punch the Devil in the Face

This post ran in ten years ago but I've never forgotten it. A Catholic friend of mine, who majored in art history, affirms that the medievals had plenty of art showing Mary punching the devil. Excellent! 

My original post is below. Enjoy!

The Blessed Virgin Mary punching the devil (13th century MS, British Library).
Via Gregory Wolfe and Catholic News Agency

I featured this artwork about a month ago. Today I got a complaint that it is not treating Mary reverently enough ... and also that it might be pop art.

For me this shows Mary as a powerful spiritual warrior, especially when I look at the expression on both faces. I'd like to think I could be like that.

I'll be fair. Mary could also be holding a seal of some sort with which she is marking the devil.

Looking around for a proper reference to prove it wasn't pop art I wound up at the Catholic News Agency. The bonus was this wonderful talk by Archbishop Chaput which used it as a springboard to exhort us to be like Mary.

“If we want to reclaim who we are as a Church, if we want to renew the Catholic imagination, we need to begin, in ourselves and in our local parishes, by unplugging our hearts from the assumptions of a culture that still seems familiar but is no longer really ‘ours,’” Archbishop Chaput said.

“This is why Mary – the young Jewish virgin, the loving mother, and the woman who punches the devil in the nose – was, is, and always will be the great defender of the Church,” he added.

Archbishop Chaput addressed the 2016 Bishops’ Symposium at the University of Notre Dame on Wednesday. He spoke on “Remembering Who We Are and the Story We Belong To.”

He began his talk referencing an illustration, reportedly from the Middle Ages, of the Blessed Virgin Mary punching the devil in the nose. “She doesn’t rebuke him. She doesn’t enter into a dialogue with him. She punches the devil in the nose,” he said.

Catholic News Agency

I love that guy. Read the whole thing. It's good medicine.

Hygieia

Hygieia, Great Hall ceiling of the Vienna University, Gustav Klimt

Just because it's so arresting.

How to Cook Without a Book

2000 edition

2018 edition

I bought the original book when it was released. It gave me a lot of good ideas for streamlining and for different combos of things I usually made (such as omelet ingredients, etc.), though I'd been cooking long enough to use the book as a reminder rather than all the time. I recently lent it to a young working mother who likes it.

Then I discovered this newer edition. 

I gave to it my oldest daughter who needs streamlining ideas, especially since she works a full time job and has two little ones. She's delighted with the book and has made several recipes. 

It especially speaks to her generation with some of the ingredient combinations, new cooking ideas (such as one baking sheet roasting all the dinner ingredients), etc. Yet it retains enough of the older information that it is useful to anyone. I mean, pasta sauce is pasta sauce for all right?

This is going to be the book I give to newly married couples and people cooking on their own for the first time. Truly invaluable.

Feast Day — St. Mark the Evangelist

Mark the Evangelist by Il Pordenone

We can get a lot of information about Saint Mark simply by reading the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.

The thing I'm most interested in is that the gospel he wrote actually comes from having been St. Peter's interpreter and going on the road with him. The people asked him to record St. Peter's teachings. No wonder there are such vivid details in it. This is as close as you can get to being straight from the horse's mouth.

.. we find Mark in Rome, this time helping Peter, who refers to him as my son Mark, thereby testifying to a long-standing close relationship. At that time Mark was acting as interpreter for the Prince of the Apostles, and this provided him with a privileged vantage-point which we see reflected in the Gospel he wrote a few years later. Although Saint Mark doesn't provide us with a record of the Master's great discourses, he makes up for it by giving us a particularly vivid description of the events of Jesus' life with his disciples. In his accounts we find ourselves once more in those little towns on the shores of the Sea of Galilee; we can sense the hubbub of the crowds of that follow Jesus, we can almost converse iwth the inhabitants of those places and can contemplate Christ's wonderful deeds and the spontaneous reactions of the Twelve. In a word, we find ourselves witnessing the events of the gospel as if we were actually there in the throng. Though his vivid descriptions the Evangelist manages to imprint on our souls something of the irresistible yet reassuring fascination that Jesus exercised on people, and which the Apostles themselves experienced in their life with the Master. Saint Mark in effect gives us a faithful account of Saint Peter's most intimate recollections of his Master: with the passage of the years his memories had not grown dim, but became ever more profound and perceptive, more penetrating and more fond. It can be said that Mark's message is the living mirror of Saint Peter's preaching.

Saint Jerome tells us that Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, wrote down his gospel at the request of the brethren living in Rome, according to what he had heard Peter preach. And Peter himself, having heard it, approved it with his authority to be read in the Church. This was without doubt Mark's principal mission in life — to transmit Peter's teachings faithfully.

In Conversation with God, Francis Fernandez,
Special Feasts: January - June

Sin and Trampling on People

I've done many things that I thought I would never dare do because they were sins. But I didn't realize then that the consequence of sin is that you have to trample on other people.

Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter

Kristin Lavransdatter was an incredibly rich read during Lent. This quote shows you a little bit of why that is.

Naples Sunrise

Naples Sunrise, taken by Valery at ucumari photography

Simply beautiful for the end of the work week.

Irises

Irises, John Henry Twachtman, 1896

One of my favorite flowers — the Iris.

My Latest Book Crush — The St. Paul Daily Missal

Incorporates the revised English text of the Third Roman Missal and features Scripture readings for cycles A, B, and C for all Sundays and Solemnities and Years I and II for weekdays. Spiritual reflections on the readings, an expanded Treasury of Prayers, and introductions to the liturgical seasons enhance prayerful participation in the liturgy.

The above description may only mean something to Catholics. And this is a seriously Catholic book crush I have going on. I've dabbled with the idea of a missal before but they seemed intimidatingly difficult. Four ribbons? How much flipping around was going to be happening? Year A, B, or C for Sunday - was that going to be hard to find? What about sorting out Year I or II for the daily readings? (See, this is already insanely complicated — and it's the part I understood!)

Also — so expensive! $75!

So for a long time I stuck to Magnificat (until I found out those weren't really the daily readings) or Word Among Us. Both were expensive. Finally I caught on to a bigger reality —  two years of either publication equaled the cost of the missal. Three years in, the book is essentially free by that reckoning. Okay, I read reviews and made my choice for an Easter gift to myself with this version from the Daughters of St. Paul. 

This is a wonderful resource. The readings are all in order of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, followed by Ordinary Time, with a special section for prayers and for the liturgies of the Mass and other special days. It's really easy to follow and find your way through.

I've been getting more out of the readings and am so happy that I bought this excellent book.

Notes on Mark: Table Scraps

Ernest Gustave Girardot,
A Yorkshire-like terrier

MARK 7:24-30
I always was rather shocked by Jesus' apparent attitude toward this woman. For one thing I know that to call someone a dog in the Middle East is a great insult and for him to use it while turning down this poor woman's request is ... well just not the way I think of Jesus acting toward supplicants.

Barclay provides a good answer to this objection, and one that is exactly in line with how Jesus usually acts. I especially like the idea that this actually turned into witty repartee where Jesus was just waiting for the woman to give the right answer so he could say yes. Sometimes, the truth is in the translation!

The story itself must be read with insight. The woman came asking Jesus' help for her daughter. His answer was that it was not right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs...

The dog was not the well-loved guardian that it is today; more commonly it was a symbol of dishonor. To the Greek, the word dog meant a shameless and audacious woman it was used exactly with the connotation that we use the word bitch today. To the Jew it was equally a term of contempt. "Do not give the dogs what is holy." (Matthew 7:6; cp. Philippians 3:2; Revelation 22:15)...

No matter how you look at it, the term dog is an insult. How, then, are we to explain Jesus' use of it here?

1. He did not use the usual word; he used a diminutive word which described, not the wild dogs of the streets, but the little lap-dogs of the house. In Greek, diminutives are characteristically affectionate. Jesus took the sting out of the word.
2. Without a doubt his tone of voice made all the difference. The same word can be a deadly insult and an affectionate address, according to the tone of voice. We can call a man "an old rascal" in a voice of contempt or a voice of affection. Jesus' tone took all the poison out of the word.
3. In any event Jesus did not shut the door. First, he said, the children must be fed; but only first; there is meat left for the household pets. True, Israel had the first offer of the gospel, but only the first; there were others still to come. The woman was a Greek, and the Greeks had a gift of repartee; and she saw at once that Jesus was speaking with a smile. She knew that the door was swinging on its hinges. In those days people did not have either knives or forks or table-napkins. They ate with their hands; they wiped the soiled hands on chunks of bread and then flung the bread away and the house-dogs ate it. So the woman said, "I know the children are fed first, but can't I even get the scraps the children throw away?" And Jesus loved it. Here was a sunny faith that would not take no for an answer, here was a woman with the tragedy of an ill daughter at home and there was still light enough in her heart to reply with a smile. Her faith was tested and her faith was real, and her prayer was answered. Symbolically she stands for the Gentile world which so eagerly seized on the bread of heaven which the Jews rejected and threw away.

The Gospel of Mark
(The Daily Bible Series, rev. ed.)

Barclay's insights above are supplemented by these from Mary Healy.

Jesus' reply expresses his delight with her answer. once can imagine his smile at this lady's chutzpah. Her indomitable faith has moved his heart to accelerate the plan: the "children's bread" is given ahead of schedule to a Gentile. Upon her return home the woman finds her child delivered from the demon. This exorcism is the only work of healing done at a distance in Mark, accenting the efficacy of the woman's faith. In fact, it is one of only two healings at a distance in the Gospels, the other being the cure of the centurion's servant (Matt 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10; see John 4:46-54). Significantly, both involve Gentiles, and both demonstrate remarkable faith, in contrast to the tepid faith Jesus often finds among his own people. His ability to heal by a mere word someone who is not even present is a powerful message for readers of the Gospel: to experience the Lord's power it is not necessary to have seen or touched him as he walked on earth before his resurrection. All that is needed is faith.

Mary Healy, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: The Gospel of Mark

This makes me wonder is my faith strong or lukewarm ... am I expecting enough from God?

===== 

Sources and Notes Index       

Julie and Scott are chased through town by a young Harrison Ford. They would have escaped if Julie didn't have to translate when Scott stopped to get a Coke.

 We can't believe we waited 14 years to discuss Blade Runner! Join us for Episode 377 of A Good Story is Hard to Find.

Mantel Clock

Mantel Clock, about 1789, Clock case attributed to Pierre-Philippe Thomire,
clock movement by Charles-Guillaume Manière. The J. Paul Getty Museum

San Jacinto Day! Remember Goliad! Remember the Alamo!

Veterans of the Battle of San Jacinto at a meeting of the Texas Veterans' Association in Galveston circa 1880. Center row, third from left: Valentine Ignatius Burch of Tyler County, Texas. Center row, second from left: Valentine Burch. Front row, second from right: George Petty of Washington County.

Courtesy the Star of the Republic Museum via the Portal to Texas History.

Via Traces of Texas.

My friend Don never forgets this ... he's the one always reminding me it is San Jacinto Day He has told me many a time:

I try to remember all of these good Texas holidays. They really bring home how unique the state –and future Republic?—truly is. This one is a real holiday, not like Cinco de Mayo. I mean, if you have a holiday to celebrate beating the French, then every day would be a holiday!

Ha! No kidding!

Let's all lift a margarita high to the Texian heroes of the decisive battle of the Texas revolution!