medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
In New Orleans, I believe the common practice is to bury the statue in a vertical position but upside down. Some gift shops sell "burying" statues for that specific purpose. And a nun I knew tossed a statue of S.J. in a glass or vase upside down when her supplications fell on deaf ears. Another howler is the use of an up-ended, half-buried bathtub to serve as a "shrine" for statues of Mary. What was that discussion recently centering on our distance from medieval superstitions? :-))
MG
-- Dennis Martin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
The Miraculous Medal, of course, goes back to St. Catherine Laboure in Paris in 1830.
The more common version I've heard of is burying a statue of St. Joseph. My students asked about this last night in my film course on saints. In the United States at least, this has become something of a yuppie sacramental, known well beyond pious Catholic circles. Sociologically, as I told my students last night, it may reflect the assimilation of nominal Catholics into the mainstream of the culture, with certain customs of this sort being retained as much for their quaintness as out of any genuine belief (or out of desperation in a tight housing market?) even after actual religious practice has all but lapsed. That, at least is my anecdotal reading. It might make a good research topic along the lines of the studies carried out by Robert Orsi and others in sociological religoius studies. Medieval or early modern parallels might be instructive.
Obviously it's easier to bury a Miraculous Medal surreptitiously than to bury a statue of St. Joseph.
A parallel story comes from the life of St. Maximilian Kolbe. He had his eye on a plot of land for the first Marytown (Niepokolanow) in the 1920s or early 1930s in Poland. Unable to afford to buy it, he placed (did not bury,at least according to the account I have heard) a statue of the Blessed Virgin (reflecting his particular devotion--he founded the Militia Immaculatae etc.) The owner of the land, a Prince Drucki-Lebetsky (spelling uncertain) was so takenn by his devotion and belief that he would receive funds to purchase miraculously, that he donated the land.
Dennis Martin
>>> [log in to unmask] 06/25/04 9:24 AM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Although, as you say, Catholic priests (and
> perhaps
> Anglican ones, too) still -- in relatively small ways -- support the
> largely harmless
> remnants of such practices, the practices themselves remain largely
> in oblivion,
> both in the present, and even more so in the past.
> Cheers,
> Jim
It may be of interest that I am sitting in a house purchased for the
Catholic Church by means of a miraculous medal. Fr Bryan, who founded
the parish and built the church, had no house to begin with and lived
in the church tower, with his housekeeper, Nellie Tobin (neither, so
far as I know, was a hunchback). One day Fr Bryan called at the large
Georgian house next door to the church and asked its owner, a doctor,
if he would consider selling it to the church for use as a presbytery.
The good physician received him civilly, but declined to part with his
property, saying that he had lived in Pickering for many years and
would see his time out there. Fr Bryan thanked him for listening to his
request and went his way but, as he went, buried a miraculous medal in
the garden. A few days later the aforesaid G.P. contacted him. Much to
his surprise, he had been offered the chance to move to another
practice and was disposed to accept the offer. Accordingly he sold the
house to Fr Bryan for the then princely sum of £200.
Other people have told me of tossing miraculous medals over the wall of
a methodist chapel, with a view to buying it from them. Possibly, most
learned Jim, you have come across the history of burying amulets or
medallions in order to acquire property. The present miraculous medal
goes back only to the apparitions at Lourdes, but no doubt there were
previous medals with similar properties. What can you tell us?
Bill.
=====
___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - sooooo many all-new ways to express yourself http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
________________________________________________________________
The best thing to hit the Internet in years - NetZero HiSpeed!
Surf the Web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
Only $14.95/ month -visit www.netzero.com to sign up today!
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|