Greetings from the ESBVM in the USA! This is to announce our October 2009 meeting which will be held at Zion Lutheran Church, 2215 Brandywine Lane,  in York, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, 10 October, 2009! (Registration, presentations and lunch, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm / business meeting 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm.)  Rev. Janyce Jorgensen, pastor at Zion Church, will  host the meeting.

Our schedule will include presentations by Dr. Carl Winderl, Professor of Writing at Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, California, who will recount his spiritual journey and share his Marian poetry; Dr. Frank Romance, Vice-President of the ESBVM-USA, who will speak on ”Mary and the Knights of Columbus”;  and a presentation by Sr. Regina Vieyra MGSpS of Immaculate Conception Church / Old St. Mary’s in York, Pennsylvania, on “Blessed Virgin Mary in the Latino tradition.”

The meeting is open to the public and there is no entry fee. Lunceon will be served. A business meeting will follow and all are welcome to attend.

Please contact ESBVM-USA Chapter President Virginia M. Kimball at vkimball@assumption.edu for further information.

The meeting is reached via Harrisburg Internationall Airport (25 minutes away  by car) or Baltimore Washington International Airport (one hour and 15 minutes away by car.) Lodging will be available at Comfort Inn Corporate Gateway (PA 257), 2250 North George Street, York, Pennsylvania 17406 ( Phone 717-699-1919 / Fax 717-864-7209) or Homewood Suites by Hilton, 200 Masonic Drive, York, Pennsylvania, United States 17406 (Tel: 1-717-434-1800   Fax: 1-717-434-1848.)

The new international web site of the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been launched and is in the process of being built and populated with information from the previously existing ESBVM separate sites before the URLs are transferred. The content and URLs of the previous sites – run from the UK and the USA – are in the process of being transferred to this new site hosted on WordPress, and WordPress being a blog platform, the new content will be more timely and will allow interaction between all those who are devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the Unity of the Church, one flock and one shepherd, resonating with our aim to show that, in the Blessed Virgin Mary, Christians of many traditions may find a focus in their search for unity.

This step was taken after the discussions between the Hon Gen Secretary and the USA Branch [traditionally referred to in the ESBVM as a Chapter] at the PAMI Congress in Lourdes in August 2008, which managed to clarify and resolve a number of misunderstandings that had arisen and which had perhaps inadvertently suggested the existence of two parallel societies on the opposite sides of the Atlantic. The ESBVM Council is very pleased that this united website is now being put in place and deeply grateful to Revd Giles Pinnock our ESBVM Website Master and Dr.Virginia Kimball Chair of the USA Chapter who have devoted much time to the resolution of this matter. We are sure that it will serve the promotion and work of the ESBVM internationally in a most helpful and fresh way.

The May 2009 ESBVM USA meeting was held in Walton, New York, a small mountain village in the Catskill mountains. We met at a lovely, historic UCC church. The topic of the day was a discussion on the merits of developing a model for a “Day of reflection and prayer on Mary” in any church who would be interested including Protestant churches. Such days were held at this church in Walton the Fall 2007 and 2008.

At the May ESBVM USA meeting, a panel discussion was held with representatives of the church and ESBVM USA board members. The discussion was taped. It is included here in an audio podcast, with many thanks to audio engineer Pat Gohn who volunteered her time and efforts to make this possible. We invite anyone who listens to provide a comment. Would this be a worthy endeavor for ESBVM USA to do – to develop a model for a day of prayer and reflection for churches to use?

An audio podcast of this forum can be accessed here.

BE PATIENT … it may take five to ten minutes on some computers to load this audiopod.

Member Pat Gohn, who now coordinates a Catholic radio program for women, Among Women graciously volunteered to record and produce this audio podcast. [Be sure to click on image.] We thank her for her many efforts.

ESBVM USA members who participated were Rev. Jennifer Juliano (pastor of the Walton UCC church), Rev. Donald Lacy (Methodist minister and author), Dr. Maura Hearden (Roman Catholic mariologist at DeSales University), Dr. Janyce Jorgensen (Lutheran pastor and professor of ecumenical theology at St. Mary’s Catholic Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland), and Dr. Virginia M. Kimball (Eastern Orthodox.)

If you listen to the audiopod, please comment on the ideas presented. We are most interested in what ESBVM members have to say.