Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary – USA

Meeting October 2, 2010

My Sister’s Place Women’s Center
17 W Franklin St
Baltimore, MD
410.727.3523
www.catholiccharities-md.org/my-sisters-place/msp

9 am Registration, coffee and tea [Those wishing lunch will be given a lunch card
for $10.00 donation (for My Sister’s Place).
Lunchtime shared with women at the center.
Lunch also available at area restaurants. ]

9:15 am Rev. Joshua D. Genig, St. John Lutheran Church, Wheaton, Illinois
“Virgin Mary in the Lutheran Tradition”

10:15 am Report, ESBVM 17th International Congress, Garstang, Lancashire, UK
Other news.

10:30 am “She knew trouble: loneliness, hatred, fear and sorrow; and
Mary was her name.”
Dedicated to the mothers at “My Sister’s Place Women’s Center”
Dr. Virginia Kimball, ESBVM-USA President

11:30 am Break for lunch, to be shared at My Sister’s Place

1 pm [SHARP] Tour of the Basilica of the Assumption, 409 Cathedral Street,
Baltimore, MD [Right next door]

[Tour and day’s events will be concluded at 2 pm.]

The Mariological Society of America invites proposals for its May 17-20, 2011 conference in Scottsdale, Arizona on the Marian dimensions of the evangelization, settlement and development of the territories that are now the USA and Canada. Proposals can cover any period of history from the 16th through the 19th centuries. Issues and questions may be approached from the viewpoint of systematic theology, art, literature, Scripture, popular religiosity, ecclesiastical and/or cultural history.

Some possible topics might include:

• Marian doctrine and devotion among the early missionaries who evangelized and contributed to the establishment and growth of the Catholic Church in the United States and Canada.
• The Marian charisms of particular religious congregations (e.g. The Society of Mary, Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate) and their contributions to Catholic life in the USA and Canada.
• The Marian dimensions of the faith and culture of various ethnic groups in what is now the USA and Canada (e.g. Native Americans, Hispanics, French Canadians, Germans, Irish, Poles, and Italians).
• The Mariology and/or Marian devotion in the life and preaching of notable Catholic figures–especially canonized Saints, those recognized as “Blessed” and those whose causes for beatification have been introduced.
• Marian shrines and basilicas in the USA and Canada (e.g. the Spanish Missions, Cap de la Madeleine, Sainte Anne de Beaupre, the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore, MD, etc.).
• The Mariology and/or Marian devotion of the early Catholic Church in the USA or Canada (e.g. the 1846 petition of the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore to the Holy See to place the Catholic Church in the USA under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception).
• Mariology and Marian devotion in Catholic education in the USA and Canada from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries.

*Deadline: October 31, 2010

Please send title and precis of your contribution by email to: Father John Phalen, CSC at jphalen@hcfm.org or to

Dr. Robert Fastiggi at Fastiggi.Robert@shms.edu.
For more information call or write:
Mariological Society of America
MSA Secretariat

Father Thomas A. Thompson, S.M. at Thomas.Thompson@notes.udayton.edu
The Marian Library
The University of Dayton
Dayton, OH 45469-1390
Phone: 937-229-4294
FAX: 937-229-4258

Spring meeting of the ESBVM usa

This meeting will be held in the Washington, DC area on May 1st, at Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church, 8601 Wolftrap Road, Vienna, Virginia.

For directions & info go to: http://www.olgcva.org or email vkimball@assumption.edu

SCHEDULE:
Registration will begin at 9am and the program commences at 10am. A light lunch will be served (donations gratefully accepted), followed by a business meeting.

THE PROGRAM:
ESBVM is proud to welcome our primary speaker, Mr. Kenneth D. Whitehead, author of many books and articles dealing primarily with church history and liturgy. The title of his presentation is “The Catholic View on Ecumenism.” Among his numerous writings is his recently published book, The New Ecumenism. He has also translated some 20 books from foreign languages. Mr. Whitehead is a retired U.S. Government official who joined the administration of President Ronald Reagan as Director of International Education Programs in the Department of Education, eventually serving as Assistant Secretary for post-secondary education. He came to the Department of Education from the Foreign Service where had been an Arabic-language and Middle East Specialist. His tours of duty included Rome, Tripoli, Libya, Beirut, and Lebanon. He is fluent in French and Italian. Mr. Whitehead is a member of St. James Parish in Falls Church, Virginia, and he and his wife Margaret have four grown sons.

Catholic-Evangelical Dialogue: Next, Dr. Virginia Kimball, President of ESBVM usa, will lead an open discussion on the Evangelical-Roman Catholic report published in the November 2009 issue of First Things. The document may be found on www.esbvm.org. Bring questions and comments for discussion. Dr. Kimball is Eastern Orthodox and an adjunct professor at Assumption College in Worcester, MA.

The business meeting will follow lunch. All are welcome to attend. ESBVM Vice-President Frank Romance will make a presentation on the demographics of ESBVM usa and the status of our membership. In addition, the board will review the galley of the new publication of the ESBVM International Congress 2008 papers, Mary for God’s Love and Glory. A brief discussion will be held concerning a possible future pilgrimage to Guadalupe, Mexico, sponsored by ESBVM USA.

Dr. Virginia Kimball, president of the American ESBVM chapter, has just published her doctoral thesis in paperback and electronic form. Liturgical Illuminations, Discovering Received Tradition in the Eastern Orthros of the Feasts of the Theotokos examines ancient liturgical and iconographic traditions that provide new understanding for Marian mediation and devotion having origins in the 5th to the 11th century, common history to all Christian denominations. Available from www.authorhouse.com and www.amazon.com .

The Executive of the ESBVM notes the publication on November 9th 2009 of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus which provides a means by which groups of Anglicans may enter into the communion of the Catholic Church while preserving those aspects of the Anglican tradition that are compatible with the teaching of the Catholic Church. In respecting the conscience of those who freely wish to take up this offer of the Holy See the ESBVM remains committed to the wider unity that all Christians involved in the ecumenical movement continue to seek. The Executive will place this matter for further discussion on the agenda of the January 2010 meeting of the ESBVM Council.

ESBVM does not comment upon the internal life of particular churches and ecclesial communities, and notes that this Apostolic Constitution is similarly published not as a commentary on difficulties within the Anglican Communion in recent times but as a pastoral response by the Holy See to requests from bishops and groups of the Anglican tradition over a number of years.

Conscious that the Anglican tradition originated in England, known across the centuries as ‘Our Lady’s Dowry’, it is the sincere prayer of ESBVM that under the patronage of Our Lady, and building upon the work of many, including the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and International Anglican Roman Catholic Commission for Unity & Mission (IARCCUM), the response by groups of Anglicans to Anglicanorum coetibus will make a significant contribution to the reconciliation of all Christians in one flock with one shepherd, that ‘they may all be one’.

Patriarch Bartholomew delivered an interesting address at Fordham University this month in his visit to the USA.

Click on this link for his addresss at a convocation held on October 27, 29.   http://www.patriarchate.org/documents/discerning-gods-presence-in-the-world

The triennial forum of Churches Together in England, of which ESBVM is a body in association, took place at the Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick from September 7th – 9th 2009, taking the theme Changing World: Changing Church? The moderator of the forum was Bishop Declan Lang, Catholic Diocese of Clifton, and the deputy moderator was Val Potter, County Ecumenical Officer of Dorset. Nearly three hundred delegates were present at the forum from the thirty one churches that are members of the CTE.

Like any big ecumenical gathering of this kind being in the company of Christians with a common purpose and hearing about positive stories of churches working together gave one encouragement to continue with the ecumenical effort. At the same time, one heard and shared constructive criticism of how the structures and instruments needed to change to be fit for purpose in the altered circumstances of both contemporary society and the churches. This particularly applies to the intermediate or county bodies.

The idea of thirty or forty years ago of achieving ecclesial institutional unity within a generation or so has now receded, the emphasis is now on churches working together on practical initiatives addressing the needs of society often in partnership with secular or statutory agencies. Additionally, the exchange of gifts that the different Christian traditions can offer to each other to enrich the spiritual lives of all Christians has become a greater priority. This is referred to as receptive ecumenism. There still remains the challenge of engaging the great majority of faithful across all the mainstream churches in the ecumenical dimension of Christian life. A more positive development is the increasing participation of the black-majority churches in the ecumenical structures. However, Christian communities of an evangelical complexion, often vibrant in themselves, remain, with some exceptions, outside the ecumenical structures.

There was also a feeling that the church leadership should also have a higher profile by being seen responding and addressing together issues raised by society as well as local clerical leadership across the board, as opposed to enthusiastic and committed individuals, encouraging their congregations to engage in ecumenical activity. Last, but not least, is the issue of funding of the ecumenical instruments and endeavours particularly in the current economic climate. The level of financial support will surely be at least one measure of the ecumenical commitment of all the churches engaged in this movement.

N.B. Access to the full text of David Cornick’s and Timothy Radcliffe’s address, the audio files of the biblical study by the archbishops and the four stories are available through the link:

http://www.churches-together.net/Articles/163221/Churches_Together_in/CTE/Forum_2009/Texts_Sound_Recordings.aspx .

Paul Paniccia
Inter-Church Relations Secretary

This past summer, Dr. Frank Romance and Dr. Virginia Kimball took part in an interview (in two parts) on Midwestern radio broadcast RADIOMARIA. They spoke of the role of ecumenical Mariology. See www.radiomaria.us.

ESBVM USA is working on the development of a model for an “Ecumenical Day with Mary.” For two years, in the Fall of 2007 and 2008, members of the ESBVM conducted a “Mary Day” at the First Congregational Church, UCC, of Walton, with the thought in mind of developing an ESBVM prototype for such a program for other churches. Recently, parish members of the Walton Congregational Church who had taken part in the “Mary Day” programs joined a panel with ESBVM members to discuss the viability of developing a model for use in other churches. An audio recording was made of the panel discussion which is accessed directly by clicking on the following link:

http://www.patgohn.com/patgohn/ESBVM_Mary_Day.html

[Pat Gohn is an ESBVM member and audio engineer who volunteered to record this discussion.]

Please listen and then register your replies on this blog. We will keep track of all replies.