Making Mary Visible


A taste of the argument to come in my forthcoming book. Read on...

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“Hail, Mary, full of grace, punch the devil in the face!”

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Once upon a time, there was a man named Theophilus who made a bargain with the devil. Thank God that Our Lady was able to help him! Do you want to know the full story? Listen here ! * The Prayer of Theophilus O miserable wretch that I am, what have I done and what have I wrought?...  Where shall I, unhappy sinner, go, who have denied my Christ and his holy mother ( Christum meum et sanctam eius genitricem ) and have made myself a servant of the devil ( seruum diaboli ) through a chirograph of wicked warrant ( per nefande cautionis chirographum )?  Who, do you think, will be able to pull it away from the hand of the devil, the destroyer, and help me?  Why was it necessary for me to become acquainted with that wicked Hebrew who should be burned?  (For this same Hebrew had been condemned a little while before by law and judge.) Why indeed? For thus are they honored, who forsaking God and the Lord, run to the devil....  Woe ...
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Wheel of Sevens

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A medieval device for training the soul in prayer. London, British Library, Arundel 83, fol. 129v This wheel contains seven rings, one depending on the other. Through the first the second is gained; through the second the third, and so with the others by reading between each pair of radii.  The first ring of this wheel contains the seven petitions of the Lord’s prayer. The second ring contains the seven sacraments of the Church. The third ring contains the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. The fourth ring contains the seven spiritual weapons of the virtues. The fifth ring contains the seven corporeal and spiritual works of mercy. The sixth ring contains the seven principal virtues. The seventh ring contains the seven criminal vices. Begin to read at the P and complete the readings that are contained between each two radii. 1. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Here we pray to become sons of God the Father. Through this is given ba...
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The Milo Effect

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Milo, like everything he talks about, is polarizing . "Are you the real, true face of the alt-Right? Because I thought the Nazis were in there. How did they take you on board?," former intel analyst Malcolm Nance asked Milo during the Overtime segment on Real Time with Bill Maher . "No, they hate me," Milo responded. "The worst people on the very far Left and the very far Right all hate me. They all hate me." "I think you are leaving a lot of people out," comedian Larry Wilmore quipped. Guess what? Wilmore was right! If Milo talks about third-wave feminists as being misandrist and vindictive and hurtful to both women and men, the liberal Left says he is insulting all women. The conservative Right can't stand that he uses colorful language like "cunts" and "pussies." If Milo talks about Black Lives Matter as not attending to the real issues putting black lives at risk, the liberal Left says he is insulting all...
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Our Lady and the Old Infant

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The convener of one of the Jordan Peterson Facebook groups that I participate in has been pushing me for some time now to be more compassionate towards our professorial “father.” Or, as my friend puts it: “to take off your fencing gear and model the Nourishing Feminine.” Okay, then, but I have to warn you. It is going to hurt. What do I see when I look at Jordan Peterson with a mother’s eyes? I should preface my reflections with the caveat that I speak here not just as the mother of a son, but also as an historian. Reading the textual accounts left by people about their thoughts and emotions is what I do in my scholarship. Just as Jordan has spent the past thirty years as a clinical psychologist, I have spent them as a reader of texts,* my goal as an author being to help the texts speak to audiences for whom they no longer mean anything. I have practiced listening to my texts just as Jordan has practiced listening to his patients, and I hope that I have been able to hear. More ...
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And then the dog came and lay down on my feet

2011 was quite a year.  I feel obliged in some way to memorialize it, think through all of the things that I have accomplished since this time last year, but I've been stalling all day, wondering what I could possibly say that I haven't said already.  My family (natal, that is, not immediate) has been going through some fairly interesting (read: transformative, difficult, painful, enlightening) times, and there were a flurry of emails yesterday and today recalling (obliquely) all that has passed.  My brother, my sister, my mother, my mother's partner, they've all been through quite a lot of tough stuff.  But me?  Well, I've just spent the year learning to see. Which I can now, most of the time.  It's been nearly twelve months since my surgery and, for the most part, my eyes are fairly stable now.  I don't have to put drops in every other minute or even (which I did have to through most of the summer) every hour on the hour, but usually o...
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