Home Statues of the Virgin Mary

    

    

             Statues of the Virgin Mary can be found all throughout Brooklyn and Queens. I found these statues while walking through my friend’s neighborhood in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, a neighborhood that has a siezeable Catholic population. Although the abundance of these statues stuck out to me in this area of Brooklyn, I have been quite familiar with them in my own neighborhood in Queens. I believe that these statues are perfect examples of sacramentality, which we discussed when we read Dorothy Day. Sacramentality is the radiating presence of God in all things inanimate and animate in the world. It is the way that grace is expressed in the world. Day enjoyed visiting her friend Ade; after visits with Ade, Day “came away with a renewed zest for life. She [Ade] has such a sense of the sacramentality of life… a sense that translated in all her works whether it was illustrating a missal, making stained-glass windows or sewing, cooking, or gardening” (Day 191). From this quote, we can assume that sacramentality takes many forms and can infer that it can even be expressed in the form of statues.

            These statues of Mary all have a sort of “holy” feel about them because they all portray her in a dome-like structure that seems to protect her from the outside world. Another aspect that appears “holy” is the manner in which Mary is standing, with her palms open in front of her. This stance provides for a motherly feeling evoked by the statues; it helps to portray her as a nurturer to anyone viewing the statue. Another interesting aspect to note is that these statues are usually found in a focal part of the yards of these houses. It is clear that the owners of these statues did not purchase them solely for their own benefit, but also for that of the public. This must be the reason for the statues being placed in front of the owners’ homes or in parts of the yard visible to pedestrians walking by.

Although I do not know the exact significance for households displaying these statues in their yards for the public to see, I would assume that one of the reasons is to assert their Catholic identity in their neighborhoods. As is commonly known, Catholics are noted for their heavy use of religion in material forms. This is evident in their ornate churches, plethora of statues, and abundance of stained glass windows. Although some religions place more emphasis on religious objects than others, materiality in religion is inevitable. Hence, the authors of “How Things Matter” remark, “some degree of materiality is indispensable for religion to be present in the world” (Houtman & Meyer). The owners of these statues of Mary felt the need to profess their faith to the world, although they were in no way obliged to. This profession of faith is similar to that of wearing a cross.

The sighting of these statues and my realization of how abundant they are in Brooklyn and Queens have led me to ponder upon its true significance in Catholics’ profession of their faith.  I would love to find out why exactly the statues placed in individuals’ yards are mostly of Mary, as opposed to other important figures in the Catholic tradition.

Works Cited

Day, Dorothy. The Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1952. Print.

Houtman, Dick, and Birgit Meyer. Things: Religion and the Question of Materiality. New York: Fordham UP, 2012. Print.

Religion is in the Small Things

Religion's influence is not exclusively elucidated in grand ways. There is more to religiosity than shrines and statues. In his Moral Man and Immoral Society, Reinhold Niebuhr, a 20th Century theologian, states  that "essentially, religion is a sense of the absolute." This sense of the absolute can be found all around The City. Signs of there being more than just us can be found in more than just New York's high culture--religious influences can be seen in from what we eat to what we graffiti.

Walking up Broadway on the Upper West Side offers great sights such as the Beacon Theatre, beautiful churches and at least three Chipotle restaurants. Also along this path is an interesting string of graffiti which says "ARt WE All ONE" or "ARt WE All NYC."

The most downtown installment one might encounter is on 79th Street. 

Although few would argue against that a piece of graffiti such as this is easy to produce, this string of messages displays how religious ideas and ideals influence the everyday person, not necessarily just the privileged intellectual. If someone notices this innocuous message, he or she might be inclined to think about what it really means. If we are all made one through artistic expression, then surely there must be something that is both greater than ourselves and yet accessible to the average person. 

What helps make this graffiti an effective religious object in the sense that we achieve an understanding of the absolute, is how many instances of it there are. One four-word graffitied message might not attract a lot of attention, but ten or so instances of the same four words will eventually get passersby intrigued. 

Found on 87th Street.

Found on 88th St.

Found on 96th St, across from the subway station.

Found on 100th St.

If these images above only speak to Niebuhr's less-traditional definition of religion, the graffiti found on 103rd Street is much more obviously religious in nature.

Although explicitness is often positive, this graffiti above clearly lacks subtlety. This fact, however, should not make its message any less important. One could hardly argue that the "imagine" mosaic at Strawberry Fields is subtle or that the Cathedral of St. John the Divine is quietly poignant. Yes, substituting dollar signs for "s"s might be cheesy, but the substitution does get the point across that consumerism is a big part of New York City culture.

Most of us are guilty of being blinded by our earthly desires. Instead of focusing on or even humoring the idea that we are all just small components of something much greater than ourselves, it's much more attractive to just focus on what flavor syrup to put into our grande lattes. This focus on our particular desires rather than the absolute is not necessarily because of any moral flaw within us but is something we must acknowledge nonetheless. We cannot help that we might have stayed up until two A.M. writing a paper and need some sort of caffeinated pick-me-up before class, but does us no harm to realize that others' problems are tantamount to, if not paramount, to ours. The daily encountering of graffiti might be enough to help spark change within us.

To get a sense of the pervasiveness of the graffiti:

A Different Kind of Religion

        Growing up, my idea of  religion was much different than the average.  On Sunday mornings, my brothers and I would wake up before church, get our salt water fix in the ocean, and then rush to our small town church to meet the rest of our obnoxiously large family consisting of six kids, a mom, a dad, a dog named roadkill, 26 chickens, 2 fish, and 4 bunnies. Only, of course, the dog had to wait outside and the chickens, fish, and bunnies did not attend. We would sit in a row, that we took up entirely, pretend to listen to what the priest was saying, and giggle and carry on hoping that mom would not give us her infamous death glare. And, no matter how embarrassed or angry mom was of us during mass, we always ended up going to breakfast as a family afterwards. 

        Up until now, it may seem that my religious experience was like many others, only what is described above was not what I considered my religion, nor is it what many of my friends considered their religion. Though Sunday mornings were spent at a church and with my family, it was not until Sunday nights that I found what my form of religion and God are, and I found that far beyond the walls of the church. 

        The artifact I found is temporary, it will not last in a physical sense, but this item made me stop and think, and it simply reminded me of where and how I found my escape from my own sick soul or where I found the “purpose of it all,” as did many others. This artifact is an ice block and inside are point shoes used by a dancer. They were found on the side of the street on 54th and 9th and are undoubtably an art-form in their form as they are photographed and in their form when they were once used. 

        On Sunday nights, after Sunday morning festivities, I found myself in a wear house.  The music blaring, the mirrors fogged, and the dancers passionate.  Religion shapes itself for a person and, with religion, one is more in tune with oneself.  Dance also shapes itself for a person— the choreography, the musicality, and the expression are all shaped around how the person dancing feels, and what is going on in that person’s life. Dance is religion. And there, in that wear house, is where I practiced my religion, it is where I found the purpose of everything, even though I still did not know what it was, I knew how it felt and there was no where else I felt more in tune with myself. 

        For a multitude of reasons, much like a sick soul,  I felt the weight of sin, I faced the presence of evil, and I felt the weight of reality. But, on that dance floor, I was able to clear my mind, lift the bourdons of those evils, and leave them on the dance floor. That room was the only place that I feared nothing at all. That room was my church and dance my religion.

        Passing those point shoes for many people may have left them with thoughts lasting less than a second, they may have looked at them and not even seen them.  But for me, for many people I know, and for many people I once knew, those shoes concealed in that block of ice are an artifact of the religion that we so heavily have depended on since our first time stepping on a dance floor.

 

The Vatican Shrine

If you look close enough, you can find extraordinary aspects in the ordinary.

Flushing Meadows Corona Park's Unisphere

Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens is well known for being home to the Unisphere, a stainless steel model of the Earth constructed for the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair. Standing a gleaming twelve-feet high, the monument remains perhaps one of the most emblematic symbols of the borough. Yet the park hides a treasure just as enchanting as this sphere that requires some exploration.

The Vatican Shrine

Far off to the park’s right side rests a shrine commemorating the former site of the Vatican Pavilion. The pavilion was one of the most popular attractions at the 1964-1965 World’s Fair, top among other pavilions such as those put forth by General Motors and IBM.¹ Prevailing over the building were a lantern and cross that rose to a height of one hundred feet.

While this popular attraction may be no more, a modest granite structure currently takes its place. However, it isn’t one that is easy to come across. If you happened to be walking through the park briskly, I dare say you’d probably miss it. In fact, even a map located outside of the park makes no indication of its existence.

Circled in red is the location of the Vatican shrine--not indicated on the map.

I myself wouldn’t have known about it if it hadn’t been for a particularly intriguing homily given by my local parish priest about a year ago. He had attended the World's Fair and was painting for his Roman Catholic parishioners an iridescent picture of the ecstatic atmosphere created by those visiting the replica, so engaging that it stuck with me all this time. 

The Vatican shrine is “behind the theater, but most likely covered with snow,” as I was informed by one of the employees at the Queens Museum. Luckily for me, any snow that may have been on it had been shoveled off, revealing a beautiful cross engraved into the granite. In witnessing it, I began to comprehend what Dorothy Day posited as sacramentality in The Long Loneliness. Looking at the inanimate object before me, I felt a presence greater than myself radiating in the atmosphere around me. Day recognizes that everything is potentially a bearer of God's grace. In one instance, she finds herself "praying with thanksgiving, praying with open eyes..."² .God's presence, for her, is not restricted to the church, can be found everywhere in life. While I cannot ascertain that what I felt was God's grace, I was overcome with a sense of awe for the piece of history in front of me.

Circling the Vatican shrine are the words “Site of the Vatican Pavilion. New York World's Fair 1964-1965.”

A few inches away from this stone and forming the shape of an oval around it is a raised platform with inscriptions on three stones. The inscription on the left reads:

The Vatican Pavilion  

Francis Cardinal Spellman

President

Most Reverend Bryan J McEntegart

Vice President

The words on the center stone read:

“This the site of the Vatican Pavilion was authorized by Pope John XXIII, visited on October 4, 1965 by Pope Paul VI during his mission of peace to the United Nations. The building exhibited Michelangelo’s Pieta and other art treasures. It symbolized the brotherhood of man, the spirit of ecumenism, and the theme of the New York World’s Fair 1964-1965: Peace through understanding.”

The stone on the right simply states: “The Vatican Pavilion was dedicated on April 19, 1964.”

Pope Paul VI’s mission of peace, which is mentioned in the shrine, refers to the address that he delivered to the United Nations on October 4^th, 1965, in which he stressed the importance of developing empathy for others by highlighting coexistence, the idea of creating a bridge between peoples, a disarmament which he believed would lead to no more wars, and an uplifting of the moral conscience of humanity.³

Ecumenism refers to the “doctrine, or quality, of universality, especially of the Christian church."⁴ The idea of ecumenism was employed not only in the Vatican Pavilion, but also in the World's Fair as a whole. It was to be a universal exposition centered on, as the inscription reads, the theme of “peace through understanding,” and dedicated to “Man’s Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe."⁵ Quite ironically, the majority of those exhibiting at the fair were American corporations.

Since the 1964-1965 World's Fair highlighted American technological advances of the mid-20^th century, it is interesting to consider what Reinhold Niebuhr would have thought about the spectacle. For one, he feared that technology was one of the roots of the social problems of the day. In Moral Man and Immoral Society, he argues that a technological civilization makes stability impossible in that it changes the circumstances of life too rapidly. It “destroys the physical symbols of stability and therefore makes for restlessness..."⁶ In addition to this, he makes the point that the tendencies of an industrial era manage to increase the injustices suffered by humanity. In a world where these is injustice, there cannot be peace.

Peace through understanding, however, suggests the great power of empathy in achieving unity. The fact that fifty-one million people attended the 1964-1965 World's Fair attests to how successful it was in bringing the masses together in celebration of a global interdependence.⁷

The Vatican shrine itself provides enough room for you to sit down upon, acting as a type of bench. Seemingly isolated from the rest of the park, it is a spot to be able to relax and take a moment to contemplate life. There are different denominations within Christianity but, with the idea of ecumenism in mind, it is crucial to recognize that they all share a belief to do unto others as you would have done unto you. And, after all, isn’t this what is at the heart of most religions? Despite superficial differences, we are all humans and share a common heritage because of this. The shrine serves to remind us, in a time and place where we are quick to forget, that we are more alike than we are different.  

As Pope Paul VI remarked in the very same address inscribed in the stone of the Vatican shrine, “The hour has come for a halt, a moment of contemplation, of reflection, almost of prayer; a moment to think anew of our common origin, our history, our common destiny.”⁸

Time has taken its toll on the shrine, and this is obvious in the gradual wear noticeable on some of the letters on the stones. Despite this a sense of timelessness is nonetheless conveyed; merely stepping into the circle leads you to imagine the tremendous excitement that the site must have seen in 1964 and 1965 and the grandiosity of the structure that was the Vatican Pavilion, itself a representation of a material religiosity.

Here, occasionally interrupted by the noise provided by the Grand Central directly behind it, you can strive to find harmony and inner peace.

Footnotes

---

1 "New York World's Fair." NYC AGO. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2015.^↩
2 Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist (New York: Haper Collins, 1997), 117.^↩
3 "Pope Paul VI's Address to United Nations General Assembly, October 4, 1965." N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2015.^↩
4 "Ecumenism, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2014. Web. 28 Feb. 2015.^↩
5 "New York World's Fair." NYC AGO. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2015.^↩6 Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man And Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (United States: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932), 275-276.^↩
7"New York World's Fair." NYC AGO. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2015.^↩
8"Pope Paul VI's Address to United Nations General Assembly, October 4, 1965." N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2015.^↩