How the Virgin Mary Became the World’s Most Powerful Woman
Fascinating article. Didn't know Mary was a prominent religious figure in the Islamic faith !
By Maureen Orth
Photographs by Diana Markosian
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 8, 2015
It’s apparition time: 5:40 p.m. In a small Roman Catholic chapel in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the village of Medjugorje, Ivan Dragicevic walks down the aisle, kneels in front of the altar, bows his head for a moment, and then, smiling, lifts his gaze heavenward. He begins to whisper, listens intently, whispers again, and doesn’t blink for ten minutes. His daily conversation with the Virgin Mary has begun.
Dragicevic was one of six poor shepherd children who first reported visions of the Virgin Mary in 1981. She identified herself to the four girls and two boys as the “Queen of Peace” and handed down the first of thousands of messages admonishing the faithful to pray more often and asking sinners to repent. Dragicevic was 16 years old, and Medjugorje, then in communist-controlled Yugoslavia, had yet to emerge as a hub of miracle cures and spiritual conversions, attracting 30 million pilgrims during the past three decades.
Picture of two boys near the water
Water May Erase These Pacific Islands, But Not the Culture
Picture of a leopard prowling the edge of Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Mumbai, India
Learning to Live With Leopards
I’m in Medjugorje with a group of Americans, mostly hockey dads from the Boston area, plus two men and two women with stage 4 cancer. We’re led by 59-year-old Arthur Boyle, a father of 13, who first came here on Labor Day weekend in 2000, riddled with cancer and given months to live. He felt broken and dejected and wouldn’t have made the trip had not two friends forced him into it. But that first night, after he went to confession at St. James the Apostle church, psychological relief
came rapidly.
Continue -
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/virgin-mary-text
-----
Islam portal. v. Mary (Arabic: مريم Maryām), the mother of Jesus (Isa), is considered one of the most righteous women in the Islamic religion. She is mentioned more in the Quran than in the entire New Testament and is also the only woman mentioned by name in the Quran.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_in_Islam
= new reply since forum marked as read
...."Certain images and stories of the Virgin Mary are so powerful they help define a country. That’s the case with Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose image on the tilma, or cloak, of a poor Indian man gave rise, in 1531, to Mexican identity. Anyone witnessing the outpouring of love and devotion that pilgrims demonstrate for their beloved Madre on the days leading up to the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe—broadcast live throughout the country on December 12—can see that the Virgin Mary is deeply embedded in Mexican hearts and souls.
Her image was what Mexicans carried into their war against Spain for independence in 1810 and their internal revolution in 1910. César Chávez marched with her banner in his fight to unionize farmworkers in California in the 1960s. Our Lady of Guadalupe conferred instant benediction on the once despised mestizo children of Spaniards and Indians. She is the symbol of la raza, the definition of what it means to be Mexican, and because of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexicans have always believed they’re special." (from the link in the OP)
[img]
[/img]
