Western Oblate Studies 5
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Les soeurs grises et les oblats: 154 ans de collaboration
Patronage and Pilgrimage: Walking under the Wing of Mary
Henriette A. Kelker
Provincial Museum of Alberta
Edmonton (Alberta)
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To see some of the marks of Oblate culture one has only to spend a day looking at one of the Oblate photograph collections. Most of these photos are taken by Oblates and therefore offer not only a view of the missionary life, but of the missionary life as seen through the eyes of the missionaries themselves. One quickly becomes aware of the Oblate's penchant for the land. Whether through gardening, fishing, hunting, gathering wood or planting trees, travelling and camping - being in and working with the land has always been a major part of missionary life (photos 3-5). Of course one cannot escape that in this part of the world. Well, one could by not becoming an Oblate. Most Oblates I have talked with speak of their love for nature, of living with their feet on and in the ground. There are also few Oblates who did not grow up in a rural setting, whether in Canada or in Europe. There are thus few who did not experience life on the land from childhood.
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 PHOTO 5 |
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The missionaries have, to a large extent, shaped the devotional practices of the communities they served, be they Aboriginal, Quebecois, Polish, or German Canadian. The Marian culture of these communities has been informed by what the Oblates themselves learned, not only in seminary, but during their childhood on the land. Many missions have a tradition of Marian pilgrimage. Shrines in the form of Lourdes grottos have been built by Oblates throughout the province (photos 6-7). Most of these grottos have a characteristic shape: a mount of rocks in the middle of the prairie - an elevation in the earth which allows access to the Virgin who nurtures faith and helps it grow. Pilgrimages follow the rhythm of the seasons as much as they follow the liturgical calendar (Kelker and Goa, 1996). In this rhythm those who live on the land find each other.
PHOTO 7
Many Oblates have brought to their mission an understanding of the rhythms of nature which, I suggest, draws on a knowledge which goes back further and deeper than what was acquired during their seminary days. It draws on the wellspring of an ancient cultural heritage. When asking Oblate priests and brothers about Mariology the resulting conversation is often not extensive. Whereas the church's understanding of Christ is defined by doctrine, this is less clearly so for Mary. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes her place and function rather than her substance (Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1994). However, Marian devotion does not only stem from church teaching, it is a cultural knowledge, woven deeply in the fabric of the home soil. One develops this knowledge in walking and working the land. Not only the Oblates walked and worked the land, so did their parents and grandparents. They worked and walked the soil of the rural regions of Europe. They lived in an ancient tradition of understanding the Virgin as Mother of the Earth.
Black Madonnas, of which more than 300 can be found in France and many more along the Mediterranean,
[... ] may be considered a metaphor for a memory of the time when the earth was believed to be the body of a woman and all creatures were equal, a memory transmitted in vernacular traditions of earth-bonded cultures [... ] (Birnbaum, 1993, p.3)
Fertility and the home are her major concerns. Black Virgins have captured the imagination of artists and poets for centuries. Ean Begg observes that "[t]he breast that nourished St Bernard fed French literature in its infancy" (Begg, 1985, p. 133). There always has been a cultic dimension to the interest in the Black Virgin - black being associated with oppositional forces. Today some of this is fanned by New Age and feminist politics. I wish to sidestep these contemporary currents and focus on the fact that vernacular traditions have cultural layers which can be traced back to pre-Christian times. France is no exception. The "baptising" of foreign cultures resculpting their practices and beliefs into a Christian shape is an old and widespread custom. It was practised by Augustine, under the explicit encouragement of Pope Gregory the Great (Battenhouse, 1955). These layers of vernacular tradition give cultures their diversity, and Canadian culture its varied colour. Black Madonnas carry an element of the Earth Mother of pre-history who nurtures life, the different peoples of the earth, and the seasons: birth, maturity, death, and regeneration (Birnbaum, 1993).4 In the Judeo-Christian tradition the Black Virgin is often associated with the images in the Song of Solomon:
I am black and beautiful, 0 daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Ledar, like the curtains of Solomon. (1:5) I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother, and into the chamber of the one who bore me. (8:2)
This poem has inspired diaspora Jews through the ages. The Song of Solomon speaks of a mother's house as a sanctuary (3:4). It contrasts the exterior distance of mountains with the enclosure of home and garden. It is a story of love and longing, of coming home, man to woman, Israel to its God.
The religions of the people of the land who live by the mercy of the elements and the rhythm of the seasons have left their mark on Christian devotion wherever they interacted. Along the Mediterranean and in the south of France this influence is well documented (Begg, 1985; Birnbaum, 1993). The history of Christian worship in what is now Marseille goes back to the second century (McDonald et al., 1981). Apocryphal stories even mention Lazarus, risen from the dead, as the first bishop in this place. The place is also described as one of significance for the worship of the ancient Earth Mother in her various manifestations of Cybele, Artemis, Ceres, or Isis (Begg, 1985). The wooden statue of Notre-Dame de la Garde inside the church is one of the many Black Virgins to be found in the region (photo 8).5
The pre-Christian history of Aix indicates worship of the mother goddess, also under a variety of names depending on whether the Gauls or the Romans prevailed in the area, and there is a continuity of this tradition with the devotion to the Black Virgin in Aix (Begg, 1985; Johnson, 1927). One gets an indication of the strength of popular Marian devotion in Aix when observing the ravages of the revolution. Though many statues of Christ and the saints are in ruins, seldom will one find a Marian statue which is damaged.6
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Institut pour le Patrimoine, Campus Saint-Jean, University of Alberta
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