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Art and MusicBadass Virgin Mary Medieval Catholic Art!
People are used to seeing meek submissive depictions of the Virgin Mary in Catholic art but Catholics have made some badass art of her that go back to the Middle Ages at the very least too...! : https://catholicvote.org/mary-beating-satan-in-art/
Found it on Reddit here! : https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1grmbs1/is_this_okay_or_is_it_irreverent/
I thought it was amusing so decided to share it here... :)
Some of these are pretty meme-worthy! It seems Catholics have been making meme-worthy material even before Luce the official Catholic Anime mascot!
Non Catholics have such a weird understanding of Catholics.
Literally, the standard image of Mary includes her standing on Satan's head, crushing his skull (as a snake).
The rosary is called a weapon.
Mary is not subservient to anyone but literal God. She is the Queen of Heaven. At the wedding banquet she tells Jesus to do something and he first says no and she's like -- do it. And he does it.
Mary is meek to a literal omnipotent and omniscient and all sorts of omnis God. That's hardly what one usually thinks of when they call someone meek in general.
I like the fact that the feminine principle in Catholicism is honored and revered through Mary. It's a lot more psychologically balanced to have both gods and goddesses in your theology. The all-male Trinity exalted in Protestantism doesn't have any room for the feminine principle. I don't like this, even though I am a Protestant.
If you have a patron saint that you are specifically devoted to, that is cool. In Hinduism they have the same thing, of a favorite deity, called your ishta devata. "Deva" means spirit. I think that personalizes your religion a bit.
In Hebrew, shekinah is a feminine spirit. Modern feminist Judaism has promoted shekinah as the divine feminine principle.
Common misconception, but the Trinity isn't male, and neither are its members. (Jesus, the Incarnation of the Second Being of the Trinity, was male, but characteristics of Jesus are not necessarily projected back onto the Second Being or the Trinity as a whole. God does not need to eat, for example, but Jesus did.) This isn't fringe feminist theology, this is orthodox belief in Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and mainline Protestantism.
If you're interested in a book recommendation, Women and the Gender of God by Amy Peeler is excellent. The first chapter is on how are know God isn't male, another chapter on how we know God isn't masculine, and the rest of the book on how we know God loves women. (Which you'll especially like if you like Mary, because she spends a lot of time talking about her and how important she is.)
I heard the Catholic Church had a Mass not too long ago where they addressed the Divine as " Our Father AND Mother in Heaven " ...! I think it was in the 1990s...
Hrmmms. Yeah, the depictions are part of why i love St Dymphna so much. Even if you don't believe in Saints, i think there probably is a lot of truth in the story of this 7th century princess. Anyway, my medal has her holding a great sword keeping demons at bay.
Oh tell us more about her!
She's the patron state of the mentally ill. From what i recall... and this is sort of triggering...
I especially like the one with her beating Satan with a baseball bat. Growing up Lutheran, I never heard much about Mary when we did go to church.