أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم أبدأ في نام الله the beneficent and the merciful I seek salvation from shaitan the accursed My dearest viewers, my brothers and sisters from across the world أسلام عليكم جميعا ورحمة الله وبركاته Made the peace and blessings And the protection of Allah سبحانه وتعالى Be with you at all times I would like to welcome you to another episode Of the Ramadan show here exclusively In Imam Hussein TV with me your host Dr. Shabir Tijani Insha'Allah I hope that this can be a one stop shop For the holy month I would like to ask you to please Send in your videos and pictures From how you are preparing for this holy month As well as joining us on Twitter By using the hashtag IHTVRamadhan And also joining us on Facebook Instagram and on YouTube Before moving on to the show I want to just remember a saying And today because a lot of the show And remembrance of Imam Hussein I want to do one a saying from his life Imam Hussein says He says a beggar Stakes his prestige by asking Don't stain your personality By refusing him Imam Hussein here talks about How the dignity of someone who is begging Is lowered Because they are asking you for something Do not turn away from them Always give to the needy Always give to the poor And that will achieve closer So Allah سبحانه و تعالى In this episode On spiritual refinement Insha'Allah I want to discuss And talk about a specific journey A journey for a human being Physically but also spiritually It's a journey that is unlike Any other For those of you who haven't done it I urge you to do so And that is none other Than the زيارة Of أبا عبد الله الحسين عليه السلام In Karbala The merits of this زيارة Are unfathomable Unconceivable When you read about them in a hadith You realise What the station of this great individual This great personality is Insha'Allah Over the next few minutes I just want to talk firstly About my experiences on زيارة And secondly What happens to you When you get to زيارة When you get to the land of Karbala What feelings you have What emotions go through your mind And through your heart And then insha'Allah I will end by talking about the hadith And the merits of this great زيارة الحمد لله I've been granted the opportunity to go Three times now on زيارة And each time is very different The imams they call you For a specific reason We often say to the imams Please accept our زيارة But whenever I've been I've never said that Because I know for a fact That just making the intention of going Just going to that place To the people that are the givers of all givers How could they not accept the زيارة When Imam Hussein Wants to see his loved one He calls you towards him Sometimes we feel ourselves Unworthy of the زيارة But don't forget Just as much as you want to see them They want to also see you too The love that they have For their followers For their شيع Is something that you or I Won't be able to understand It's unconceivable Because when we think back To the day of Ashura In 61AH We see Imam Hussein Lay down everything he had He laid down his life The life of his children The safety of his family Just so that he can give us The gift of humanity So that he can give us The gift of freedom Imam Hussein loves us so much And because of this great sacrifice He gave Allah SWT Has given down a whole community And that community is us The شيع Our station is so elevated That we are the community That was promised To Lady Fatima By her father Prophet Muhammad Peace be upon him The journey of زيارة Is one that is very special From the moment you leave your home Insha'Allah I'll talk about the Ahadith And I'll talk about the merits Of the journey itself A bit later on But when you land Or when you get to the land Of Karbala You realize where you are The feel and the pull From the land is something That you will never experience before You may see pictures You may see videos But until you've experienced What it's like to be in Karbala You will never understand For all of us For those who love Hussein From the bottom of our hearts From the moment we've heard about Hussein Our soul And our hearts Have always been in Karbala But once your body gets here And you're completely in one place You realize exactly What Karbala is You feel Karbala You can hear Karbala You can see Karbala You can smell Karbala It's like nothing That you will ever experience before When you see the shrine Of Imam Hussein For the first time I guarantee you will break down There is no other emotion That is quite like it You remember every Masaib You've ever heard before You realize What this great personality Has given for you Has given for me Has given for all of us Has given us complete freedom Has given us the beauty Of this world Has given us this great religion of Islam Has protected us From every negative trait possible Has tried to guide us Through his own actions And after all of that We cannot turn away from him Our whole aim in life is to serve him Insha'Allah Now I just want to talk a little bit about The merits of this great journey I'm using a book That's called كامل زيارت Which is a very famous book About the merits of this great journey So I'll just read Some of the things from there And insha'Allah It will make you understand Exactly where the station Of the Zawar's are It is said when visiting Imam Hussein It's the ultimate sign Of love for the Ahl al-Bayt اللهم السلام It says when Allah Intends goodness for a servant He places the love Of Imam Hussein And the love of visiting him In his heart According to several traditions زيارة of Imam Hussein Is the best deed The Messenger of Allah Peace and blessings be upon him Will embrace the visitors Of Imam Hussein On the Day of Judgement By performing the زيارة One has made or observed A relationship with the Messenger Of Allah Peace be upon him And all the guiding imams The requests of the pilgrim At his grave are fulfilled His supplications are answered And sooner or later The pilgrim that is left Will always be protected If people know that Allah Has placed in the visitation Of the grave of Imam Hussein In terms of excellence They would die of eagerness And their breath would stop With a sigh Insha'Allah I'll continue a bit later on About the merits I just want to go on A little bit about Karbala In the physical terms Where it is The problems that it faces And why Despite all of these problems People still continue to flood there We know that Karbala Lies in the south Of the country of Iraq And it's probably One of the most insecure countries In the world Due to political unsteadyness However You see millions and millions Of people Year in year out That come to this holy shrine Why? We see in the day of Arba'een Or during the time of Arba'een in fact People do this great war From Najaf to Karbala And it is estimated That over 20 million people Have visited the shrine Of Aba'a Abdullah Al-Hussain Every Arba'een For the past two or three years Why is that? It is because Aba'a Abdullah Al-Hussain Is a person Obviously he's a personality And we know that he was a man But because of his legacy Because of what is left behind He's become so much more than that For people who have no hope He's a beacon of hope For those who are poor He gives them a sense of belonging For those who have no one in life He gives them a place to go An arc of salvation That is what is known as Imam Hussain is more than just one person Imam Hussain Is the name of the ultimate revolution Imam Hussain Is the essence of our being When we wake up in the morning We think of him As we go through our day We think of him When we sleep at night The last thing we think of Is of Aba'a Abdullah Al-Hussain You see The great station that is achieved Is through that ultimate sacrifice When you face any tribulations in life You ask him for help And the help is there Whenever you have a time of joy You think of him And that joy is even more elevated Aba'a Abdullah Al-Hussain Never lets down his servants And that is why This individual is revered so highly He taught us That whenever you face times of trial And hardship Remember Allah SWT And ultimately The most important thing Is whenever you see injustice Don't just sit down Make a stand against it When he made that journey to Karbala He knew what was coming up But he knew that He had to make that journey And make that sacrifice To save all of humanity And through that He's taught us how to be And that is why 20 million people every year Stand up to all the oppressors Stand up to the enemies Of the Ahl al-Bait And they make a stand And just by what they do Their actions They're saying So that is why So many millions of people Come to the shrine And they don't have fear Of their own lives They don't have the fear Of their lives Of their family Of their loved ones Because ultimately Their goal is Hussain And if they can die In his service That is all the more worth it Insha'Allah I'll talk a bit more About the merits Of this Yara The message of Allah Peace and blessings Be upon him Lady فاعتمت And the Imam Pray to Allah For the forgiveness Of those who visit The shrine Of Imam Hussain And the angels pray To Allah SWT Of those Who come to the shrine Of Imam Hussain They welcome their arrival And they accompany them During their departure They visit their sick Attend their funeral prayers Whenever they die They continue to pray For them even after Their own death And open them Open for them The gate of paradise Allah SWT Has appointed Approximately 70,000 Angels Around The blessed grave Of Imam Hussain Who stay there Until the day of judgment And perform prayers Each of their prayers Is equal to a thousand Prayers of a human being The angels cover The pilgrims With their wings In such a way That they feel their presence And feel their blessings For a single penny That one gives As charity During the Ziyarah Or pays To accommodate The journey of a visitor Allah should grant him 10,000 bounties As per another hadith Allah shall write for him In the good deeds To the extent Of the mount of Uhad And shall reimburse The money That he spent Many fold For each footsteps Of one Who goes on Ziyarah Allah the Almighty Writes a good deed For him And removes the sin From his record When he reaches The sanctified Shrine Allah will write for him Amongst the prosperous On the day of judgment The visitor Of Hussain Will be allowed To intercede For 100 people Of their choice Finally I just want to talk About The personality Who is buried there By the shrine Of Imam Hussain And this is one personality That we shouldn't forget And that is Abu-Fadr And peace be upon him Why? Because Imam Hussain Lives as the beacon For all of those Who seek hope As a beacon For all of those Who seek salvation But we see on the land Of Karbala His right hand Was Abu-Fadr And During the times That he suffered During the times And the trials And tribulations Abu-Fadr will always Stand up In front of him And he would protect him We see that In Karbala today Abu-Fadr Still stands by his brother And it is as though In the eyes Of the enemies of Islam The shrine Of Imam Hussain Is still protected It is said That when you visit The shrine of Hussain Before visiting The shrine of Hussain We should always Pay your respects And it is said that When you visit The shrine of Abu-Fadr When you come to Karbala With the near to Fziyara Abu-Fadr protects you For three days And that is The station Of this great personality That personality Who picked up The water on the day Of Ashura And he spilled it Back into the river Today the water Still circumbulates his grave And he will continue To do so until The day of judgment And insha'Allah Let's pray That we get the gift And the blessings Of this Ziyara Let's pray That on the day Of judgment When we stand up When we're resurrected That the Imam Calls us to him As one of his own The Holy Prophet Muhammad May the peace and blessings Of Allah be upon him And his progeny has said It Ramadan Is the month Whose beginning is mercy Its middle Is forgiveness And its end Is emancipation Or liberation From the Hellfire As we take our trip Through the world Talking about how People prepare themselves For the month of Ramadan The day-to-day lives Our journey takes us To a place called Quetta Which is found In the north of Pakistan For those of you Who don't know It's probably one of The most infamous places Now within the Shi'a world The reason being There have been So many thousands Of innocent Shi'a lives So many Shi'a blood That's been shared And spilled Because the enemies Of the Ahl al-Bayt Laymus Salam Hate The love that we show For the Ahl al-Bayt However, despite that The people in that region Still continue to go strong Still continue to proclaim The love for the Ahl al-Bayt Over the next few minutes I just want to talk about How they get themselves Ready for this month And how they go About their day-to-day lives The day usually starts In the morning Very early Usually around 3.30 At this time of the year And it starts off With sahur Usually something light To eat So they have things They have some tea Or some water And then they get ready To pray After which they recite Some Quran And then go to sleep For a few hours After which they get up For school And for work They get about And they start Their daily lives During this time The school hours Are shortened And work hours Are shortened also So that people can Go home Early on in the day Firstly, because they can Avoid the harsh Weathers that are there And secondly, because They can prepare themselves For the iftar And they can prepare themselves For the عمال During the nights Of لزر خضر And they also prepare themselves For the مجالس And for the دعاء At iftar time Usually There is some light food To begin with After which they have Their main meal After a couple of hours One of the main things About quetta Is that the people there Because it's There is pockets Of Shi'a population They get together And they like To give food To the needy And to the poor They have a very Big sense Of belonging To one big community And wherever there's Poor people Within that community They're always fed They're always invited To someone else's house In order for iftar To be served After which They all head to the mosque And they enjoy In مجالس They have دعاء And عمال On the specific nights One of the things About quetta Is that the government Subsidizes A lot of food During the month of Ramadan Especially to the poor Things like rice Flour Cooking oil Is all given And subsidized By the government One of the other things That the local community do Is try to encourage Young children to fast So usually Young children to fast Maybe one or two days During this holy month But the elders Will make a big deal of it They will give them gifts And they'll celebrate This is one way Of getting them ready For the years coming up When they reach adulthood I would like to once again Humbly ask you To send in your videos Insha'Allah We would like to air them To see how you Spend your days During the month of Ramadan We'd like to read your blogs We'd like to see What you have to write You can join us on Instagram Facebook and Twitter And you can write Things on there as well بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم Dearest Imam Hussein TV viewers السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته Welcome To the holy city Of Karbala Today We came to One of the store markets In the holy city Of Karbala To show you the atmosphere Of the holy month Of Ramadan As we are getting closer And closer To the final days Of the holy month Of Ramadan Dearest viewers I have one of the bars Here Let's have a word With him السلام عليكم ورحمة الله Can you tell me About the weather Of Karbala And the weather Of Ramadan بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم أعتقد أن ورحمة الله Intell Rogers We're at Karbala That's the The In the streets Of Karbala There are a lot of movements There are millions on the street In the streets Of Karbala Thanks Woody Chef Woody أدرك There are bullets And bullets And bullets أخي يقول أن المنطقة العالمية في رمضان سيكون مختلفة في السيارة الكربالة بسبب المدينة هنا في أوراق الكثير من المشاهدين يجب أن يتبعون في المنطقة المنطقة قبل المنطقة المنطقة والأفطار وهم يفتحون الافطار ويأمون في المنطقة المنطقة وهم يأمون هنا بوصول إلى اليوم ويجب أن يتبعون هل يمكنك تقوم بعمل معاك في رمضان؟ يجب أن يأمون إلى رمضان بسبب مدينة ومشكلة عدية وزيارة أرباب هسن بخطر أن نعمل من المغرب حتى الآن سابة أبريبان بخطر أن نرزا ديه سرحت مكانيم حتى بعد الزو حتى بعد الزو ببتكاره وشورو ميشة تانزيكي افتار افتار اميريم كونه بعد ساعتش ميايم دو بارة تانزيكي افتار افتار اميريم كونه أسأل أبريبان بأنهم يعملون ساعة وانه يقول ذلك لأن كل شخص يوم رمضان يعملون وزيارة وعمال بعد افتار وعندما يتبعون حتى أبريبان لذلك يحاولون to rest at home during the day وقبل افتار they come to their stores they prepare their stores they go home and do their افتار ومن ثم يتبعون هنا ويتبعون حتى أبريبان في هذا الفيسودي كما يتحدث عن ساعتة وعندما يتحدث عن المساعدة لقد أريد أن أغيب بشكل مفتوح عن تحدث عن المساعدة كيف يمكنك أن تساعد أن تتحدث عنه ويتحدث عن البيت المميزة about the beauty of our form about the beauty of humankind أريد أن أتحدث عن البيت المميزة وعندما يتحدث عن البيت المميزة لذلك اليوم سأبد off by talking about the nervous system the nervous system includes the brain, the spinal cord and peripheral nerves but if I was to talk about the nervous system in much detail I could take all 30 episodes and I still wouldn't be complete so insha'Allah today I want to talk about very briefly about part one of the nervous system insha'Allah tomorrow I'll talk about part two of the nervous system part one I'm going to talk about the human brain and part two I'm going to talk more about the spinal column and peripheral nerves and exactly how they work, how they function how they adapt it to the role they play the brain consists of many lobes in many areas the human brain in evolutionary terms is one of the most sophisticated probably the most sophisticated organ known the human brain consists of many lobes and each lobe has a defined function they work together so that a human being is a human being they have thought, they have processing they have the ability to act on those processes and that's what makes the human being insha'Allah I'll talk about the different lobes what function each lobe has and exactly how that actually correlates in what we do in day to day life the first part of the brain I want to talk about is called the frontal lobe the frontal lobe is probably one of the most interesting parts of the human brain because when we compare it to a lot of evolutionary a lot of animal brains the frontal lobe is very well developed the reason being is that the frontal lobe is in charge of thought processing planning it has roles to play in objectives and goals, setting plans executive function the frontal lobe is one of the most biggest and most profound evolutionary miracles the frontal lobe allows you number one to plan what you're going to do and number two it stops you inhibits you from doing things that you shouldn't do things that are against the social norm for example and that's what's the beauty of this frontal lobe the other things that the frontal lobe does is it takes sensory pathways to the rest of the brain one of the oldest forms of these is called the olfactory nerve which is from the nose it's actually giving us the sense of smell and our sense of smell goes to our frontal lobe rather than further back in the brain primarily after that I want to talk about the next lobe which lies just behind the frontal lobe and that is the parietal lobe I feel that this is probably one of the most interesting parts of the brain because the parietal lobe is in charge of sensory perception it has areas of the brain the primary somatosensory cortex which takes in information from the rest of the body our touch, our feel and it processes that so that we can respond to that and we can also plan and sense messages to the frontal lobe so we can plan our next action the parietal lobe also has the primary motor cortex which forms part of the great structure of our body which allows us to act and move the sensory cortex senses something it sends the messages to the frontal lobe and the frontal lobe sends the message to the motor cortex and that's what makes us do the actions that we do in reaction to the stimulus it's a very very deep rooted and a profound part of the human brain one which allows us to act and function if there's any strokes which happen in this area of the brain it can cause profound loss of movement or sensation on a particular part of the body the next part of the body that I want to talk about is the occipital lobe which is found at the back of the brain that in itself is in charge of giving us a perception of sight and the beauty of this is that it gives us the perception in a binocular or in a binocular way so we can assess both sides of the eyes so both eyes and we form a full 3D picture and as a result we're able to act on that picture and simple things like driving without the occipital lobe would be unable to do and finally is the temporal lobe the temporal lobe is found on the sides of the brain and what it does is primarily in charge of hearing apart from these 4 lobes of the brain we also have something called cerebellum the cerebellum receives information from different parts of the body it receives proprioception from the peripheral nerves proprioception is the ability of the joints in your hand to know which position they're in and when you know that you know which position your body's in as a result when this is fed back to the brain you know where you are in time and space rather the other reception for the cerebellum is from the ears and also from the eyes and the cerebellum is mainly in charge of coordination when you do complex movements the coordination is directed from the cerebellum we find that people we take certain medications or alcohol alcohol which actually causes suppression of the cerebellum the first test that we find the police use is get them to walk in a straight line why? because the first thing that alcohol wipes out is the cerebellum and therefore you cannot coordinate people cannot walk in a straight line the next part of the brain I want to talk about is the brain stem itself the brain stem is probably one of the most important parts of our brain the reason being is it has a lot of core functions core functions being the respiratory centers the cardiovascular centers the cardiac centers rather it plays a huge role in regulating most of the parts of the body which are under involuntary control and also it takes messages from what we call the cranial nerves which are the nerves that are found around the face and I'll talk a little bit about those in a second and this brain stem if it's damaged in any way can cause the end of life because if the respiratory centers are cut your breathing will become very difficult and it may stop altogether if other parts of the brain stem are affected it may cause things like loss of cardiac output if it affects the cardiac centers if it affects the for example the thermoregulatory centers it will affect your ability to control your temperature and so forth the next part of the human brain is probably not the brain itself but the special senses we have a few special senses which are so evolutionary or so profound so progressive in terms of evolution that scientists cannot work out how to actually join it together with the theory of evolution and those are the eyes and the ears so the eyes themselves are such a miracle that if I was to explain it to you it would take me a very very long time but essentially the eyes are formed of different layers and each layer has a particular role on the surface of the eye we have the cornea the cornea protects the eye it forms a layer on front of the eye after that you have your iris the iris is made up of different muscles and essentially what they do is they contract and they relax they relax the pupil size the iris itself plays a very important role in that action the reason why pupils need to change in size is because for example when we shine light into someone's eye we look for the pupils to constrict and that is a normal reaction or reflex the reason why they constrict is that the human being is designed in such a special way that when we get too much light that hits the back of the retina and we are using the amount of light that enters it therefore you get less problems with overexposure likewise the other way around when it's too dark the pupil expands or becomes bigger the reason being is that you want as much light to get to the retina so that you can make out objects in the dark then after that you have your pupil which is basically just a hole the pupil is the area through which the light passes after which you get to the lens the lens is a very very important part of the eye and that causes refraction and it allows the light to be focused onto a particular point on the retina the way that people become short-sighted or long-sighted is if the lens isn't functioning properly if there's a slight miscorrection of the lens and as a result the focus point is either in front or behind the retina itself after that you have your vitreous which is the float in the eye which keeps the eye's structure and then finally you have your retina the retina consists of many blood vessels on it lie two particular types of cells called rod cells and cone cells the rod cells give us the perception of light and dark and the cone cells give us the perception of color and all of these are very important when we talk about the human eye after the retina the retina has many nerves and very small nerves and they feed into the main optic nerve and that goes into the brain and passes via a special part of the brain called the optic chiasma and makes its way to the occipital lobe that I've described before the human ear once again is very specially designed for its purpose the ear itself is made of the inner and outer ear canal the outer ear canal is the one that we can put our fingers inside and that then goes on to the eardrum when any sound is heard or if any sound is made if there's any waves they cause the eardrum to vibrate and move this eardrum in term has three bones behind it and the three bones actually vibrate in a specific way and then they go on to move the stapes which is the final bone and that connects the cochlea which is inside the ear which allows the human being to hear certain things again if I was to talk about the ear and how it functions we could be here all day but essentially that is how the ear works and this is I guess two of the main special senses when we talk about the sense of smell and taste we talk about a very primitive process which is one of the most primitive nerves or primitive special senses in the animal world the olfactory nerve actually connects through to the frontal lobe of the brain and then it goes to the sensory components of the brain and it allows us to use all of our senses around us to make a whole picture to perceive life to perceive where we are we are often told in school and as we grow up that we have five special senses and we do the final one is a sense of touch I'll talk more about it tomorrow when I discuss the peripheral nervous system but we do have other very special senses one of them is proprioception which is what I mentioned إن شاء الله I won't go into that too much but it would be nice if you read up about them there's a lot of very very special designs within the human body especially the nervous system which makes us distinctive from any other animal that's out there إن شاء الله I hope that this session this particular segment has been enlightening and this has given you a very very very brief overview of what the brain does what the human nervous system does and the role it plays how it's designed to perfection إن شاء الله if I had the time I would expand further and talk about it for ages and ages because it's one of my favorite topics in the whole area of medicine however we don't have time for that إن شاء الله I hope that tomorrow you'll tune in and learn more about the nervous system where I talk about the spinal column and the spinal cord and also the peripheral nerves and the nervous system and إن شاء الله I hope that as this month of Ramadan passes we appreciate our bodies more and more we appreciate the gift that God has given us so that إن شاء الله as we grow up we can look after this gift we can look after our bodies and grow up to be healthy people with a good quality of life so that we may serve the community and serve our Imam alayhi salam during the time of Imam Musa Al-Qalam there was a rude and uneducated former who used to abuse Imam Al-Qalam every time he saw him no matter how rude this man was Imam Musa Al-Qalam never got angry and never said anything to that man one day the companions of the Imam were angered by this action and wanted to punish the man but the Imam Musa Al-Qalam refused and this allowed them to and he told them that he will teach this man a lesson one day Imam Musa Al-Qalam wrote out to the rude man's farm where he saw him working when the man saw Imam Musa Al-Qalam he stopped working and put his hands on his hip and got ready to abuse the Imam Imam Musa Al-Qalam dismounted from his horse went towards the man and greeted him with a friendly and smiling face Imam Musa Al-Qalam told him that he should not overwork himself and that his farm is very good he then asked the man how much do you expect for your crops the farmer was amazed at Imam Musa Al-Qalam's politeness and sincerity he waited a little and said I am expecting around 200 gold pieces Imam Musa Al-Qalam took out a purse and gave it to the man and said to him here is 300 gold pieces and you can keep your money and keep the crops and hoped that the crops would get him more money the farmer faced with such kind behavior and good manners he was very ashamed of himself and asked forgiveness from the Imam after that whenever the farmer saw the Imam he would approach him and greet him politely the moral behind the story is that whenever we are treated bad by other people we should respond by treating them with goodness by treating them with sincerity similar to what the Imam did and also give to the people even if they don't deserve it Imam Ali peace be upon him says be like the flower that gives its fragrance even to the hand that crushes it peace be upon you ورحمة الله وبركاته will continue to proclaim Ya Hussain will continue to say until the moment that our breaths are taken away until the moment that we die where all of the scars you will never stop our voices cause Hussain lives in our hearts you can try to do your worseוצary if you stop our lips from moving through our blood we'll write her saying through our blood we'll write her saying through our blood we'll write her saying يمكننا أن نردنا سجلنا و لكننا لن تشعر بطاقة إذا تتوقفنا من مغرب و بلدنا سنقوم بقراءة نحن نحن نقوم بقراءة و كانت تباكنا He was shrouded by the arrows He was wounded by the stones Then the air cut his neck right to The grief can't be contained If you stop our lips from moving Through our blood we'll write for say Through our blood we'll write for say Being told about for say's fate Fault them are cried out aloud Then the prophet then consoled her As he wiped her tears he vowed There will come a special nation That will cry for him No doubt that Muhammad None of history if you stop our lips Through our blood we'll write for say You can bomb a shooter's kill If you stop our lips from moving Through our blood we'll write for say Through our blood we'll write for say I want to thank you once again for watching this show This concludes this episode of The Ramadan Show Insha'Allah I hope that you've gained a lot out of this And I want to remind you once again To send in your videos, to send in your pictures Your blogs about how you're preparing for this Holy Month Before concluding I just wanted to leave you With a final thought something to contemplate over And that is that success always tastes sweeter After struggle Sometimes we want something so bad We don't want to work for it However when we do work for it And we get it after the struggle It always tastes better And it feels more satisfying I would like to once again remind you To please join us on Twitter Using the hashtag IHTVRAMADAN On Facebook, Instagram And on YouTube I want to finally bid you farewell With the following words والسلام عليكم جميعا ورحمة الله وبركاته


Mmm, you just can't take this tea away from me. Serenity was a film that released back in 2005, it starred Nathan Fillian and then everyone else from Firefly. Now the funny thing about this movie is this is the first one that I've seen of the Digital Film Festival, which was awesome, it was great to see it on the big screen again. I saw this movie not having any idea what the television show was, so it was actually quite cool when I saw it the first time, and then after I saw the Firefly series years later I rewatched it and I was like, oh this all makes sense now. The film Serenity is about a ship called Serenity, a Firefly-class transport ship that is captained by Malcolm Reynolds, excellently played by Nathan Fillian and his crew, and it's about them basically kind of making their way in the world and then all of a sudden something triggers Willow, this girl who is an experiment of the Alliance, the big, heavy corporate guys of the entire universe, and she basically uncovers something that has to do with the Alliance's dark secrets and it's about them exposing it. So the film itself, the film is pretty good, it stands up, of course there is a bit of limited budget and you can tell with some of the ships, especially in the beginning, but the final space fight above the Mystery Universes planet at the end of the film is amazing. The thing I like about this film is it has two amazing opening parts, the first is when we're introduced to the assassin character. Now the assassin character is one of the coolest villains I've ever seen. He's a person who has no emotion, no real connection, he does what he's meant to do. He acknowledges what he is and he knows the aspects of humanity and basically emotions, but he doesn't clue into that. He actually has a very specific honor system, also he has this really cool thing where you're like in your back, you're like in and then you fall on a sword. He has a sword on his back, but when he pulls it out, it's a realistic length to what he would be able to have on his back. Even Blade Sword was a little bit too long to actually fit in a sheath in his back.  But his character, we see so much in this opening scene. We see that he's talented, we see that he's smart, we see that he's tactical, we see that he's willing to do whatever he has to do, but we see that he's not completely a dumbass, jackass, stereotype weirdo. He's actually very cool and methodical with what he does. Then we get this next opening, which is an entire take, a single take of them coming in to... excuse me, we might have some turbulence followed by exploding. I love the opening of this film, both of those openings, because we get to see all the characters, we get to see the crew of Serenity, we get to see the ship, and we get to see how Malcolm works. Malcolm has so many interesting curves in this film, there's so many moments that I'd love to talk about, but I would go on forever if I did. As, of course, of Joss Whedon, especially in this time, he definitely brings in this different and interesting world, the idea of putting Western culture, Western dialogue, Western costumes into space. Malcolm's dialogue, everyone's dialogue, is a mix of Western dialogue and what would be a futuristic dialogue. It's so grammatically wrong, as my girlfriend tells me, but it's so good at the same time. I love how Malcolm actually uses old terminology for the ship. He actually, like, about past way anchor and all this stuff. I love that he uses that dialogue, because you don't see anything like that in this sort of idea of future space age. The film itself has a great story to it. It has a pretty cool tie-in to the show, and especially after having watched the show and watched the movie again, I was like, wow, that really tied up a lot of things. I have exactly three problems with this movie, though. Only three. They're all very minor.  That was awesome. The only problem is who opens up the door. She goes to the door, hits the button, goes back, and then goes into that awesome pose. As awesome as that scene is, that always niggles me a little bit. Like, who opened the door? The other part is actually when the doc gets shot.  We saw that there was no one there. You'd just blown off a grenade. And that was the part... That shot, at first, I didn't mind. But then when I thought about it, I was like, how on earth did Jane not shoot the person before? They literally just went like, around the corner. And... Wash his death. Wash his death is great until you think about it. Because it has as amazingly hard-hitting as it is and out of nowhere as it is, how on earth did none of them see the freaking Reavers' ships that were right in front of them?  They look out the window and there's three Reavers' ships. Why didn't anyone do anything?  The budget is obvious. It's really noticeable now. But that's unfortunate and the fact that he was made off of a $40 million budget was pretty good considering what it was. Another thing that I kind of like that's a little bit not so much talked about in this film is the photography. Especially with the fight scenes and also does the dialogue. A lot of shadow work is done very well.  Sure, they use a little bit of kind of shadow cliches, but the fight scenes, like especially when Jane hits the guy in the head, he flips over, he grabs his legs and then knocks him into the ground. That's completely unblossable, but it's so out of nowhere and so cool. I love that scene.  This guy, the assassin, is way too good and he's basically, at the end, he becomes prideful himself. Remember when he kills the guy at the beginning, he says, you know what your sin is, is pride. He, in the sense, actually becomes prideful himself. When he does his thing to Malcolm, he's like, yeah, I've beaten you. So he gets prideful.  I thought he dislocated his shoulders. Oh, and that's another thing too. Malcolm gets stabbed and he kind of just passes it off. These characters are superheroes. So in the end, what is my rating for? Serenity, it is a six out of seven. It is a very enjoyable film. It is a very unique and interesting idea of space. The only problem is, we didn't yield, released it too early because after Netflix went on this big with the streaming idea, then it got huge, like it got way more big, the idea of firefly and it's basically just what it is. And the problem was you've released your movie too early. You just did this show too early, dude. That's the only problem, and also you had Fox.  Actually, wait a minute, how did you get from Universal to produce the film? Apologies if for the noises, that's the people working on our house or deck is being remade apparently. But either way, Sean and I are going to do our super trooper. I can't even tell you how many movies we're gonna watch today. We got Ghostbusters, we got The Thing, we got Mad Max 2, we've got Mad Max Fury Road.  So I hope to see you guys for those reviews. See you later.


If you are not a generous person, why is that? If you are not a forgiving but a grudge-holding person, why is that? If you are threatened by people that are different to you, why is that? If you are narrow-minded and judgmental, why is that? If you are prejudice or discriminatory or racist, why is that? And so on and so on, take your pick. Whatever it is in your life that you feel is not a behavior that serves you well, it's rooted in a belief that is not serving you well.


This is the Bellarmine Lecture, an annual lecture which has been offered in the university one form or another for probably 40 years now. And this evening it's the turn of Dorian Llewellyn, a distinguished Jesuit scholar as it's always a distinguished Jesuit scholar who offers the Bellarmine Lecture. So Dorian Llewellyn as you might guess from the difficulty that non-kelts have of pronouncing and the impossibility of spelling his name is a Welshman. He's also a member of the California province of the Society of Jesus, though his current appointment is in teaching systematic theology at Heathrop College, the Jesuit School of Philosophy and Theology that's part of the University of London. Dorian Llewellyn read English at Cambridge, read in quotation marks which is the English way for saying he spent three years doing nothing else but read English at Cambridge, not his fault, which means he spent three years doing little else of a scholarly nature except read English. He also holds degrees in theology from the Universidad Pontificada Salamanca and the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. He did his PhD work at the University of Wales. He is taught in universities in the United Kingdom and the United States including the University of Wales, Stanford University and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, a sister Jesuit school where he was founding director of the Huffington Ecumenical Institute and also director of Catholic Studies. He's also held visiting chairs of theology at Marquette University and Seattle University to more Jesuit schools and he is currently president of the International Society of Jesuit Ecumenists. Professor Llewellyn is the author of two books, Sacred Space, Chosen People, Land and National Identity in Welsh Spirituality and more recently, Toward a Catholic Theology of Nationality published in 2010, which was described by Professor Peter Farn of Georgetown University as, and I quote, a veritable intellectual tour de force. The theology of nationality is an unusual area of research but I think fascinating and important. We look forward this evening to hearing Father Llewellyn explore the roles of the Virgin Mary as both champion of empires and mother of the church, not infrequently in skirmishes between church and state. As a cultural icon, the Virgin plays a complex and ambiguous role, at times affirming the status quo yet equally disturbing and challenging it. So as your reward for braving the weather and being here, I invite you to join me in welcoming Father Dorian Llewellyn to give this year's Bellamon Lecture. As a priest, I always note that the good Catholics always sit in the back. So I do have a large number of images to show you tonight. Some of them are rather small, so you might like to consider moving forward at just a couple of rows, you could actually work out what's going on. So thank you Nancy, thank you, Elizabeth. So here we go. On March the 26th, 2013, the front page of the tablet, the weekly paper of the Diocese of Brooklyn featured an image of Mary. Free prints of this picture were distributed to all parishes in support of the US Catholic Bishop's Fortnite for Freedom for Campaign, a phrase which is a code for a culture clash over the respective domains of church and government. Now, this was pre-Twitter, but the editor's choice caused something of a small storm in the Catholic blogosphere, particularly in progressive circles. I think, however, it would not have given the theological heebie-jeebies to many Catholics and Orthodox in other places today or indeed to earlier generations of Christians. And by earlier, I mean the previous 1700 years or so. And in fact, calling up the Virgin Mary in this battle of state and church hierarchies is in fact a well-established norm. And the rest of my lecture is explaining why that is the case. Christian thought and cultural endeavor has, an endeavor has quarried to the max the very few biblical episodes in which the mother of Jesus appears. At Cana, she intercedes with Jesus on behalf of others. In John's account of the crucifixion, she is put in a maternal relationship with the beloved disciple. Now these two biblical scenes in particular underpin some visceral root and branch convictions. Mary can be prayed too. And with a fierce maternal intensity, she is going to protect those who seek her help. This papyrus fragment, which is dated roughly to 250 AD, contains the earliest version of a prayer addressed to the Virgin Mary, which Catholics know as beneath thy protection. There you have the translation. And in the word on line three, the word Theotokos, Mary is addressed in Greek as the birth giver of God, the mother of God. So the writer of this prayer is assuming that she can mediate between earth and heaven and that she will intervene in human history. That religious instinct has produced an immense transnational edifice, which incorporates liturgy and literature, theology and architecture, prayer and politics. Mary's title, Mother of God, the one who gave birth to the one who was God is fundamentally not about her, but about Jesus. So if Mary truly gave birth to him then, as he was really a human, if she is the God birther, then her son was divine. The problem is, how can Jesus be both and the precise relationship between his humanity and his divinity? Differences of opinion came to over the matter, came to the head in Constantinople and the dispute involved bishops and emperors, women and men, monks and mobs. The city of Constantinople had opened for business as the capital of Constantine's new Christian empire in 330. Unlike the first Rome, this city had very little cultural baggage from paganism. New Rome was an entirely Christian polity and gradually it came to be considered as a reflection of heaven. Court theologians had quickly painted the emperor's role as being inseparably political and sacred. He was the earthly representation of the ruler of the courts of heaven. In the year 428, the emperor Theodosius II appointed Assyrian monk Nestorius as Bishop of Constantinople. Now, Nestorius argued that that title Theotokos, the mother of God, meant that the whole Godhead had been born as a man, an idea which he found deeply repugnant because he held it would make Mary equal to God or even superior to God. Nestorius's reservations might actually have been a matter of style as well as substance. The homilies of his contemporary, Saint Cyril of the Bishop of Alexandria, addressed to Mary, praised her lavishly. Through you, he says, churches are established throughout the world. The people's alleged conversion. Through you, the dead rise. Through you, sovereign's reign. This rhetoric could easily imply that Mary is an agent in her own right.  Nestorius's opponents saw in his rejection, the Virgin's title, a refusal to accept the unity of the human and the divine in Jesus. But equally, Nestorius was also refuting a deep-seated voice of the faithful, so to speak. By that point, Christians had been praying to the Virgin Mary as mother of God for at least two centuries in Egypt, which was a Christian community far more ancient than the newcomer, the newcomer, Constantinople. Tempers flared publicly, and as they did, the unity of the church and empire were threatened. So, to settle the dispute in 431, Theodosius convoked a church council at Ephesus. Now, how the relationship between the human and the divine in Jesus actually worked was more than just a matter of really obstruc, obscure metaphysics. Because really what was it about, what it was about was the connection between belonging to Christ and being in the world, between religious loyalties and secular citizenship, between the role of bishops and the power of rulers. So, the council anathematized Nestorius, the emperor deposed him, and Mary's title Theotokos was affirmed. The mother of God and her devotees had triumphed. Devotion to Mary grew inexorably. New churches required new images to decorate them. New Marian feasts in the church calendar produced new homilies and new hymns. One of these hymns, the Akathistos hymn, is a triumph of imaginative imagery, deployed to show the virgin at the very, very heart of salvation. In one of the first verses, the city of Constantinople itself addresses Mary. To you, our leader in battle and defender, I, your city, delivered from sufferings, ascribe hymns of victory and thanksgiving. Since you are invincible in power, free me from all kinds of dangers. Mary is portrayed as God's hypermachos strategos, that is the general who is mighty in war. She has the responsibility of defending the city. The mother of God looks after the state. The Greek word for hymn of victory or prize of victory is nikhetiria. And that was the name also of the ancient festival of the Greek goddess of victory, nike, or as we know her, Nike. Byzantinists told that this verse of this hymn reflects the conviction that Mary herself had saved the city from invasion by the pagan people called the Avars in the year six to six. Now the siege of the Avars was a foundational event in a key self understanding of the city and empire. Constantinople was the virgin's own dwelling and its inhabitants, her chosen people. Constantinople gathered substance as a holy city amongst other ways by acquiring relics. Relics were far more than just venerable objects. They were extensions of sacred persons they were connected to and so they held the power to heal and to safeguard from danger. They represent in the words of Peter Brown, the availability of the holy. The more and the more important the relics, the greater the holiness and Constantinople held a fabled number of them. None was more treasured than the robe of Mary which was enthroned at the church called Blakernay. One early hymn describes Constantinople as quote, guarding the precious garment by which it is guarded all the more, saying, lady, always preserve me like a maid servant under your arms in the way in which you have already delivered me from the sword.  Even if her body no longer remained on earth, the faithful could visit her by visiting the church which held her robe. So by the seventh century, the city contained more than 100 churches and chapels dedicated to Mary, rendering it into what one writer called the Theotokopolis, the city of the mother of God. It was sacred geography. The Byzantines thought of the Virgin as living with them. Belief in her power to defend her city was tested by and proved in military context. Now, the Byzantine chronicles describe many sieges in each of which case, the Theotokos was held to have intervened sometimes very concretely indeed. Contemporary accounts of that siege by the Avars describe her as running on the ramparts, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the enemies brandishing her sword, inspiring them to redden the waters of the city with the blood of the pagans. A host of invaders was massacred on her front door, right on the front porch of the Blechernai church. The tale grew in the telling. Accounts of the same event, but centuries later relate how a storm blew up which caused the attackers to abandon the siege. The leader of the pagan Avars, the Hagan, announced that nobody can win against the mother of God. Her victories resemble those of the war goddess, Athena Promachos, whose ancient statue still stood in the form of the city. And in every case, salvation came from the robe, the sacrament and the symbol of salvation. During a siege in 860 by the Slavs, more than 200 enemy ships were threatening the capital. The emperor, Michael III, desperately prostrated himself on the floor of the Blechernai church, begging the virgins' help. Bishop Fotius of Constantinople solemnly processed Mary's robe around the walls, as he dipped its hem in the Bosphorus, there he is in the bottom right there, as he dipped its hem in the Bosphorus, a sudden storm arose in destroying the invaders' flotilla. Fotius preached a sermon of victory. The whole city was carrying with me herraiment for the repulse of the besiegers. This most holy garment embraced the walls, and the foes inexplicably showed their back. The city put itself, put it around itself, and the camp of the enemies was broken. Mary's robe was a powerful cloak of invincibility. The emperor Romanos Lecapenos wrapped himself in it before battle with the attacking Bulgarians a century later. 100 years after that, Emperor Alexios I carried the robe into battle with him. Under Mary's protection, state and church were free from danger. Images of Mary date from the second century, and it is likely that icons were used in both domestic settings and public liturgy from the very beginnings of the city. Now, Byzantine image theory holds that an image actually participates in the being of the person it represents, and therefore in their power as well. So at the Avar siege, the emperor Heraclius had been away on a military campaign. Images of Mary, with Jesus, were put up on the gates of the walls, standing in, as it were, for the emperor, keeping the city safe. Holiness is shown particularly by miracles. That Blachernei church would in time become home to a miraculous icon of the virgin and the child. One 12th century Spanish visitor relates how every Friday evening, to large crowd, the image performed what he called the usual miracle. The veil in front of the icon was lifted, and the face of the virgin became animated or inspirited. The rare absence of this miracle portended bad things for the state. In 1107, the emperor Alexios Komnenos went on a military campaign in the middle of the week, before he had received the blessing of the miracle. On hearing that the usual miracle had failed to take place, he and his army trekked all the way back to the capital immediately, and the miracle resumed, confirming the legitimacy of his campaign against the crusaders. Political and military success signaled God is with us. There are hundreds of standard variants of Byzantine icons of Mary, all of which portray Mary with Jesus. From the ninth century onwards, they frequently show Jesus held in her arms as the mother would hold a child. They indicate her maternal human qualities. The Hodegetria, that is the icon of the Hodegon monastery, was the most revered of the imperial icons, because it was believed to have been painted from life by Luke the evangelist. In 971 to celebrate, in the triumphal procession, to celebrate his defeat of the Bulgarian czar, Boris, John Semiskes, the emperor, had the image of Mary placed in his imperial chariot. The Hodegetria, this implied, was the true military commander and victor. His grandson, John II Komnenos, adopted the Hodegetria as his personal palladium. He took copies of the icon, his campaigns, to secure the borders of empire. And on his imperial carnage, the Theotokos Hodegetria, there on the right, herself crowns John. This is a motif which evoked a really ancient motif of taking back to the time of Constantinople, when who where Constantine was portrayed as being crowned by a goddess called the Tuche, the goddess of good fortune, whose own crown were the city walls themselves. But the Theotokos did not intervene when the Frankish crusaders sacked her city in 1204. The Blecherna icon and its usual miracle at that point disappear from history. But the other icon, the Hodegetria survived. When a native dynasty was reestablished in 1261, the icon once again led a triumphant procession into Constantinople. As the Byzantines sought to erase the shameful memory of Latin conquest, the icon of Mary was at the center of the memory of the city, a star in the most grandiose religious and state spectacles. Over the course of a millennium then, in the imagination of both church and state, Mary had become to be a war-like protective figure, a mother who was tender to her children, but implacable with their enemies. One contemporary Byzantinist describes her as, quote, dynamic activist, a majestic militant grandmother. But for much of Byzantium's history, in the East, a new star with a crescent moon had been rising ever since the first Arab forays into the empire in the 630s. The empire dwindled. 14th century inhabitants of Constantinople claimed that, quote, the Hodegetria, the protectors of our city will be enough without anybody else to secure our welfare, end quote. The faithful city-state was a holy sanctuary, almost like Mary's body. It was ever virgin, inviolate. Its walls were intact. Its gates were sealed against impure invaders, but in 1453, the walls of Constantinople were breached. Ottoman forces entered the church of the Hodegetria. They pulled the icon down off the altar and to get at its precious golden frame, they hacked it into four and threw the remains on a bonfire. The dismemberment of the Hodegetria symbolized the end of Mary's patronage of second Rome, but not of the militant virgin. Some of those gutsy convictions have remained important features of the cult of Mary throughout the centuries. These ideas are subtle and remarkably durable and ubiquitous. The virgin is interested in whole peoples and places as well as individuals. She is active in political as well as spiritual warfare. She will intercede, especially for her devotees and a fire, and she will protect both church and state. But when church and state are in conflict with each other, then she has definite favorites. Now, at this point, I wanna put us on a fast plane with a rather eccentric route to get us home on time. So we go, first of all, to Russia, which inherited many of the spiritual dispositions of Constantinople. According to legend, the evangelist Luke also painted this icon, the mother of God, of Vladimir. In fact, it's probably of 12th century Byzantine origin. It became the perduring symbol of the survival of the Russian people as a people, and indeed of orthodoxy as Russia's faith. Its origin legend relates the waves of fear that the icon itself stirred up in the Tatar armies of Tamerlin the Great. Accounts displaying nationalist, theocratic, and xenophobic sympathies show the hand of clerical chroniclers. These associations attach themselves to the icon like another coat of varnish. This icon, the Vladimir Miskaia, remained in the Kremlin for centuries as a protective presence. It even survived the Bolshevik bonfire of vanities. Today, it is enthroned not in a church, but in the government-owned Tradyakov Gallery in Moscow. There are other Russian icons which are venerated as nationally significant, but not necessarily by the state. One blackened icon was discovered in the village church of Kolomskoye on the very day that Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. The village priest was given to understand in prayer that the mother of God had taken up the crown that had fallen from the head of the Tsar. Henceforth, the icon itself would reign until the Tsars returned to the Russian throne. Now, the Virgin can work on either side of political authority and can challenge the collaborations between church and state. Russian neo-nationalism, as you may know, is strongly linked with orthodoxy. In the year 2011, a relic that had once lived in Constantinople, the Virgin's Sincture, was sent from Mount Athos to Moscow. President Putin greeted it at the airport with a protocol due to a head of state. Some two million Russians stood in line for hours in subzero temperatures to venerate Mary's belt and to seek her intercession. But in 2012, the Pussy Riot protest at Holy Saviour of Cathedral also appealed to Mary.  The entreaty was ironic, but at the same time, it was inscribed in a millennial liturgical tradition. In orthodox liturgies, in the Sundays of the middle of Lent, that Byzantine hymn, the Akathist is prayed, and Mary is addressed as mighty leader in battle. Now, at this point, we are just going to fly low above Poland for some quick Instagrams. In the year 1655, at the height of his campaign against the Swedish Lutheran forces, King Jan Kazimierz made his public vow before a wonder-working picture of Our Lady of Grace in the Cathedral of Lvov. He swore, great mother of God, I choose thee as patron of myself and as queen of all my states, and to offer my kingdom of Poland to thy special care and protection, so that this sorely tried and confused realm of mine may withstand the foes of the holy Catholic Church." And the quote. He won the war, or rather, they won the war, and Mary got a new title, Queen of Poland. Yet between the year 1795 and 1918, there was no kingdom of her to be queen of. Yet, Mary's queenship relativized the power of the Russian, Prussian, and Austro-Hungarian states. The queen of Poland symbolized resistance through a heavenly citizenship, an eschatological version of nationality, and it fueled the hope of restoration of the Polish state. During the years of Soviet communism, devotions to the queen of Poland remained strong, both in Poland and in the diaspora. Catholicism coalesced with patriotism. Mary was the champion, not of the state, but of the nation and the church, and it is only against the backlash of the thousand-year history of Poland and Mary that we can fully understand the life and the thought of St. John Paul II.  In 1638, in hopes that his pregnant wife would give birth to a son, rather than a daughter, Louis XIII of France, too, made avow to Our Lady of the Assumption, quote, consecrating to her our own self, the state, our crown, and our subjects, in treating her to diligently defend this kingdom against the endeavors of its enemies. But the French Revolution was to dissolve that consecration to Mary. The fiercest battles fought on French soil where Mary were involved were not, in fact, military, but cultural and political. The early architects of the French Revolution embarked on an energetic project of decrystianization, enthroning briefly, for example, a young lady dressed as the goddess of reason in the cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris. After the ideological repositioning of the Napoleonic era, France became a social war zone, with church state skirmishes inevitable and frequent. But so often did the Virgin appear in 19th century France that that period was dubbed the Marian Century. France's claim to be the eldest daughter of the church dated back some 1400 years, but it now became known as Lorraine de Marie, the kingdom of the Virgin. The lady who appeared to the peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirou, at Lourdes, identified herself in local language as the Immaculate Conception. This was read as an earthy affirmation of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception four years earlier by Pius IX. Now, the fact that Marie had chosen to do this on French soil directly challenged the Republican ideal of laïcité, that is state secularism. Art Lourdes, Marie, Refuge of the Sick, could also be Marie, the Refuge of Catholic France, or at least the symbol of true France. In the battle for the soul of the French, apparitions and popular acclaim were particularly effective ammunition. Yaroslav Pelikan writes, quote, neither the intellectual defense of Christian revelation by 19th century theology, nor the political defense of the institutional church against the anti-clericalism of the time was as effective a campaign, particularly among the common people as the one that the Virgin Mary waged. Rome is the head of the church, but Lourdes is the heart. Aspects of identity, ideological, geographical, and religious are particularly likely to fuse under fire and to front lines. From the time of the rise of Islam, Christians have sought Mary's aid against Muslims. The battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 was the turning point in the Spanish Reconquista. To repel the Moors, the Virgin Mary appeared in the sky with St. James, who got the title the Moor Slayer. In preparation for battle against the Ottomans and hoping to regain the Christian control of the Eastern Mediterranean, Pope Pius V promulgated a rosary campaign. The naval victory at Lepanto in 1571 was attributed to Mary's direct intercession. And sometimes she interceded very directly. Muslim Turks besieging the Ukrainian Monastery of Pochaev in 1675 were confronted with a host of armed angels with the mother of God holding her robe over the monastery to shield it. The arrows that the Turkish forces shot to the angels turned back in mid-flight and killed the archers. Do not mess with Mary. Now that Virgin warrior imaginary also informed Spanish expansion into the New World. Fernández de Oviedo's 1526 Historia General de las Indias, the first chronicle of the Spanish conquista, describes how the Virgin Mary seated on a white horse appeared in battles against the Aztecs. Again, in company of St. James the Moor Slayer, sometimes referred to as St. James the Indian Slayer, she cast dust in the faces of the Aztecs and blinded them. A feat repeated in some 10 other battles. New Spain became eventually the land of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. Now, time precludes spending lingering time and lingering in her company, even if she is Empress of the Americas. But I just want to add that the Guadalupe figure cannot be understood without reference to everything I am talking about tonight. So finally, to the New World, with its own founding legends and its own imperial capital, Washington, D.C. In the city on the hill, with its puritan myths told in the accents of Exodus, there seemed once again to be no room at the infirmary. That other dominant gene in our American psyche, the Enlightenment, felt that Marian devotion smelt a little too much of sheep and of the wrong sort of savages, the ignoble ones. So where the church of Santa Sofia had had the Theotokos enthroned in a gilded dome, and where Catholic European art portrayed as one of its favorite themes, the Assumption of Mary, the Dome of America's capital had instead the apotheosis of Washington, who is seated above the goddess of freedom, who is busy hacking down kingly power and tyranny. But gathered in Baltimore in 1846, the bishops of America put the United States under the patronage of Mary, under her title of the Immaculate Conception. Now this choice combined ultra-montane loyalty with a universal Catholic devotion. And it also sought to construct another alternative narrative to the myth of progress, to those quote, pilgrim feet who stern impassioned stress, a thoroughfare of freedom beat across the wilderness. Lands that would later become U.S. territory were in fact already Mary's domain. In 1760, Clement the 13th had placed Georgia, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception. So before there was an us, before there was a U.S., this land was her land, this land was our land, our Catholic land. 19th century Catholics sought many ways of finding their place in national memory. Now one of the thing was to do was to write histories and our historians traced the fingerprints of the Virgin in the flourishing of the Republic. One report, for example, describes how Ursuline nuns prayed to Our Lady of Prompt Sucker the night before the Battle of New Orleans.  Oh, victorious general mighty in battle. It wasn't Andrew Jackson. Over the course of the 19th century, immigration transformed American Catholicism. By the year 1916, three quarters of the U.S. Catholic population of more than 15 million were Czechs, French Canadians, Germans, Irish Italians, Lithuanians, Mexicans, Poles, Slovaks and Ukrainians. Creating a Catholic unum out of this pluribus was a matter of practical survival. Anti-Catholicism has a long history in America. The hostility of the know nothings was as much religious as it was ethnic. And among the clearest markers of ethno-Catholic difference was Mary. A project to build a large church in the nation's capital in honor of the nation's patroness was envisaged in 1919. Its promoters sought to secure an eminent place among the capital's great monuments, one that would make Catholic claims on civic space and national awareness. Said a 1922 article, quote, the shrine is by no means intended to rival the capital. Architecturally rather, it complements it. Its grandly proportioned mass will be as manifestly ecclesiastical in motive as that of the capital is secular. In other words, separate but equal. In the minds of the church's founders, the church's design and decoration were an apologia for the paleo-Christian oranges of origins of Catholicism. The low ceilings and the many small chapels of the lower church, our Lady of the Catacombs, recall Rome, the foundation of faith. For the upper church, the main building, in contradistinction to the English Gothic pastiche of the so-called National Cathedral, they invoked the ancient and expansive world of Constantinople. Some 50 chapels, statues, oratories, and mosaics are each dedicated to particular ancestral devotions to our Lady of Somewhere or of Something. And at the same time, in the words of its promoters, it is America's church. The Basilica was finally completed in 1958. It's sought to convey that Catholics were as fully American as anybody else. The program issued for the opening of the shrine featured on its front cover a painting by the Benedictine brother Raphael Fistera. Below the virgin is an American flag. On the left, just beneath the capital, a bishop points to Mary. On the right, just beneath the national shrine, a mother looks up reverently at the virgin. At the bottom of the image, two American Indian women hold up a map of the U.S. They petition for the nation's protection, their wooden idols cast down. Around this time, Cardinal Spellman expressed similar sentiments in dreadful poetry. America or America, thou art dedicated to Mary. She conquer of evil, conquers evil for thee, who art resisting evil. Sing thou the song of souls, the magnificat of Mary, the magnificat of America. The evil that required resistance by both church and union was communism. As battle lines emerged between West and East, the millions who believed in Our Lady of Fatima saw the Cold War on Earth as a reflection of a war in heaven. Mary, according to some, also appeared in the land of the free. In 1950, in Nesita, Wisconsin, Mrs. Mary Ann Hoofe received a number of apparitions. Through her visionary, Mary gave a message to thousands gathered at the Van Hoofe family farm. Quote, the enemy of God is all over America. They have Satan in their hearts. The black clouds are coming over to America. Alaska is the first stepping stone. Remember the Pacific coast, the coast. The completion of the National Shrine seemed to some to come at the tail end of that long century of Mary. Thomas Tweed calls the attempt to forge through the shrine a consolidated American national Catholicism centered on Mary, a failed endeavor. Its wishes and hopes expressed in subjunctive architecture. With the changes wrought by the Second Vatican Council, devotional Marian piety was an embarrassing relic of an atavistic past for some people. The only holdouts being conservative and ethnic readouts. The times, they were changing. But the church in America was being rapidly reshaped not only by the Aggiornamento of Vatican II. Mary held ways of immigrants under her protection as they crossed the border and supported them in their battles for justice and their struggles for a better life. Dolores Huerta referred to Guadalupe as a symbol of faith, hope, and leadership. She has been incorporated into everything we do. I don't think I could have survived without her. Robert Orsey says the figure of Mary, quote, is refracted through the prism of the needs and fears of the people who approach her, end quote. Her DNA is protean. So today's American Mary includes Guadalupe, mother of the vulnerable. She is also home girl heroine of Latina pride. She is a pop icon. She is pro-life defender of the unborn. As la Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre in Miami, she is focus of Cuban identity and she blends into the goddess Orchun of Santería. She is at the same time feminist icon and also focus of apocalyptic traditionalism. Our Lady of Everywhere and Everything. In all these cases, one ancient gene keeps on appearing. Mary is bound to a cause, a campaign, in which there is an us versus a them. As that hymn, the archithist praises her. She is a leader in battle and a defender and the election goes both ways. Mary is chosen as protectant protractors and she chooses to gather people together to deliver them from peril. Note, she gathers people together. The link between Mary and a believing community appears in scripture. First of all, in that crucifixion scene, in John, but also in acts where Mary prays with the community of Jerusalem as they await the coming of the Holy Spirit. Now, there is a sense in which the place of Mary in a community, religious or secular, is something of a spiritual Rorsch test. Where the church is strong or where it seeks to be strong, we have what some people call Big Mary. Conversely, when Mary is put in the background like an embarrassing relative in a wedding picture or when she is photoshopped to look attractive to contemporary notions of theological propriety, then I wonder, does Catholicism lose something of the guts and the earthy mystery of the incarnation? Cardinal George once told his brother bishops that US citizens, even Catholics, are quote, culturally Calvinist. So an interventionist Mary who has definite ideas about who and what she favors and what she doesn't will likely disquiet some sensibilities.  And that is precisely why I think it merits attention and the hermeneutics of careful discernment and rigorous respect. The image is actually entitled Our Lady of America, Queen of America. Many paintings by its artist, Joanne von Zwell, include religious and patriotic themes. Theologically, on the whole, her work is in the equivalent of folk art. That is, it's technically unsophisticated, but it is also highly evocative and with an eloquence that resides in its very naivety. Technical and conceptual simplicity reveals its underlying themes more clearly than a more sophisticated approach would have done. And precisely because of those reasons, we should not look upon it patronizingly. The reasons why it is discomforting for some are also worth reflecting upon. Popular religiosity is not only Latino. The words religiosidad popular can be translated as folk piety, but quite simply, they can also be translated as working class faith. And there is indeed something of the redneck in this Mary. The image repels, but it also compels, and it can stir hearts. And frankly, it questions my own established notions of theological and aesthetic decorum. At Ephesus, the title Theotokos was fought over viciously by all sectors of the populace, not merely clerics and intellectuals. What was at stake was the relationship between the things of this world and the world above. The impermeable wall between them or their mutual indwelling. So our Lady of America, this image, is one potential expression of the implications of the incarnation. What I think the scheme becomes questionable is that here we have a Mary who is not so much mother of the church as mother of the nation. And for us who are cultural Calvinists schooled in the separation of church and state, this image can take us back into uncomfortable old world territory or south of the Vorda, down Mexico way. But this American Mary is far from being unique. Our Lady of Everywhere can take local form, sometimes strangely so. von Sveil's painting is informed by the iconographic scheme of the Immaculate Conception which is formulated by the Spanish artist von Francisco Pacheco in the 17th century. This Mary on the left, however, does not introspect in humility, but rather she raises her eyes upwards intently in prayer. The stars on her rope, the American flag, echo the stars of her crown and they refer to the woman of Revelation 12. In that chapter, a dragon, the Roman state, threatens the woman's child, the fledgling church. Who and what might our Lady of America's robe, the flag, shelter? Against who or what is she protecting? In this year of mercy, we might remember the medieval motif called the Virgin of Mary or in which Mary shelters many people under her cloak. The children of the mother of God, the mother of mercy, may include rulers but her protection may also be sought against them. The title of the tablet, that other tablet, was religious freedom under siege. Please note the military metaphor. In an evocation of ancient patterns, the mighty leader in battle was being drafted in. Heavenly power invoked against the danger of civic invasion. The struggle here is not citizens of the empire versus invaders. It's not Christians against Muslims. Rather, the struggle is about competing visions of church and state and how they fit together. The early inhabitants of Constantinople would have read the front page of the tablet in a New York second. The cities rise and fall. And the names of kings come and go from the walls of Constantinople to our sea to shining sea. But the incarnational tensions remain the same and Mary is always in the middle. Beneath your compassion, we take refuge, rescue us, O Theotokos. Everybody in this room knows the words of God bless America, which are in fact the back cloth of Van Sveil's painting. The history spans continents and centuries and it involves a long-lived instinct that the eye of the land that I love might be somebody more than a US citizen. In 1976, the English writer Marina published a book, a landmark book. It was the first feminist deconstruction of the cult of the Virgin Mary. And she anticipated that soon, quote, the virgin will recede into legend, which will be emptied of moral significance and thus lose its present real powers to heal and harm. 40 years later, that prophecy has yet to be fulfilled. Personally, I'm not sure it ever will be. Thank you. So we have time for a few questions and we have a couple of microphones. So if you have something to ask, please raise your hand and we'll come by. Since Vatican I, we experienced. What? Vatican I, we experienced a deification of Mary that in some way, and I can see the year. I'm listening, yes. Okay, yeah, yeah. That in some way, especially for women, devalued her real experience as mother. And I'm wondering if you have anything you'd like to. Yes, it's an interesting question because that question of the deification of Mary, I would trace that observation. I would take back actually far before Vatican I. I'd take it back to Ephesus, in fact. At some point there's always been a certain amount of theological nervousness about that. Now what I find interesting, Jamie, about your comment there is that the category of how, what is the operative category for Mary? I think in the theological tradition, it actually is motherhood. But the sensibility of the question of whether that actually devalues women, I think that's a contemporary sensibility. I have to say that at the moment, I tend to think that there are two tensions within the study of Virgin Mary. One of which is what we call a Christo-typical one, and the other one is ecclesiotypical. Let me just unpack that theological jargon. One is that do you concentrate on the unique privileges of Mary? You know, the immaculate conception, the assumption of force, by her close association with Jesus. So in Vatican II, for example, what we find there is that is actually not there. In Vatican II, we get the church focus where he is actually Mary becomes mother of the church. Now I think in that second model, that is where you get a kind of, she's more like Elizabeth Johnson's book, it's truly our sister. I tend to think, however, that you don't get the church without the Christ, you don't get Christ without the church. So I think both perspectives are important. It may be, and I think I would agree, that I think there is a case for arguing that an excessive concentration on one actually leads to the denigration of the other. Yeah, I hope that's, yeah. Dorian? Yes. I mean, in some ways this is a very obvious question, but as I listen to this fascinating story, one way to describe it is the eclipse of Jesus Christ. So I mean, I think you mentioned Jesus twice, both in connection to what Mary said to him. What I wonder is, if you, you know, can you speculate on or talk about what is it that encourages the prioritization of devotion to Mary over devotion to Jesus Christ? That's very interesting. You know, one year I went on a little radio program for BBC when I went to Lord, and my companion there, or two of us, was a Presbyterian minister, and who was appalled by Lords, you know. I mean, she says it's all Mary, Mary, there's no Jesus. One of the theories that you could say that is in the, if you lose the dimensions of the Trinity, you know, then, which can, sort of in the history of devotion and theology, tends to happen somewhere in the Middle Ages. You get this figure where Jesus becomes the judge and Mary becomes the kind of the figure of mercy.  So I rescue them. So I think, Paul, it's something about needing to recuperate that figure of the merciful side of Jesus. Who knows that they, it's curious, you know, in terms of, if I look at some of these images, let's see if I can go back to one. What I mentioned here is that, okay, so that's a very coded image, okay? You'd have to be able to, but you get the immaculate heart, which is, in fact, a reflection of the sacred heart. So there is a kind of a reference to Jesus there. However, in the art history things, one of the major distinctions between Eastern representations of Mary, the Orthodox Church and Western ones, is that Mary is almost always with Jesus in there. So she's there. So her role there is the maternity of the divine word. I think the fact that there isn't a Jesus directly in this figure says that somehow she's got somehow disconnected from her son and tends to can easily take over a role. Now, when you get, I have to be careful here, but there are times I think when one listens to the comments particularly in the apparitions from the 19th century onwards somehow, some of the language there, I find puzzling in the sense that it gets back to this medieval idea that my son is so angry, I cannot restrain his hand, so this is what you've got to do.  So it is because of that that I find it, it's untidy. It doesn't necessarily fit into a kind of neat theological scheme as I as a university professor would want it. At the same time, it actually represents the living faith of so many people. And I think that there's a kind of a disconnect with them. So those are some comments rather than some answers. Elizabeth, I'm sorry, then Mark. Mark, you go first. Thank you. Thanks. Dorian, in some of the slides, there's the literal juxtaposition of Mary and the Statue of Liberty. Yeah. This, I'm sorry, let me just move a little hand here to this final one, if I can. This was the prayer card for the opening of the Shrine of the Macley Conception. Okay. Yeah. This, I'm sorry, I'll try and do this one. The final one, yes. Sorry, and I interrupted you, Mark, I'm sorry. So the question that I have is, for me, that raises questions of female imagery as the personification of either abstract things or national things like Columbia, Lady Columbia, and all that stuff. So is there a conflation of Mary? Is she like an origin of that imagery or does the feminine personification of entities precede her, predate her? This is where I'm an old fashioned teacher who needs a blackboard, okay, is that I could actually draw this on you, okay. So one claim is that what happens with the demise of the mother goddess is Mary takes over, you know, so that she replaces those in the early Christian church. I think a more sophisticated way of saying is that there is need somehow psychologically in the deep anthropological sense for a female figure. Now, the personification of virtues, places, movements and so forth as female figures long predates Christianity. Long predates Christianity. But they're not exclusively female, but very often we get. I mean, how, when we refer to, you know, I mean, where the church is female, you know, I mean, so, to that extent, Mark, I think what we're dealing with is a kind of a fairly deep, I would think, an instinct down here. And it may be something that that what's going on, Paul, with that, why somehow the figure of Mary as can eclipse Jesus in that way, yeah. Mark, does that address your question? Yeah, thank you. Okay, so choice of questions. Yes. What, just so you have a choice. So what role would you determine that women religious may have had in sustaining the popularity of Mary? So that women religious, women religious, have they played a significant role or did Mary not need any help? And then the second thing, because you were going the low aerial view, this speeded up version, understanding JP2 and the importance of Mary. So comment on either one. I'll do the JP2 question, even though because it's a little neater. You know, John, you can't understand Polish Catholicism without understanding the significant theological and cultural role that Mary has played in the history of Poland. And given the history of that culture and that country, the fact that it didn't exist for so long, the fact that it's seen itself as the bulwark against orthodoxy and sometimes against Islam as well, the figure of Mary is taken on this whole national resonance. The very earliest Polish song that we have, it goes back to the 12th century, is a hymn to Mary. The legend that I told you about, the Lwów, that's not a legend that actually happened, but you know, there are countless things, stories where Mary's health have intervened in the history of Poland. For John Paul II, his first collection of poems is called Matka, which means mom, and it's addressed not to Mary, but to the motherland. But I think I kind of said there, rather hurriedly, the figure of Mary, the motherland, the mother of the church, mother Poland, the mother of Poland, all kind of blend to each other. So Polish Catholicism is deeply, deeply, deeply Marion in a way that I think that it's kind of difficult for us white bread Americans to realize. I really have one question, but it has two different dimensions. Mary is mentioned in the Koran, and I believe with respect. How could that affect the ongoing dialogue between Christianity and Islam? Secondly, the same question in regard to the various denominational churches. You made clear that in the Calvinist dimension, Mary was totally de-emphasized, and I'm not sure, but I believe the role of Mary is very ambiguous and difficult in ecumenical conversation today. Let me deal with the first one first. Mary, okay, again, when I try to teach this to students, there is a figure in the Koran called Maryam. She's the only person, only woman mentioned my name in the Koran, and the Koran gives a significant treatment to her. There is a figure in the Koran called Issa, who we would translate as Jesus. Now, Issa in the Koran is not exactly the same as our notion of Jesus, because he's not the, I mean, he's born miraculously, but he is not the ultimate prophet. So the figure of Maryam picks up in the Koran on some early I'm just lost the word completely. Not apocalyptic, what's the word I'm looking for? Not even deuterocanology, apocryphal legends of Mary. So to that extent, the figure of Maryam can be, Maryam Mary can be a bridge figure, and quite often is, in discussions between Islam and Islam and Christianity. Practically, Mary and shrines in Christian countries are visited by many, many Muslim women. So at some practical level, the devotion is already there. People don't necessarily see that as being a contradiction. They wouldn't necessarily go to a church, but they would go to shrine of Mary. Secondly, in terms of ecumenical dialogue, Vatican II, amongst other things, decided not to declare a new Vatican, a new dogma about Mary for ecumenical sensibilities. It felt that if Mary were declared as co-redembricks, this would totally mess up any kind of questions of unity between the churches. What I tend to think, there's actually quite an interest, and there's a whole body of Protestant work on Mary as Protestant theologians are actually rediscovering the figure of Mary. So it's not, she's necessarily a red rag to a bull. Having said that, it depends who you're talking to, you know, because there are people whom you can't, you know, she's the sign of contradiction, it's not Jesus, the sign of contradiction is Mary. So she's ambivalent in that way. So she can be a bridge figure, but at the same time she can also divide as well, yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, will you join me in another round of applause for Dorian? Thank you. Thank you so much Dorian. Thank you all for being here. We look forward to seeing you here on March the 16th for the next installment in the Jewish Christian Engagement Lecture Series. The details of that and many other wonderful events on the table at the back of the room. Thank you all for being here, good night.


Sanchez, that was definitely a way of living that would make kids more independent and strong, both mentally and physically but that wasn't necessarily the most healthy way. No, it wasn't the most healthy way.  I remember a lot of the relatives of my dad in your time of youth died because of the same kind of freedom that their parents used to give them. They have car accidents and all of other kinds of dangers a kid can experience in streets. Yeah, I agree Sanchez. There's more accidents that happen, stuff like this, but those that survive a childhood which is free, okay, become stronger adults and that makes the community stronger, much, much stronger. In my personal opinion, there's got to be a balance between that and this protective nanny state that we have created in the West. Children right now are weak as fuck, unbelievably, right, and they are intentionally being raised that way, groomed that way, so they will either become brown shirts, okay, they will become bureaucrats or cannon fodder or dependent on the state for survival. The state does not want free-thinking individuals to exist in their societies because they will question authority, okay. I prefer the way the system that I grew up in than the system that exists now in the western world, even with the accidents, even with the dangers, okay, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, okay.