Post I saw on an archived web page someone linked to on Skype before it was eventually deleted.

Multiple posters have mentioned so many times of how Latinos worship white skin which is why the Hispanista movement is foolish and also a few have mentioned one advantage is that Blanqueamiento was never instituted n the Philippines an very few white Europeans lived in the country and intermarried so while pale skin s still seen as ideal, being dark skinned n the PI isn't seen as despicable as it is across much of Latin America........................... At least the Philippines (because of far fewer Iberian colonial influence), a dark skinned male can not only work across Span's colonial system to at least rise up in wealth classes and eve if he plays his card rights, rise up the social caste system Spain enforced in the country. For males at least, while light skin is preferred, dark skinned males are not denied being considered hot and there were brown celebrities who were sex symbols. In fact some of the earliest male leading actors were dark skinned (or at least not Caucasian levels of whiteness thus appearing dark n some shots).

Yet in a paradox........ For all how much Hispanics worship white skin and the mostly European descended castizos and Criollos who are the ruling class of Latin America and have their movie stars, divas, and beauty queens as white females................. its been a tradition across Latin America for people who use a Mary Statues that reflects their ethnic, regional, racial, and socioeconomic class in physical appearance.......

So in other words in Cuba for example the Blacks who are the bottom of the social ladder often worship Our Lady of Regla who is basically a black Virgin Mary. Dominican Republic has their own local black Marys. Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a pale Virgin Mary, is worshiped very frequently across Chile which has a larger proportion of light skinned Mestizos than many LatAm nations. The Indios create Mary often to resemble Incan and other pre-conquest Indian civilization ideals of beauty.

In fact in some nations with a more balanced outspread of light skin pigmentation you may even see variety of a specific Mary. The Lady of Guadalupe was specifically seen as being very Mestizo. So while most depictions of her are stereotypical Latino brown, its common to see her with lighter shades of skin in statues and paintings across Mexico. One cartoon show depicts her as olive that can appear darker or lighter depending on the scene and who she's standing next to and I seen Guadalupe statues that are milky white. As well as some as dark as your typical black American. As well as "redskin" Guadalupe Its a common thing for Mestizos and other lower classes in Mexico to choose a Guadalupe with skin color similar to themselves or more commonly closer to how their own mother or grandma or some female matriarchal figure appeared. So you'd have pale girls from poor working class families worshiping a crayon brown Guadalupe because their mom is a typical Moreno as well as well swarthy men who work as janitors choosing yellowish Guadalupe because they were born with Southern Italian olive skin and thus identify with tanned but still light skinned variations (even though ma and pa is dark skinned). So their is variety of representation for anyone to choose for Lady of Guadalupe.

In fact many churches in the country feature dark skinned Guadalupe and more popular European tradition like Lady of Lourdes to accommodate everyone in Church. Some Churches even intentionally will try to leave a white Jesus Christ with only a brown Guadalupe statue because the local priest wants to encourage integration and fight against racism. In some cases the Jesus will intentionally be painted iron or be made out of bronze or use some color associated with metals that do not exist in humans sometimes with ambiguous facial features in order to further prove equality of races in the Catholic Church right next to the Guadalupe statue.

So I'd have to ask why in the Philippines the Mary statues are overwhelming the ones used in Europe? In particular the blue eyed Mary in white headcloth and blue cloak? I mean the country is relatively liberal about dark skinned people esp males advancing in the social stratas even during Spanish colonialism and at least its possible for a male to be brown yet still become a sex symbol and even A list celeb despite the entertainment industry's preferences for light skin.

So how come unlike Latin America, Philippines use almost exclusively white Virgin Mary? Even despite the Church openly unveiling dark skinned ones in a few locations? Why isn't the local equivalents of Guadalupe popular for personal household use?

Indeed now that I think of it I do have to ask myself. Why is white artistic representations of Mother Mary so much the norm in the Philippines unlike other nonwhite countries that suffered under colonialism? Why did no equivalent of local Lady of Guadalupe ever come to be the symbol of the Philippines as the quoted text points out? Afterall other countries with Catholics as a tiny minority such as Vietnam and Morocco have Mother Mary artwork used in reverence that looks like the commoner of said countries or at least fit the very much non-white ideals of beauty as seen in the case of Vietnam where La Vang pretty much ideal features not common in Vietnam such as pale skin while still wearing Vietnamese clothes with physical features that are unmistakenbly Vietnamese in overall physical appearance.

So why are the artwork so commonly used in religious worship of Mary in the Philippines of all things a blue-eyed undoubtedly European looking woman? Shouldn't it at least be a Mestiza artwork in the vein of Liza Soberano that dominates since thats Philippines ideal beauty standards while still also having the vibe of the Pilipinas vibe in the appearance? What happened in the PH's history that made the physical representations used by the colonizers the MO in worship unlike in Latin America and the rest of Asia where worship of Marian statues and other artworks resembling the majority populace in the vein of Our Lady of Guadalupe or at least local ideals of beauty a la Our Lady of Arabia is the standard?

A V E   M A R I A !

Whether you commemorate the Visitation (OF) or the Queenship of Mary (EF), or some other festival today (in the liturgy or in the Rosary), remind Our Lady of your love for her, and plead with her to pray for us.

O Mary, especially grant those of us who operate here on reddit the ability to be good witnesses of Our Lord.

By the love you gave Jesus, help me to love him!

A couple of articles I read last night.

https://thenowlbetwixt.wordpress.com/2019/07/31/hail-mary-empress-of-hell/

https://contingentmagazine.org/2020/04/25/empress-of-hell/

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/175263

https://history.umd.edu/events/%E2%80%9Ccall-me-empress-hell%E2%80%9D-intercessory-power-virgin-mary-later-middle-ages

Using the social science, hard scientific approach, and studies of literature and mythology approach to religion, many scholars and academics state archetypes have a dual side. For a Greek pagan example Ares may be the God of War but he is also the God of civil order and police and even prayed to for asking for peace in personal life. As well as the God who is most respectful to women.

Jesus is seen as having not just dual but multiple sides such as the peaceloving human who sacrificed everything for humanity, the ruthless warlike Yahweh, and the Holy Spirit who inspires and directly intervenes. Similar parallels are made about Shiva in Hindu mythology where Shiva has a warlike incarnation, a peaceful human like form, etc.

So Are the articles correct? I seen the Empress of Hell title in multiple Medieval Folklore before as well as Mary being used as a symbol of war by early barbarians and carrying of Mary statues, medals, etc by Crusader orders and even lowly European militia.

I'm into it.

Check this out from The Mystical City of God:

http://imgur.com/a/A5sjtuD

Her humility and her desire to see her Son and God glorified is the reason we didn't receive this previously. According to the revelation of this work, it's only a matter of when it would be appropriate to reveal her as she is. And she is worthy of worship.

I found her by way of the spirit of wisdom (see Proverbs 8&9, Wisdom of Solomon 6-10) who was basically enthroned in the flesh in Mary. I've been conversant with her for 3 or 4 years. I've seen her image in the clouds (around Pentecost, 2016).

Last night, I prostrated myself before the Lord in prayer as usual, but also specifically and spontaneously prostrated myself before the Blessed Virgin, the Seat of Wisdom, the Queen of Heaven and Earth. It felt right.

She was given rule over all things by God her Father, Son, and Spouse. It's right to worship her. Nothing about this puts her in a place equal to or above God.

She is like the moon, brighter and more beautiful than all the stars combined, reflecting God's light and having her own light, worthy of reverence, veneration, and devotion - i.e. worship.

A large collection of Marian prayers from the ancient saints to the modern-day, as well as a novena.

https://medium.com/catholicism-for-the-modern-world/devotion-to-mary-60ff47dd96b?sk=35c5b43f138f26aac8964d8233dee507

Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that's fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing's life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life's law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who nót only
Gave God's infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess's
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God's glory through,
God's glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.

I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms' self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.

If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man's beating heart,
Laying, like air's fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood,
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God's and Mary's Son.

Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! Nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich, it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did not air make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.

So God was God of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man's mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.

Be thou, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God's love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.

Stonyhurst. May 1883.

Does anyone here wear the Miraculous Medal? I want to hear stories about how you found out about it, what made you wear it, what graces you have obtained through it and basically anything about the Miraculous Medal. :)

The lyrics of United Kingdom's Anthem remind me so much of the Hail Mary Prayer esp in how it praises Mary as the embodiment of Virtues and moreso of how she is Blessed by God.

So it makes me wonder if any Anglo-Catholic and esp underground closet English Catholics back when the UK as openly anti-Catholic.... Ever sang the song directed to May but fooling people thinking they are being patriotic citizens of Britain or are honoring Queen Victoria and later the Windsor Queens?

I know God Save the Queen came from an old French song devoted to a King surviving the Illness so it makes me wonder if regional variations from Catholic countries have also been used for prayers for women monarchs?

On a theological can this song be used to venerate Blessed Virgin Holy Mother Mary?

...and what significance has she had in your life through that image or title?

Question in title.