The Musical Priest

Over drinks this weekend, an old friend of mine asked me at point-blank a question I hear often but one for which I am seldom able to articulate a short, clear answer: Why do Catholics pray to Mary ? It may have been the grace of the company I was with, or that it was late in the evening, but I think I managed to offer - for the first time - a fairly succinct answer to her question. First off, let's start with the prayer. Hail Mary, Full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death. The first thing I pointed out is that the first section of the prayer is the combination of two greetings directed toward Mary in the first chapter of Luke's Gospel. The first line is taken from Luke's account of the angel Gabriel greeting Mary: "Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you" (Luke 1:28). The next line of the prayer is also a greeting, thi...

I don't suspect that it's only because I live in New York City that the artistic rendering of Jesus executed by artist Cosimo Cavallaro. You can both read a report and watch news footage on CNN's website concerning how Cavallaro has sculpted a life-sized and anatomically correct statue of Jesus out of chocolate. Apparently thousands of NYC Catholics - including Cardinal Egan and the Catholic League's Bill Donohue - have demanded that the exhibition of "My Sweet Lord" at the art gallery of the Roger Smith Hotel be canceled. In fact, on Friday the hotel released a statement that they will not be hosting the exhibit of Sweet Jesus - set to debut Monday - a date which just happens to coincide with Holy Week, the most solemn and holy week of the Church's year. Here's my thought: I think people have, yet again, blown this totally out of proportion. I can't quite call his art tasteless - the 200 lbs of milk chocolate that went into creating this piece r...