The study deals with pilgrimages to Esquipulas, Guatemala, and patterns of miracle in terms of their perception by the pilgrims reaching this prominent religious hub of Central America. Two key pilgrimage discourses are distinguished: traditional Maya pilgrimage, based on regular, calendar customs, and conventional Catholic pilgrimage, founded on occasional journeys to fulfil a vow. The Western understanding of miracle as a transgression of "natural laws" or "common course of nature" is relativized and contested arguing that the ethnographic evidence of Esquipulas shows not only different, but also opposite conceptions. Then, the study presents a spectrum of miracle ideas drawing from the Maya as well as European - the case of Lourdes is exemplary here - traditions in terms of the degree of their uncommonness. It is concluded that anthropology has to comprehend miracles as marvels in its cultural context; nevertheless, there is a widespread idea among many cultures that miracle is something wonderful, related to the awareness of non-obviousness of certain things and phenomena. Miracles find its content and meaning within particular cosmology, but, anchored in the psychological characteristics of the astonishment and the difference between usual and unusual or ordinary and extraordinary, they refer to features of human mind in a more general way.
Autor artykułu bada znaczenie Najświętszej Maryi Panny w duchowości amerykańskiego biskupa Fultona J. Sheena. Pokazuje duchowość maryjną jako aspekt duchowości chrześcijańskiej, opartej na wzorze postawy Matki Bożej. Jego duchowość, oparta na biblijnych i dogmatycznych podstawach, realizuje się w specyficznej pobożności maryjnej. Autor najpierw ukazuje obraz Maryi, jaki wyłania się z pism Sheena. Następnie omawia najważniejsze formy pobożności maryjnej. Na koniec, ukazując jej wzorczość, zastanawia się, na ile ta forma duchowości spełnia zasady pogłębionej pobożności maryjnej zawartej w adhortacji Marialis cultus.
EN
The article concerns the Marian aspect of the spirituality of a well known American bishop, author of many publications, and famous preacher, Servant of God Fulton Sheen. The author shows, on the basis of Sheen’s most important publications, the bishop’s dogmatic teaching on Mother of God, the main forms of Marian piety put forward by him, and the idea of Her as a role model in the Christian spirituality. The Marian spirituality of Fulton Sheen, as early as in the pre‑conciliar time, realized generally ten aspects of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, which later Pope Paul VI indicated in his apostolic exhortation Marialis cultus, in 1974.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.