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Seeing Mary

John McCarthy looks at the role of Virgin Mary for people from different religious backgrounds and asks why millions of Muslims have seen apparitions of her in recent decades.

Something Understood: Seeing Mary

John McCarthy explores the role of the Virgin Mary in binding together different faiths in shared ceremony and respect.

To mark Christian celebrations of the birth of the Virgin Mary on September the 8th John McCarthy looks at her personal significance to people of different faiths. This includes the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK Professor Manuel Hassassian who says for him, "Mary symbolises hope, spirituality and love".

Mary, who was a Jew and the mother of the Christian Son of God, is also one of the most revered women in the Muslim tradition. Known in Arabic as Maryam, a chapter of the Qur'an is named after her. Verses from the Quran relating to Mary are frequently inscribed on the mihrab, or niche within a wall of a mosque, denoting the direction of Mecca. But alongside this she is deeply human.

In Colm TΓ³ibΓ­n's novel The Testament of Mary he examines the complexity of motherhood. Mary supposes herself to have intimacy with her son; she knows him better than he knows himself (she told him raising Lazarus was dangerous, he wouldn't listen). And yet, as she also acknowledges, he is destined to be at an impossible remove from her.

In 1968 the image of the Virgin Mary was seen above the dome of a Coptic Christian church in the Cairo suburb of Zeitun. The apparitions recurred for five months, for hours on end, and more than a million and a half people claim to have seen Mary during this time. In conversation with Danish scholar Andreas Bandak, John considers how precariousness and ambiguity is embedded in saint worship in the contemporary Middle East.

Producer: Emily Williams
A Whistledown Production for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4.

30 minutes

Last on

Sun 7 Sep 2014 23:30
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4

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Music Played

  • Shubert

    Ave Maria, Ellens Gesang III, D

    Performer: Luciano Pavarotti.
    • O Holy Night / Luciano Pavarotti / Special Deluxe Edition.
    • Decca.

  • Antonio Vivaldi

    Magnificat in D Major, BMV 243

    Performer: Jeremy Summerly. Performer: Nicholas Ward. Performer: Northern Chamber Orchestra. Performer: Schola Cantorum of Oxford.
    • Vivaldi: Gloria & Bach: Magnificat.
    • Naxos.

  • Abdelbasset Mohamed Abdessamad

    Vol. 14 Sura Maryam

    • Coran, The Holy Quran.
    • World Music Office.

  • Nicolai Zabelich

    Oikos 1

    Performer: Nicolai Zabelich. Performer: Nikolai Ivanov. Performer: Choir of Moscow Theological Academy.
    • Hymns to the Mother of God at the Moleben.
    • Russian Compact Disc.

  • Jonnie Cash

    Were you there (When they Crucified my Lord)

    • The Essential Johnnie Cash.
    • Sony.

  • The Mother of God by WB Yeats

    Yeats portrays the pregnant Mary recalling the annunciation

  • Extract from the Gospel of Luke Chapter One Verses 46 to 50

    The Virgin Mary speaks to her cousin Elizabeth about her pregnancy

  • Hail from Mary SzybistΒ’s book of collected poems Incarnadine

    The author looks back on her changing relationship with the Virgin Mary

  • The Testament of Mary

    Mary confronts the apostles over the death of her son by Colm Toibin

Broadcasts

  • Sun 7 Sep 2014 06:05
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
  • Sun 7 Sep 2014 23:30
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4