Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius
October 4, 2015
Spiritual Ponderings
Images of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Our Lady of the Hmong People

I recently came across an interesting story about Saint John Paul II in a book called Everybody Needs To Forgive Somebody: Stories of Real People Who Discovered the Underrated Power of Grace. It was written by Allen R. Hunt a former Protestant Minister who has converted to Catholicism. He explains that when Pope John Paul II met with the man who had tried to assassinate him, John Paul II discovered not a harden killer but rather a man who was deeply afraid of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It seems that John Paul II’s would be assassin had heard about how John Paul II had attributed the saving of his life to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Agca (the assassin) reasoned that since Mary had saved the pope’s life that it would only be a matter of time before Mary would seek to kill him. John Paul II spent more than two hours explaining to the man who had tried to kill him that Mary was not a goddess who chose to love some people and hate others but rather that Mary was the Mother of God and that Jesus gave her to all of us to be our mother also. John Paul II went onto tell Agca the amazing truth that the Mother of God was now his mother and that he and John Paul II were brothers through the power of Christ. Mary was not a goddess who did her own will but rather she was a conduit of God’s grace.

With that story in mind, I was once again inspired to devote my spiritual ponderings for the month of October to the Blessed Virgin Mary and in a special way look at how the Blessed Virgin Mary has been displayed throughout of history and what religious lessons a particular image of the Blessed Virgin Mary teaches us. For help in our four week endeavor, I will be referring to a book by hagiographer (a person who writes biographies of saints) Ann Ball. The book is called: The Other Faces of Mary: Stories, Devotions, and Pictures of the Holy Virgin Around The World.

The first image, I would like to focus on is called Our Lady of the Hmong People. I first heard about the Hmong people watching Clint Eastwood’s movie Grand Torino. Clint Eastwood’s character’s new neighbors are Hmong. Ann Ball has the following to say about the Hmong people: “America owes a great debt of gratitude to the Hmong people from Laos. While serving in special guerilla units during the Vietnam War, Hmong soldiers rescued many American pilots who were shot down over Laos. Most of the combat forces on the ground in Laos were Hmong, who cut off the supplies to the North Vietnamese as they traveled south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. By the time America pulled out of Vietnam, thousands of Hmong men, women, and children, had been killed, and more than 100,000 fled to Thai refugee camps… A long genocidal campaign against the Hmong has been conducted by the Laotian and Vietnamese governments in vengeance for Hmong support of the United States during the war.”

The Hmong people are also considered one of the youngest, if not the youngest culture to become Catholic. The first Hmong baptism on record took place in 1954 in Laos. Many of the Hmong have relocated to the United States with the help of the United States Government.

Monsignor Patrick McCormick found himself near the year 2,000 in charge of a multicultural parish in Fresno, California. With a desire to help the diverse culture come together he commissioned two parishioners to design an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the parish church. He chose sculptor and artist Manuel Rodriguez to create the statute and asked Tzer Lee Thao (a pious Hmong parishioner) to advise him. The created an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary dressed in traditional Hmong clothing. The statue stands only 12 inches high and Mary is clothed in a white robe and blue mantle designed to look like a special type of needlework called by the Hmong people Pa Ntaub. Mary’s waist has a red and green sash and she wears a headpiece colored purple with black and white stripes. Finally the statue shows Mary wearing a silver necklace and earrings while carrying a rosary in one hand.

Some may object to this statue being considered an image of Mary because it was only recently created, I would have to disagree with them because while the image itself may be considered new, the symbols and message that make up the image are old and traditional. Mary’s headpiece can easily be seen as Mary’s being queen of heaven. Yet being Queen of Heaven, Mary has always identified herself with the poor as seen in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. There she was a poor Aztec and here she is a poor Hmong. The rosary reminds and invites us to have recourse to her and her Son I times of trouble. Finally it is an image that unites people together just as Mary’s Son did through His death and resurrection.