Why Anglicans prefer to using blue-eyed brunette Lady of Grace? Why is Lady of Walsingham neglected?

Discussion in 'The Commons' started by DarthJupiter, Nov 10, 2018.

  1. DarthJupiter

    DarthJupiter New Member

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    Having just visited relatives across the UK quite recently, I visited a couple of local Anglican churches in each of the 4 nations and notice the standard Marian artwork tended to have brown hair and blue eyes. Not just that but the standard clothing was white headcloth with a blue dress and often with arms opened.... What we would call the standard imagery of "Our Lady of Grace" in the Catholic Church.

    Which I found myself wondering....... Why is the Lady of Walsingham so under-represented across the Anglican communion? I just visited her shrine at Walsingham and it was so stranger to see her as your typical blonde blue-eyed pale Scandinavian woman! With a very Nordic looking Jesus statue in her arms! In the United States, too all the episcopal churches I visited tended to follow the Lady of Grace imagery of blue and white dress with fair skin,brown hair, and blue eyes. Even popular art found in British children's books, statues sold at stores while I was in the UK, TV actors, etc tended to have her with brown hair and blue eyes (though not necessarily in the same dress as OUr Lady of Grace)!

    I am wondering why the Church of England never attempted to use the Lady of Walsingham as a national symbol to oppose the Papacy? Why did typical Anglican direction go with typical Western European Catholic depiction with Mary? It would have been perfect since the Church of England tended to make every Catholic thing more English from using English translations of many old Gregorian Chants (and than adding more English style vocal patterns) to adopting the same structure as the Vatican but with the royal family as the head and the center in Canterbury instead of Rome......I'm surprised the Lady of Walsingham wasn't used for promoting British nationalism!

    What is the reason for this?
     
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  2. anglican74

    anglican74 Well-Known Member Anglican

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    My thought is that the Lady of Walsingham is a lot more than just a cultural symbol of Mary... She is claimed to be an actual apparition of Mary in the Middle Ages, so honoring that would be to adopt the theology of Marian Apparitions, whereas the cultural depiction of Mary you mention is just a customary way of depicting the original Mary of the New Testament with no attachments to weird theologies
     
  3. Symphorian

    Symphorian Well-Known Member

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    Statuary in CofE churches was introduced by Victorian Ritualists.

    The Shrine of OLOW was dismantled by order of King Henry VIII and the statue transferred to London where it was burnt.

    The current Anglican Shrine was created in the 1920s/1930s by Fr Alfred Hope Patten SSC, an Anglo-Catholic Priest in the CofE. He had the statue of OLOW recreated from an image on the Priory seal.

    At the Reformation, much Medieval artwork in English churches was destroyed: statuary, stained glass, carved roods and screens, murals etc. The Cult of Saints had given rise to much superstition, even to the point where statues themselves were credited with having miraculous or supernatural powers.

    It was not until the latter nineteenth century that the Ritualists following on from the Oxford Movement began introducing more 'Catholic' practices into the CofE. Even modest things like having lighted candles on the Altar and having a choir robed in cassocks and surplices were regarded by many at the time as being the height of 'Romanism' or 'Popery'. It was at this time that statuary began to be reintroduced in the CofE.

    My Diocese was very advanced in terms of Anglo-Catholicism. There was a notorious case of iconoclasm/desecration at a church here as late as the 1930's where the 'Popery' was too hot for some to handle!

    The Society of the Holy Cross in Victorian England actually recommended that the CofE follow Roman practice rather than Medieval Sarum. It was a little later that Percy Dearmer advocated for English Use following Sarum in his 'Parson's Handbook.
     
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  4. peter

    peter Active Member

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    Clearly "Our Lady of Walsingham" is today very much associated with the Ordinariate for ex-Anglican Catholic converts.