Wednesday, November 26, 2014

ISRAEL SHAMIR REFLECTS: OUR LADY OF SORROW



Our Lady of Sorrow
[This was written after the Israeli invasion of Bethlehem, in March 2002].

In the Upper church of Annunciation in Nazareth, there is a striking collection of images,
the homage of artists to Mary: in a setting of blue-and-golden flowers, a dainty Virgin in a
colourful kimono holds her child in ceremonial Japanese royal robes; a naïve Gothic face of
Madonna, transferred from French Cluniac illuminations; a Chinese Queen of Heaven carved of
precious wood by Formosa devotees; a richly inlaid Cuban statue of Virgen del Cobre; a Polish
Black Madonna; a tender face of the Byzantine Mother of God, and a modernist, steely Madonna
from the United States all look from the walls of the church and unite us in one human family.
There is hardly an image in the world as universal and poignant as that of the Virgin and the
Child.

Wherever you go, from Santiago de Compostella in the far west of Spain to the golden
domes of Russia, from frozen Uppsala in Sweden to Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, you will
find this adorable face. The best artists depicted her compassionate features, her love for her
child and her sorrow. Botticelli painted her with a pomegranate and among the Kings of the East;
Michelangelo and Rafael, Cimabue and Titian, van der Weyden and Fra Filippo Lippi were
inspired by her image. This unique mix of a young girl and mother, of vulnerability and
protection, of admiration and love, formed the spiritual and inspirational base of our civilisation.
She appeared to a Mexican peasant, and her flower-covered image arrested the strife and
united Native Americans and Spaniards in one nation. She gave her rosary to Saint Dominic and
a letter to Portuguese kids in Fatima. Prophet Muhammad saved and cherished her icon found in
the Mecca shrine, writes Maxim Rodinson. She appeared to a wealthy Jewish banker Alphonse
Ratisbonne, and he took orders and built the convent of the Sisters of Zion in En Karim. A
Palestinian Muslim in a refugee camp of Lebanon preserved the image he took from his native
Galilee, tells Elias Khoury in his novel Bab Al-Shams (recently translated into Hebrew by Moshe
Hakham and edited by Anton Shammas). Syrian astronauts asked for her protection in the shrine
of Seidnaya before the ir flight on the Soviet space shuttle1
.
In medieval legends, the Jews were often perceived as enemies of the Virgin. The
Talmud refers to her in most blasphemous and hostile way. A certain column-stump on
Jerusalem’s Via Dolorosa marks the place of a legendary attack of Jews on her person, while in
Antioch in 592, Jews were found despoiling her image. These are old tales. And now some new
facts. This week in Bethlehem, a Jew shelled the Virgin. A Jewish soldier in the formidable tank Merkava-3, constructed according to US technology at US taxpayer’s expense fired a shell from
a distance of fifty yards at the statue of the Madonna a-top the Holy Family church in the
Nativity town.

The Virgin lost an arm, and her pretty face was disfigured. She became one of a hundred
Palestinian women shot by the Jews in the present outburst of war. This seemingly unnecessary
act of vandalism could not have been an accidental shot. No terrorist hid behind her gentle figure
on the pinnacle of the hospital church. At fifty yards, you make no mistake. It could have been
orders; it could have been a spontaneous expression of feelings by a Jewish fanatic. Our world
rewinds full speed back into the Dark Ages, and as Israel rekindled traditional Jewish hostile
rejection of Christianity, it can not be excluded.

After the shelling by the Israeli soldier



(Taken from Our Lady of Sorrow, The Collected Essays from the Holy Land by Israel Shamir, which can be ordered here.)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

An interesting article. Perhaps I'm being cynical or even uncharitable to Mr Shamir, but I'm fairly certain he has no 'love' for us or our culture. His job is strictly damage control, and he is pretty good at his job.

Anonymous said...

Nothing written by a Jew should be trusted.
Jews always try to come down on both sides of any issue in order to pat themselves on the back and have others tell them how wonderful that they are.
Our Lord addressed this. Had something to do with vomiting them out of His mouth.

henry said...

Mr Shamir did convert to Christianity. He became Orthodox.

Anonymous said...

Consider me unimpressed with that conversion tale.
(See "conversos")

Steve Dalton said...

I'm shocked at the level of hostility being shown to Mr. Shamir. There's no proof that his conversion is insincere, yet three of the commentators have lashed out at him without proof. This is plain and simple prejudice that any faithful Catholic should be deeply ashamed of.

Anonymous said...

Please save your accusations of "simple prejudice".
You should do some deep research on what exactly Judaism is, how it operates and how it got to where it is today.
Our Holy Mother Church told us in the Good Friday service that the Jews were a perfidious people. (That is, until the Jews whined and pressured the Supreme Pontiff to remove this from the service.)
This is an example of the perfidy that the prayer was referring to.
Preach to someone else about this race of people.

henry said...

Having read much of Mr SHamir I would consider him to be honest and very well informed. This site links to his site and after reading some of what he writes I see no reason to harbor any suspicions that his conversion was insincere. He speaks Russian among other languages and his views on what is happening in that part of the world are useful. I share your caution when reading the words of certain Jews but given everything I have read about him and by him my judgement about him would be that he converted to Orthodoxy. Not Catholicism, unfortunately, but at least he has made an important first step.

Steve Dalton said...

Anon, I happen to be from a family that practiced Crypto-Judaism and Crypto-Islam for hundreds of years. So, I know all about this race of people in a way you never will. And contrary to your bigoted, hateful, prejudiced remarks, we're quite capable of sincerely converting to Christianity. You probably would have been suspicious about the 12 apostles and all the original Christians because they were all Jews.

Anonymous said...

Re Steve Dalton, thank you for your interesting comment. Are you of Spanish-Andalusian ancestry? You know your own people better than we do, but having worked with both Jewish and Muslim people I can say that I found their modes of thought profoundly alien. The cultural and genetic barriers to conversion seem insurmountable, for most anyway.

Steve Dalton said...

Anon, I'm Scot-Irish, but I have Spanish and Portuguese Sephardic Marrano ancestry, and Russian and German Crypto-Jewish ancestry on my Father's side. My Arab Morisco ancestry comes from Syria and the United Arab Emirates. When I was growing up, and until I was 50 years old, I had no idea I had Jewish ancestry. It was only when I started to dig into the family history that I discovered the true origins of my family.
Jewish and Muslim modes of thought are alien to the Western, Christian formed mind. Years before I discovered the truth about my family origins, I stumbled across what the Talmud teaches a Jew, I was shocked and horrified by what I saw. So, years later, when I uncovered my family's history, I had no desire to revert to the 'old-time religion' because it was alien to the Catholic faith.
To claim genetics is a barrier to conversion is nonsense. Genetics didn't stop the original Jewish converts from becoming Christians. The barrier for Jews and Muslims is the totalitarian control that Jewish and Muslim societies have over their followers. When you leave either of those religions, you're cut off from family, friends, and other associates. Very few people want to risk such a social upheaval in their lives.

Anonymous said...

It sounds to me as if you submitted a spit sample to one of the many companies that claim to tell a person their ancestry.
These companies, (that are mostly run by sexually degenerate Mormons)suspiciously identify Jew blood in almost everyone's family tree.
It is simply a way anesthetize people into accepting the Jew as the key to everyone's origin.
Nonsense!
Just another trick in a long history of perfidy.

Dymphna said...

Genetics has nothing to do with it unless you take retardation into account.

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