Our Lady of China, the Great mother (Latin: Nostra Domina de Sina) (), also known as Our Lady of Donglü (), is a Roman Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a reputed Marian apparition in Donglü, China in 1900.

Pope Francis granted an official decree of canonical coronation on 19 February 2021 towards a Marian image venerated at the National Shrine of Our Lady of China in Chiayi County, Taiwan. The rite of coronation was

executed on 14 August 2022.

History

In Hebei, China

thumb|The original statue image of "Our Lady of China" or "Our Lady of Donglü" () constructed in Yaoyang, [[Hebei province, destroyed in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution. A similar painting was reconstructed in 1989 now in its place. ]]

During the Boxer Rebellion, a great number of soldiers attacked the village of Donglü, Hebei. The village consisted of a small community of Christians founded by the Vincentian Order of priests. Pious legends claim that the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in white with a fiery horseman (believed to be Saint Michael the Archangel) who chased away the soldiers.

The local priest, Father Rene Flament of the Congregation of the Mission hired a local French painter in Shanghai to make a Marian statue similar to the Chinese dowager Empress Ci Xi. This image was based in the Marian image of “Our Lady of Laeken” venerated in the Church of Our Lady of Laeken in Brussels, Belgium. The Donglu statue was later destroyed in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution.

Accordingly, Donglu became a place of pilgrimage in 1924. The image was blessed and promulgated by Pope Pius XI in 1928. At the close of the 1924 Shanghai Synod of Bishops in China, the first national conference of bishops in the country, the Apostolic Chancellor, Cardinal Celso Costantini as the Apostolic Delegate in China, along with all the bishops of China, consecrated the Chinese people to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pope Pius XII designated the feast day as an official feast of the Catholic liturgical calendar in 1941.

In 1973, the Chinese Bishops' conference, upon approval from the Holy See, placed the feast day on the vigil (day preceding) of Mothers Day (the second Sunday of May).

Controversy arose due to the Marian iconography allegedly having syncretist associations to the Buddhist goddess Kuan Yin and not being officially sanctioned by the Holy Office for religious propagation. Adding more political issues, a Chinese cardinal, Thomas Tien Keng-Hsin, sanctioned this variant image for a religious prayer card for the persecuted in China, and was widely promoted in America and Canada.

Nevertheless, Pope Francis granted a canonical coronation to the image, as existing at a shrine in Taiwan, in 2022.

References

Citations

Notes

Sources

  • https://web.archive.org/web/20050425130840/http://www.udayton.edu/mary/resources/olchina.html
  • http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=3172
  • Our Lady of China Pastoral Mission, Washington, D.C.