Canada: a multicultural Marian faith laboratory

Canada, together with Australia and the United States, is one of the world's largest immigration countries. From the 19th century to today, tens of millions of people from all continents have made Canada their new homeland, bringing with them their languages, their gastronomy, their music and, in a special way, their religious devotions. In the Catholic field, this has produced a Marian picture of an extraordinary wealth: the Virgin Mary is venerated in Canada under the auspices of all continents, in languages of all the linguistic groups of the world, with rites and traditions ranging from Mediterranean baroque to Slavic mysticism, from Filipino fervor to Vietnamese contemplative silence.

This Marian multiplicity is, in itself, an extremely important theological phenomenon. Faith in the Virgin Mary - the universal intercessor, the mother of all men, the image of God's tenderness - is expressed in Canada in so many different ways that each illuminates aspects of Mary's figure that others would not be able to show. The Nossa Senhora of Portuguese Fatima says of the Virgin something that the complete Polish Matka Boska Częstochowska and the Ukrainian Theotokos deepens. Together, these traditions form a living Marian theology, embodied in the stories and sufferings of the peoples who transmit them.

The Polish Community: Our Lady of Częstochowa in Wilno, Ontario

Wilno is a small town in Renfrew County, Ontario, north of Algonquin Park, about 200 kilometres north-west of Ottawa. To be so small, Wilno has a historical importance of first order: it is the first permanent kashubo-Polish settlement in Canada, founded in 1858 by families from the Kashubia region, in what was then Prussia - today, northern Poland, between Danzig / Gdansk and Pomerania.

The kashabios who arrived in Wilno fled the cultural and religious repression of the Prussian government, which prohibited them from speaking their own language - the kashaba, a western Slavic language other than the standard Polish - and which strongly pressed the practice of Catholicism. They chose the area of Renfrew precisely because the landscape of rocks and forests reminded them of Kashubia. In 1875, the community built its first permanent church, dedicated to San stanislao Kostka, which was destroyed by a fire in 1936. The present church of Santa María de Częstochowa, whose cornerstone was blessed on 1 July 1936, is the continuation of that centenary tradition.

The name of the church - Santa María de Częstochowa - is not casual: it expresses the deepest identity of the Polish-kashubia community of Wilno. Our Lady of Częstochowa, the "Black Queen" of Poland, is the most venerated Marian image of the entire Polish nation. The image of the Virgin with the Child - with the cheeks marked by the scars of war - has been the most powerful national symbol in Poland, even beyond religious borders.

The church of St. Mary of Wilno retains an image of Our Lady of Częstochowa, Queen of Poland, which is the spiritual heart of the community. The annual celebrations are organized around it, including the August 26 feast - Our Lady of Częstochowa's day in the Polish liturgical calendar - and the pilgrimages that bring together families of Kashubo-Polish origin from all over the region. Wilno is officially recognized as "the first kashaba settlement of Canada," and its cultural heritage - which includes embroidery, folk music and the kashubia language, still spoken by some elderly people - is a treasure of Canadian cultural diversity.

The Polish community of Canada is much wider than Wilno: the Polish-Canadian people exceed a million people, with large concentrations in Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver. Many of these communities have their own Polish parishes where devotion to Our Lady of Częstochowa is expressed with processions, vocal candles and the crown of the Polish rosary. Wilno's Marian heritage is the oldest symbol of this presence, but living faith extends throughout the country.

Portuguese community: Our Lady of Fatima in Toronto

The Portuguese community of Toronto is one of the largest in the world outside Portugal: in the Grand Toronto Area there are about 115,000 people of Portuguese origin, with a special concentration in the Little Portugal neighborhood, focused on the Dundas West street between Ossington and Dufferin. This community, which began to arrive in the 1950s of the 20th century as part of the waves of emigration that emptied the interior of Portugal during the Salazarist regime, has built a cultural and religious life of great vitality in Toronto.

The devotion to Nossa Senhora of Fatima - Our Lady of Fatima - is the spiritual axis of the Portuguese community of Toronto and the entire Portuguese diaspora of Canada. The Virgin of Fatima, who appeared to the three pastoralists Lucía, Francisco and Jacinta in the Cova da Iria, in Portugal, between May and October 1917, is for the Portuguese much more than a Marian advocation: it is the symbol of the national identity, the protector of Portugal and its people scattered throughout the world.

Every year, on May 13 - the anniversary of the first apparition of Fatima - the Portuguese community of Toronto organizes a great celebration that includes solemn mass, procession with the image of Nossa Senhora de Fatima and cultural festivities. The procession, in which the image of the Virgin is carried on the streets of the neighborhood, brings together thousands of faithful who follow the image singing Marian hymns in Portuguese. It is one of the most emotional moments in the religious calendar of the Lusian community in Canada.

The pilgrim image of Our Lady of Fatima visited the Archdiocese of Toronto in October 2016, in preparation for the centenary of the apparitions (1917- 2017). The visit called thousands of faithful - not only Portuguese, but also Latin American, Filipinos and Catholics from all communities - who wanted to greet the Virgin of Fatima in her way through the city. This episode revealed Fatima's ability to transcend ethnic borders: Our Lady of Fatima is, for the Catholics of Toronto, a Marian figure that belongs to all.

The parish of Our Lady of Fatima in Brampton - the city of the Grand Toronto Area with an important Portuguese community - is one of the most active Marian centers in the region. His celebrations of May 13 and October 13 - dates of the first and last apparitions of Fatima - are occasions of great devotional fervour that bring together faithful from all the Lusian diaspora of Ontario.

The Italian community: Madonna della Civita in Hamilton and Madonna of the Divine Amore in Montreal

If Toronto is the heart of the Italian community in Ontario, Hamilton - an industrial city 70 kilometres south-west of Toronto - also has a large and well-established Italian-Canadian community. The Italians arrived in Hamilton mainly in the 1950s and 1960s, attracted to work opportunities in the steel industry. They brought with them their regional Marian devotions, including the veneration of the Madonna della Civita, patron of Itri, in the southern Lazio.

The Madonna della Civita - whose image is a medieval painting of great antiquity, preserved in the rock church of Itri - is especially venerated by the families of Laziale and bell origin who settled in Hamilton. The association of the Madonna della Civita of Hamilton organizes a celebration each year that recalls the patron feast of Itri, with solemn Mass, blessing and moments of community coexistence. For families of cyociaro origin - the region between Rome and Naples that provided many migrants to Canada - this devotion is a golden bridge between the Italian past and the present Canadian.

In Montreal, the Italian community - which has a longer history than Toronto, with the first arrivals at the end of the 19th century - has organized its Marian devotion around multiple advocacy. The Madonna of the Divine Amore, whose original sanctuary is located in Castel di Leva, on the outskirts of Rome, is venerated in Montreal especially by families of Romanesque origin. Devotion to the Divine Amore expresses trust in the Virgin as the mother who, moved by divine love, intercedes for those who suffer and those who have lost hope.

The Philippine community: the Holy Child and the Virgin in Vancouver and Calgary

Filipinos are one of the fastest growing immigrant communities in Canada: more than 900,000 people of Filipino origin live in the country, with large concentrations in Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Calgary. The Filipinos are mostly Catholic and carry with them one of the most vibrant traditions of popular devotion in the Catholic world, in which the Virgin Mary occupies a central place.

The Marian Filipino devotion is deeply linked to the devotion to the Holy Child of Cebu - the image of the Child Jesus that the explorer Fernando de Magallanes gave to Queen Juana of Cebu in 1521 after the baptism of the first Filipinos. The Holy Child is inseparable from devotion to the Virgin Mary: in the Philippine tradition, Mary and her Son are venerated together, and the Virgin is the mother of the Child that the faithful carry in their hearts and in their homes.

In Vancouver, the Philippine community built a sanctuary to the Holy Child of Cebu in the church of San Antonio de Padua in Agassiz, in the Fraser Valley. The sanctuary was erected with the donations of about 1,400 people from the Lower Mainland Philippine community and is supported by the Oregon Philippine community. The image of the Holy Child of Cebu, dressed as a small king, presides over the sanctuary and is the object of a fervent devotion that includes the Sinulog - the ritual dance dedicated to the Holy Child - and the novena marial.

The Archdiocese of Vancouver has an active Philippine Ministry that organizes mass in tagalog, celebrations of the main Filipino parties - including the Simbang Gabi (the early days of the Advent), the Sinulog of January and the parties of the Assumption in August - and groups of Marian devotion that pray the rosary in tagalog. The presence of the Virgin Mary in the life of the Filipinos of Vancouver is as constant and natural as in the Philippines: the image of the Mahal na Inang Mary (the Beloved Mother Mary) is in every home, in every chapel, in every pocket of the devotees.

In Calgary, the Philippine community expresses its Marian devotion through the numerous parish associations that operate in the churches with a Filipino presence. The novas of the Virgin of Perpetual Relief, the processions of the Immaculate Conception and the celebrations of the Nativity of the Virgin (8 September) are occasions of great concurrence and fervor. The Filipino devotion to the Virgin has a special quality: it is intimate, familiar, daily, expressed in popular songs (kundiman Marian) and in gestures of tenderness that reveal a relationship from son to mother, not from subject to queen.

The Vietnamese Community: Our Lady of La Vang in Ottawa and Calgary

The Vietnamese community of Canada has its roots in the waves of refugees who fled Vietnam following the fall of Saigon in 1975. More than 300,000 people of Vietnamese origin live in Canada, with important communities in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. The Catholic Vietnamese - who represent a significant proportion of the Vietnamese community in Canada, heirs of the communities evangelized by the Franciscan and Dominican missionaries since the 17th century - have an intense Marian devotion, focusing mainly on the figure of Our Lady of the Vang.

Our Lady of La Vang is the Vietnamese Marian advocation par excellence. According to tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to a group of Vietnamese Catholics who had taken refuge in the La Vang forest, in the province of Quņng Trē, during the persecution of Emperor Cħnh Thņnh in the late 18th century (about 1798). In white and surrounded by angels, the Virgin comforted the persecuted and promised their protection. The place of apparition became a sanctuary, which was destroyed and rebuilt many times during the wars that marked the history of Vietnam in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In Ottawa, the capital of Canada, there is a parish dedicated to Our Lady of La Vang, located at 280 Wesley Avenue. This parish is the center of the Vietnamese Catholic community of the national capital region, and its Marian celebrations - especially those of August 15 (Asunción) and those of May, Mary's month - bring together faithful from all over the region. The mass in Vietnamese, with its Marian hymns of great melodic beauty, is an experience of faith that moves participants to the ancient spiritual traditions of Vietnam.

In Calgary, the Vietnamese community recently built and blessed a sanctuary of Our Lady of La Vang in the parish of San Vicente Liem - the first Vietnamese martyr - which is pride of the entire Vietnamese community of the city. The Sanctuary of La Vang in Calgary is a local pilgrimage place that allows the Vietnamese of Alberta to honor their Virgin without the need to travel to Ottawa or Vancouver. The presence of this local sanctuary is, for the community, an affirmation of permanence and arraigo: the Vietnamese of Calgary are not only passenger immigrants, but a community that plants roots, builds sanctuaries and transmits their faith to future generations.

The devotion to Our Lady of La Vang in Canada is also an expression of historical memory: it recalls the persecutions suffered by Vietnamese Catholics for centuries, the martyrs who died for their faith and the refugees who fled communism with the image of the Virgin sewn in the lining of clothes. For many Vietnamese families in Canada, devotion to La Vang is the way to keep that memory alive and to transmit it to children and grandchildren born on Canadian land.

The Canadian Marian mosaic: a living catechesis

El panorama mariano que ofrecen las comunidades étnicas de Canadá es de una riqueza que ningún libro de teología podría agotar. La Virgen de Częstochowa polaca, oscura y guerrera, que sobrevivió invasiones y ocupaciones; la Virgen de Fátima portuguesa, que llamó a la conversión y la oración en un mundo convulsionado por las guerras; la Madonna della Civita italiana, raíz de un pueblo en una roca del Mediterráneo; el Santo Niño y la Virgen filipina, íntimos y familiares como una madre de barrio; la Virgen de La Vang vietnamita, madre de los perseguidos y de los que huyen…

Each of these images says something different about the same mystery. Together, they form a living Marian catechesis that no abstract dogma could match. In the streets of Toronto, Mississauga, Vancouver, Ottawa and Calgary, the Virgin Mary speaks in dozens of languages, walks in processions of dozens of cultures, and gathers under her mantle the hopes and pains of millions of people who found a new home in Canada without forgetting the previous one.

This Marian diversity is not a problem for the unity of the Church: it is, on the contrary, its best expression. The Virgin Mary, who in the Gospel of Luke sings that her soul "embodies the Lord" because "she did great works in me," is the same in Polish, Portuguese, Italian, tagalog and Vietnamese. The ethnic communities of Canada know, and celebrate it with a faith that transforms cities, streets and hearts.

The Korean community and devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Relief

The Korean community in Canada, mainly concentrated in Toronto and Vancouver, has grown significantly since the 1970s. The Catholic Koreans - who represent a remarkable proportion of the Korean community in Canada - have a particular devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Relief, a Marian image of eastern origin (probably created or Greek-Italian of the 15th century) that was proclaimed miraculous image by Pope Pius IX and entrusted to the Redemptorists for dissemination in 1866. The image of the Virgin who sustains the Child Jesus while two angels show him the instruments of the Passion - a gesture of terror that makes the Sandal of the Child about to fall off the foot - is one of the most widespread in Korean Catholicism and has been faithfully transplanted to the Korean parishes of Toronto and Vancouver.

The Lebanese community and the Virgin of Lebanon in Ottawa

The Maronite Lebanese community of Canada - with a significant presence in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto - has a specific devotion to Our Lady of Lebanon, whose original sanctuary is in Harissa, over the Lebanese mountains near Beirut. The colossal statue of the Virgin in Harissa, inaugurated in 1908 and visible from the Mediterranean, is the most recognizable Marian symbol of Lebanon. For the Lebanese of the Canadian diaspora, Our Lady of Lebanon is the patron of her homeland and the intercessor who watches over the Lebanese people in the midst of the wars and crises that have marked the history of Lebanon over the past fifty years.

The Maronite parishes of Ottawa and Montreal organize annual celebrations of Our Lady of Lebanon - especially September 8, the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, which coincides approximately with the date of the sculptism of the statue of Harissa - that bring together Lebanese families around the memory of their homeland and of their faith. In these celebrations, the liturgical Arabic of the Maronite Mass is mixed with the colloquial Arabic of the popular songs and with the French or English of the second generation, creating a linguistic synthesis that is also a cultural and spiritual synthesis.

Inter-ethnic Marian pilgrimage: when communities meet

One of the most significant phenomena of contemporary Canadian Catholicism is the growing interest in inter-ethnic Marian pilgrimages: events in which communities of different origins gather around a shared Marian figure or in solidarity with the devotion of another people. The Mariology Meetings and the Mariana Days organized regularly by the Archdiocese of Toronto have shown that devotion to the Virgin Mary can be a bridge of dialogue and communion between communities that sometimes live very separate in the Canadian multicultural city.

In these inter-ethnic celebrations, the procession with the image of the Virgin becomes a moment of convergence where diversity is revealed as wealth: the Mother herself, acclaimed in dozens of languages, reveals her universality not in abstract but in the concrete experience of peoples who have very different stories, cultures and pains but who find in her something that unites them. The Virgin of Portuguese Fatima, the Virgin of Polish Czestochowa, the Madonna of Italian Carmine and the Ukrainian Theotokos walk together in these processions, as four images of the same mystery that no one can exhaust.

Canada - which has made cultural diversity not only a demographic reality but a project of coexistence - finds in this Marian mosaic one of its most beautiful experiments. The Virgin Mary, who the Gospel of John shows us at the foot of the Cross by adopting John, a beloved disciple of her Son, as a son, is a figure of that universal adoption: she adopts all peoples as her children, without erasing her uniqueness but welcoming her in the love that contains it all. Canada, in its Marian diversity, does not know that theology: the mother who says yes to all the faces of the world.

Epilogo: Our Lady in many languages, one faith

On the Christmas of any year in Toronto, an attentive visitor can hear the Hail Mary in Polish, Portuguese, tagalog, Vietnamese and Ukrainian, in churches a few kilometers away from each other in a single afternoon. Each language says something different about the same woman: the health of the sick, the comfort of the afflicted, the cause of our joy, the Tower of David, the Ark of the Covenant. The Lethania of Loreto, which lists its titles, seems written for a city like Toronto, where each community adds its own in the language of its heart.

Canada has built its identity on the idea that diversity can be unity, that difference does not destroy but enriches. The Marian mosaic of their ethnic communities is, in that sense, one of the best arguments in favour of that idea. The Virgin Mary - which the Gospel of John presents by welcoming the beloved disciple as a son at the darkest moment of her life - continues in Canada to welcome children of all nations. And they, in their various languages, recognize her and call her mother.