Mother Figured

Book excerpt: "Mother Figured" is a wide-ranging study of apparitions and miracles of the Virgin Mary in the Philippines from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. While most analyses have read Marian revival as antimodern, de la Cruz demonstrates that its origins actually lie "within "secular modernity. She takes inspiration from one of Mary s titles that has grown in popularity in modern times Mary the Mediatrix to show how modern print and technological media enable and support the circulation of miraculous narratives and images. While thoroughly grounded in local tradition, the resurgence of Marianism in the Philippines is a subject of global relevance. De la Cruz portrays Filipino Catholics not as mere followers of the faith from the margins or from below but as guardians of orthodoxy and aggressive purveyors of their own sort of Christian universalism. In this sense, the book offers a timely analysis of the social and political implications of contemporary Christianity s shift to the Global South."