Surprises Mark Revival of Mary’s Hour Bowl Service

Mary’s Hour, a devotional service held annually by the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese until it was ended 19 years ago, had some unexpected sights at its recent revival at the Hollywood Bowl.

A banner critical of the traditional Catholic adoration of the mother of Jesus was unfurled above the stage, but when it was removed, the nearly 8,000 people attending the Sunday afternoon service interrupted the first reading in the program with cheers and applause.

The banner read in part, “Real Christians Hail Jesus, Not Mary,” citing 1 Timothy 2:5 in the New Testament.

‘Everyone Cheered’

“When someone went up on the catwalk above the stage to remove it, everyone cheered and people shouted, ‘Hail Mary,’ ” said Wayne Edward of North Hollywood. “I think the banner produced a reaction the protester didn’t expect.”

It was unknown who was responsible for the banner, but the wording was reminiscent of some Protestant criticism of the Catholic devotion to Mary. Some fundamentalists claim that Marian devotion is idolatry, but Catholics deny that is the case.

Later in the service, many in the crowd reported seeing a prism effect and brightness in the sky to the north. The reports by some of “another sun” or a “rainbow” or both prompted speculation about a supernatural sign. The Tidings, the archdiocesan newspapers, received several calls about the sightings the next day.

Sister Sara Michael King of the Los Angeles archdiocese’s liturgy department, who directed the event, said she too saw the prism in the sky. She said church officials were not attaching any supernatural significance to it. “From our perspective, it was a natural phenomenon,” she said.

Meteorologist Dan Bowman, director of operations at WeatherData Inc., based in Wichita, Kan., said the phenomenon is called a “sundog.” “The sun passes through water droplets or ice particles high in atmosphere or through high, thin clouds, which refract the light in such a way to have a coloration effect,” Bowman said in an interview. “That area of the sky also looks brighter than the surrounding sky. It actually looks like the sun.”

First Held in 1948

Mary’s Hour was first held at the Bowl in 1948, and the service drew more than 100,000 to the Memorial Coliseum in 1954. In the face of diminishing crowds in successive years, it was last held on an annual basis in 1969 when 27,000 attended in Dodger Stadium.

The service, which includes hymns, prayers and a procession behind an image of the Blessed Virgin, was revived in connection with the current Marian Year proclaimed by Pope John Paul II.

King said some organizers hoped to come closer to filling the nearly 18,000-seat Bowl but that the crowd was about what she expected. Bowl officials said 7,776 people passed through the turnstiles.

Los Angeles Archbishop Roger M. Mahony commented during the service that he hopes it will be the first of many more celebrations. The archbishop said Friday that he would favor an archdiocese-wide event. Mahony said that many parishioners complained about inadequate promotion of the even in the parishes.