The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1490 page)

Maria Lionza
.

A complex of informally organized spirit-possession cults in Venezuela. Beginning among rural Indians of Yaracuy in the 18th cent., it has expanded in this cent. across Venezuela, especially among the urban poor of all racial origins, and by adding African spirits from immigrant Cubans and Trinidadians, it has come to resemble
Shango
, etc. Maria Lionza was a legendary Indian princess in the Sorte mountains of Yaracuy, who is now often assimilated to the Virgin [
Mary
] of Coromoto, patroness of Venezuela, honoured with Roman Catholic rites and besought by practising Roman Catholics. There is a pilgrimage centre in the Sorte mountains and the movement is still developing many new forms.

 
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Mariology
.

The study of the Blessed Virgin
Mary
in Christianity. In
Vatican II
,
The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church
, ch. 8, offers a summary of the basic constituents of Mariology.

 
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(1882–1973).
French neo-Thomist philosopher. After he and his wife Raïssa became Roman Catholics in 1906, he devoted most of his life to studying and writing about the works of St Thomas
Aquinas
and their application to life, society, art, and politics. His achievements include his elucidation of the different forms of knowledge (
The Degrees of Knowledge
, 1932; Eng. 1937), outlining a new form of Christian humanism (
True Humanism
, 1936; Eng. 1938) and developing a philosophy of art (
Art and Scholasticism
, 1920; Eng. 1923). He also helped to foster interest in Christian democracy. Shortly before he died, he exemplified that simplicity which he believed to be at the heart of a good life by becoming a Little Brother (see
DE FOUCAULD
) in Toulouse.
Maritain argued that confusion has arisen because
‘knowledge’
and ‘empirical knowledge’ have been regarded as synonyms: empirical knowledge is one way of knowing amongst many others (including perhaps
mysticism
); consequently, there is a hierarchy of ways of knowing, each of which arises from, and opens up, a different perspective on what is real. Human beings, as ensouled essences, depend constantly on the creative work of God for their existence, with the ‘gap’ between humans and God to be closed by grace: ‘Grace, while leaving us infinitely distant from pure Act [i.e. God] in the order of being, is still, in the order of spiritual operation and relation to its object, a formal participation in the Divine Nature.’ This is ‘knowledge by connaturality’, and can only be attained by the very act of knowing in this mode.

 
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(in Tamil, etc.; in Mar
th
she is M
ri-ai; and there are other forms). A Goddess of folk Hinduism worshipped by the lower
castes
in a wide area, from Mah
r
ra down to
Tamilnadu
. Her name consists of ‘mother, goddess’ (
amman
,
) and the doubtful ‘killing’ (from
Skt.,
m
r
?
). She is envisaged as violent, bloodthirsty, and creating havoc (outbreaks of epidemics), if not properly worshipped. This worship includes animal sacrifice, rites of possession, and sometimes fire-walking. Some connection with, or interference from, the mythology of
Mahi
a
is possible here.