I fell in love with Mary while a graduate student visiting the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Standing in front of Simone Martini’s “Annunciation,” I was astonished by the role of Mary in the story of salvation. I stared at the painting, studying Mary’s gaze, until the museum closed. After I began teaching at the University of St. Thomas in 2017, I was awarded a Luann Dummer Center for Women grant to develop a course on Mary, which would draw together music, literature, poetry, philosophy, theology, and art to illuminate the story of Mary’s life. I began offering the course, and it was immediately popular with graduate and undergraduate students alike, many of whom describe it as a retreat.
It was a natural next step to bring the course to Rome, to allow our MA students to encounter Mary, Mother of the Church, in the Eternal City. My goal was to help students explore Mary’s role within the life of the Church and within their own lives. Through a Global Engagement Program Development Grant, I traveled to Rome in June 2023 to plan the course. In July 2024, our adventure in Italy began!
Rome was a feast. We were dazzled by images of Mary everywhere we turned. We saw one of the earliest images of Mary in the depths of the Priscilla Catacombs. We talked about how theology and art came together in Santa Maria Maggiore. Father Austin Litke ’04, OP, celebrated Mass for us in the Confessio before relics of the holy manger there. We read beautiful Marian poetry by Sally Read, who makes her home in Rome. We enjoyed rich tours of the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel with world-renowned art historian Liz Lev. On a day trip to Florence, we lingered before the frescos at San Marco and discovered the wonderful surprise of Fra Angelico’s “Annunciation” there. I was not surprised I had to drag one of our students away from Martini’s masterpiece as we approached closing time at the Uffizi.
Our classroom conversations spilled out into leisurely dinners and gelato walks in the evening. As we read, looked, wrote, and talked, each one of us discovered a fresh perspective on Mary’s life. One student imagined new ways of teaching her second-grade students about the Annunciation. Another student found solace in Mary’s grief and strength in Michelangelo’s Pieta. Another student was encouraged by depictions of Mary caring for her family in ordinary ways.
One of my favorite memories is of a late-night walk to St. Peter’s. In the darkness, the square glowed. The colonnade felt like a warm embrace, Holy Mother Church reaching out her arms to us as we approached. As I looked over at the students, I noticed one of them had eyes full of tears. “This is my first time here,” he explained. “I’m home.” What a joy to come home to our mother, Mary – Mother of God and Mother of the Church.
“In contemplating (Mary),” wrote Caryll Houselander, “we find intimacy with God.” Mary in Rome was a beautiful opportunity to turn our eyes toward Mary and to spend time in contemplation, study and prayer together.
Mary Ann Dorscher, CSMA studentTo spend two weeks in Rome with Dr. Kidd is like undertaking a pilgrimage back in time. Each day offered a new way of exploring Mary’s influence on the Church and in our lives, by discussing a wide
range of Marian texts, visiting historically important churches, examining sacred art, and immersing ourselves in prayer during Mass. These experiences could never have been captured in a classroom lecture or
textbook.”
This story is featured in the winter 2025 issue of Lumen.
