Interest in Mother Mary on the upswing!

Since its debut in cyberspace over a decade ago, The Mary Page has quietly advertised to the world the University of Dayton's vast collection of material on Mary.

The Rev. Johann Roten, S.M., once quipped that it would take an apparition of the mother of Jesus on the library's façade at the University of Dayton for the Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute to gain an international following outside

theological circles.

Not anymore. The center has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today and other national media. It draws scholars from around the world to its stacks and hundreds of visitors a day to The Mary Page on internet. Since its debut in cyberspace The Mary Page (www.udayton.edu/mary) has quietly advertised the library's vast collection to the world. Librarians have answered thousands of inquiries about Mary. Over 1 million visitors have trolled the site.

One popular query: ''Why does Mary always wear light blue?" The answer may surprise some. ''Well, she doesn't," writes Roten, director of the International Marian Research Institute, which offers advanced degrees in Mariology in affiliation with the

Pontifical Theological Faculty Marianum in Rome. ''Blue has stayed in vogue, but red has also become a prominent color for Mary as represented by artists since the 10th century. Blue calls to mind the color of the skies (which is not only limited to light blue), and red is the color of kings."

A Frequently Asked Questions page and an online Dictionary of Mary tackle everything ever dreamed about Mary.

''People from Finland to Brazil to Korea email questions,'' says Roten, who answers many of several hundred he receives each month himself. Roten and a staff of eight scholars routinely answer questions about apparitions and popular images of Mary. Noting that Marian sightings are ''wholeheartedly hailed and embraced by some'' while ''outrightly rejected by others,'' The Mary Page offers a lengthy section on the history of apparitions and provides commentary on their deeper meaning.

Interest in Mary is on the upswing, and that's heartening news for the Society of Mary (Marianists), a Roman Catholic religious order that has quietly and steadily built a living monument to the Blessed Virgin. Tucked away on the seventh floor of the Roesch Library on the University of Dayton's campus, the Marian Library is facing a pleasant predicament.

''It's a wonderful problem when you're bursting at the seams. It shows there is a following. This is the beginning of a new age, a reawakening of religiosity,'' Roten says. ''Interest in Mary today is increasing, compared to the late 1960s and early 1970s when not much was heard or said about Mary."

The Mary Page pulls from the world's largest collection of information on Mary found in the Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute. It handles a large volume of prayer requests from people imploring Mary to help them heal, find jobs and save marriages. It features contemporary topics - such as Pope Benedict XVI's views of Mary - and Marian teachings, virtual art exhibits, book reviews, hymns, shrines, stamps and a host of other material.

In short, ''it's everything Mary,'' Roten says.