Customer Reviews

Missing Mary: The Queen of Heaven and Her Re-Emergence in the Modern Church

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This book should be right up there with Elaine Pagels' work on the Gnostic Gospels and Margaret Starbird's work on Mary Magdalene. In her characteristically sophisticated and trenchant style, Spretnak interprets and advances the case for the current grassroots resurgence of Marian spirituality, restoring her as a mystical female embodiment of power, compassion, and grace. In doing so, she gives Mary -- BIG Mary, in all her fullness -- BACK to progressives inside the Catholic Church, as well as those who have left the Church, particularly on feminist grounds. She also introduces her to Christians and others who may never have had the benefit of learning about this powerful manifestation of the Sacred Feminine in the West. What's more, by movingly sharing her own love and spiritual connection with Mary, Spretnak invites the rest of us intellectuals who have been cut off from spirit in this post-modern world to open our hearts to new mystical possibilities. As someone who grew up Catholic but has since become disenchanted with the Church and all of its male hierarchy, I was ecstatic reading this book about the Great Mother who has been in my backyard all along.

Spretnak provides an interdisciplinary scholarly work on Mary. Her sources are solid and her interpretation impeccable. I am familiar with many of her sources, and I am thankful for her groundwork. Spretnak blends psychology, theology, quantum physics, as well as art to illustrate her complex and multifaceted take on why the church has in some ways submerged Mary. I never got that she said Mary was a goddess and so some reviews are perplexing to me. Spretnak never says Vatican II was bad, only that in the attempt at ecumenism with protestants Mary was minimized. I am sure she as well as many realize the benefits of Vatican II.

In this extraordinary book, which is a perfect blend of scholarship and personal experience, science and art, history and hopes for the present and future...Charlene Spretnak, a prosacramental progressive CATHOLIC, makes it clear that Mary is not the Goddess or a goddess but instead, "with her fully human embodiment and experiences, carries forth the lineage of the symbolic sacred female into the Christian era but does so in a new, material dimension". She also includes a whole chapter entitled "Where Mary Still Reigns", which covers current Catholic practice which does NOT minimize Mary. Her scholarship regarding the decisions regarding Mary during Vatican II is faultless and makes fascinating reading. Highly recommended for those across the entire Catholic spectrum who remember that we would not have Our Lord without Our Lady.

MISSING MARY isn't only for Catholic readers. Spretnak's writing reveals the necessity for "Big Mary", a Divine Feminine archetype in human lives, in human understanding of life, and balance in the Cosmic life system.

I found this book to be a bit boring, redundant and in fact, a bit inaccurate. The author did not take into consideration to the point that it should have been expressed, the love and dedication of the late Pope John Paul II to the Holy Mother. The author just passed over this fact and seemed to avoid it in order to stick to her idea that Mary has been neglected for so many years. In fact, I don't see it. I am not an expert in this area and I would easily label myself a feminist, so that isn't it. Perhaps for the more scholarly, they appreciate the book in a way I could not. I found it a great sleeping pill in fact.

I have always had such mixed feelings about Mary. Of course she is the Goddess, and a Goddess of compassion, like Kuan Yin -- but she seems so co-opted and diminished it was just too painful to work with Her spiritually. I love the beautiful old Marian art but can't look at it without also remembering all the crusades, conquistadors, wars, pogroms and witch burnings. But Spretnak reclaims Mary as a full Living Goddess, continuous with the Great Mother of Old Europe, and as a necessary earth-based counterbalance to the transcendent male sky-gods. Her book is so heartfelt it had me crying at many places.

I doubt very much the Church will like her ideas, but I pray this heresy spreads... and I suppose I should pray to Mary!

I found Mary through the Goddess. I accepted her as the face of the Goddess & always have. It was interesting to read the de-mystification & stripping of her Goddess attributes by the Catholic Church. For me the gem of this book was the Epilogue - Being Mary. Charlene, the author received an X-mas card from an artist that she was taking a theology Mary course with, that said --- Eat Drink & Be Mary. She thought, what an irrevarant thought - Be Mary! Later that evening she realized that Guadalupe's Feast Day is coming. She drives by a church that is setting up a nativity scene on the front lawn. She stops and asks the two workers about Guadalupe's Feast Day. One of the gentlemen, a lovely mexican man asks her, "Would you like to be Mary? Would you like to play Mary in our reinactment on Guadalupe's Day?" This is the way Mary is ... one moment you are holding a card that says Be Mary - the next moment you are in Mother's arms. Charlene's description of being Mary is pure Mary Magic at its best!