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

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.

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!

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.

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.