Discussion Guide for Book Groups

1. How important is the Virgin Mary in the Christian religion?

Within the three major branches – Roman Catholic, (Eastern) Orthodox, and Protestant – one can find the entire range of opinions today about the meaning and status of the Virgin Mary. Some modern theologians insist that she should barely even be mentioned because she appears in the gospels only a few times and was merely a “biological necessity” in the Nativity. Others feel that Mary is rightly perceived as the Maternal Matrix, the holy female embodiment who made possible the linking between humans and the Divine; her growing God-the-Son from her own being moved her into a new state of existence that is more than human, yet less than divine. In this view, Mary is the compassionate Mother of All and is seen to possess a cosmological dimension since she links heaven and earth. Which of these two views of Mary – or any of the others in between – do you feel is the most compelling?

2. What are the implications of viewing Mary not as a complex, multidimensional symbol but solely as a “sign,” or cipher, in the Biblical text, as John Calvin urged in the early decades of the Reformation and as most of the “progressive” theologians at Vatican II (1962-65) advocated?

To what extent does the meaning and spiritual practice of Christianity exist within Scripture and beyond that text? Do people move back and forth between the sacred scripture in their religion and their lived experience of that religion? Do the Word and the experience inform one another? Or are they two separate spheres?

3. Are the compassion and maternal ethics embodied in the Virgin Mary relevant to our times, with its harshness, callousness, and discord – or is she irrelevant to the problems faced by our hypermodern societies?

What role does Mary play in the lives of people striving to make the world a better place, against great odds and recurring set-backs? Is spiritual communion with Mary a source of sustenance and replenishment – or is she too far removed from the actual dynamics of daily life in modernity?

4. Do you think that women and men have a somewhat different relationship with Mary?

What does it mean to women that Mary in her female embodiment is a conduit of divine grace and a site of spiritual power? What does it mean that she experienced the human condition as a woman? What does (or did) it mean to boys and young men to have a spiritual relationship with Mary in their formative years? Do you think that young Catholics who came of age after Vatican II are better off (more rational) without “Big Mary” in their spiritual formation, or are they missing something significant?

5. In Chapter One, the contemporary icon painter Robert Lentz comments, “The aesthetic is the vehicle for the mystery.” In looking at the medieval and the contemporary depictions of “Big Mary” in this book, do you agree with his observation?

Is there something about Mary’s spiritual presence that resides outside of words? Does the art invite personal communion with Mary? Which works of art seem the most evocative to you?

6. Do you think that the “Quiet Rebellion” of grassroots Catholics who feel the Church went too far in lopping off so much Marian spirituality at Vatican II is a constructive and needed development – or a regrettable occurrence?

Why do you think that the attendance at Marian shrines has steadily increased over the past twenty-five years?

7. Do you agree that the modern age is missing (the meaning of) Mary? Or is she best considered “no more than a cheerful guest chamber and willing hostess” to the fetus Jesus, as Martin Luther asserted?

If the former, what all is modernity missing (failing to grasp) about Mary? Have you missed her in any of these ways in your own life?