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Rating: 
Summary: Uplifting & Awesome Insight!
Review: As a convert to Catholicism, this book was an eye opener for me. Naturally, there are things within it that cause question for the average person - simply because it is difficult to comprehend how thorough and intricate God's plan is - and was for the blessed woman through whom the Word became Flesh. The book is a "hard read" in the beginning, but once you understand how the Ven. Mary of Agreda uses various terms, the book became one for me that I couldn't put down. I highly recommend this book for Catholics who wish to enrich their understanding of the Divine purpose and plan for Mary and the sacrifices she made to receive graces from God. For non-Catholics who may read this book, a word of truth: Catholics do NOT worship Mary; we honor her - there is a distinct difference, and this book helps the reader understand why Mary is deserving of our honor. I would have given the book 5 stars, but because it is a "hard read", I deducted one star.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrific Deception!
Review: How sad that people would believe the lies of Satan. Where has Jesus or God called Mary the Queen of Heaven, Creation and Mercy? Who said she is our intercessor? Hebrews 7 says Jesus is our High Priest who lives to intercede for us. 1 Timothy 2:5 says "There is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ." If Mary were coronated in Heaven, you don't think the apostles would have spoken of it, taught it, written of it and celebrated it? Instead, Apostle Paul warns in Colossians 2:8 "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ."
Salvation does not come through Mary, anymore than healing would come from a man who prayed for a sick person who then recovered. Jesus is our source. Mary was an earthly vessel that bore His human body, just as Paul was an earthly vessel that bore His anointing. Acts 4:12 says "Neither is there salvation in any other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Romans 10:9 affirms "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." This is a statement of truth, not a possibility. Purgatory contradicts the truth and mercy of Jesus. Hebrews 10:10 "And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." Hebrews 7:25 "Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him." There is not one parable where the Master returns and places His servants in a waiting room. They either enter in with Him or are banished. To believe in a purgatory is tantamount to saying that Jesus' blood sacrifice is not sufficient!
Mary had nothing to do with creation either. John 1:3 states "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." If something or someone contradicts Holy Scripture, then that is a false teacher. God knew Satan's plan to take people's eyes off of Jesus and onto man. That's why He specifically addresses the issue of Marian veneration in the 12th book of Matthew. In response to Mary requesting to interrupt His ministry, Jesus responds by asking Who is my mother? Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my mother. And in Luke 11:27-28 we see the following discourse. "As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, "Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you." He replied, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."
Mary was a faithful and obedient servant and child of God, but she was not, is not and will never be more than that. In the views of heaven that are presented in the book of Revelation, the thrones are occupied by Jesus, God, and the male elders; Mary has no mention. Let us turn from extra-biblical nonsense that contradicts the Word of God. Jesus is soon returning for His bride. Let us be as the 5 wise virgins, and not the foolish ones.
Rating: 
Summary: RETURN TO THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD
Review: Over the past 25+ years, I have become aware of the links between and among the people, institutions, customs and events that we think of as destructive or as healing. I began with the realization that the word "or"usually meant a dissenting, different or opposing choice rather than one that was equal. How does this relate to "The Mystical City of God?" That term is used to describe Mary, the Mother of God. The mystical city of god, clearly perceived in the early centuries of the Christian faith as Mary, under the relentless elitism imposed by patriarchy became an "or,"forced upon human thinking by conceptsofseparation/dichotomy/powerover/oppression/suppression.
The return to a mainstream of spiritual awareness means going back more than 5,000 years to a time when the WHOLENESS of life was symbolized by the GREAT MOTHER in whose body was formed each human. HER chosen union with the HOLY SPIRIT produced the DI+VINE SON by whose seed--formed in him by The Mother as was everything--all other creation came. This is the essential mystical, physical and metaphysical act and that act is THE TRINITY, ever-renewing and repeating. There is no division/dichotomy/separation in THE VIRGIN: virginity itself means "whole, undivided." If the Earth is to be free of strife and warfare and any other unnatural disharmony, there must be a return to the understanding, wisdom, respect and honoring of THE HER WHO IS the ALL-IN-ALL as ONLY THE GREAT MOTHER can be. This does not in any way mean a diminution of God The Father: Even the word "woman" contains the word "man" just as all men are born of women. This principle will not change even if the "womb" becomes a test tube. If there is to be peace on earth, the harmony of Mother Nature must be understood, respected and venerated just as individual men and all men must learn anew to better understand and respect individual women and all women and that power within themselves that comes from their "feminine." The task of women is to resurrect out of passivity their divine roles as priestesses, lovers, warriors and androgyne. In the words of the woman* who did the recent translations of the poetry from the forty-fourth century of Enheduanna, the Sumerian High Priestess of Inanna: "PROCLAIM!...In the past 30 years women have imagined a religion centered on goddess worship and have begun to reconstruct the myriad pieces of an actual ancient religion whose core was female...an exceptionally powerful goddess. She is "Queen of all given powers" and "unveiled clear light." She is "chosen, sanctified in heaven" and "Queen of fundamental forces/guardian of unchanging cosmic sources." The poet herself proclaims of the Goddess:
you lift up the elements
bind them to your hands
gather in powers
press them to your breast. This is not that far from the nearest sanctioned and widespread preservation that we have had for two thousand years through Mary, the Mother of the Christ. However, only Mary's "obedience, docility and traditional female domesticity" have been emphasized in order to secure the hold on power of the usurping Greek, Roman and Judaeo-Christian patriarchies. We find that the "the four spiritual [paths]" spoken of by Betty De Shong Meador in her translation and commentary of Edheduanna's poetry have been suppressed: "Warrior, priestess, lover, androgyne..an unsubdued, multifaceted, energetic female force..raw energy bursting for expression..raw libidinous vitality..the whetstone against which the devotee hones her course toward spiritual maturation...Lady of largest heart." The reclamation of the power of the feminine, of women, as the other half of the human race will bring the peace that the world seeks because it is already "..a coming out of one's self, a transcending of one's own HIStorically controlled situation...a paradoxical situation impossible to maintain in profane time, in an HIStorical epoch, but which is important to reconstitute...in order to restore the initial completeness, the intact source of holiness and power." To fill this hole in the collective soul of humankind made by spiritual sexism, we could use a process pioneered to deal with other death-dealing choices of lifestyles: addictions. The required struggle, commitment, learning and discipline will be even more. It will take SERENITY (accepting, coming out of denial, about the inequality and missteps that the human species has made in allowing the masculine to dominate, internally and externally), COURAGE (to change this situation--(1)for men and their consorts to give up their holds on privilege and entitlement (2) for women, who are able, (a)to become braver, more outspoken, independent and interdependent in support of other women who are not operating oppressively within patriarchy and (b) to align strongly with the disadvantaged men, children and other animals of the Earth) and WISDOM to discern the new ways.
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