In Search of Mary: The Woman and the Symbol

by Sally Cunneen

Mary--relic of the religious past or beacon of the future?
Mary is more alive today than she was in the early Christian church, surfacing in art and worship in almost every culture on earth. Her appeal bridges the gap between the devotional and the secular, the uneducated and the sophisticated. But who is Mary and what exactly does she symbolize? How did a humble Jewish girl become the most honored woman in human history? Why is there so little about Mary in the Bible and so much about her in the art and history of Christianity, East and West? And why, in an age dominated by science and technology, does devotion to Mary persist?
In Search of Mary is Sally Cunneen's provocative response to these questions. As Cunneen eloquently points out, in order to see Mary whole, it is important to look at all the different visions and versions of her, revisiting history through the eyes of a present day searcher. Including the latest findings by historians, anthropologists, and psychologists, as well as art historians and religious scholars, In Search of Mary reveals what we know about the life of Mary, follows the history and development of her image over the last two thousand years, and explores the different ways that Mary has transformed the lives of people today.

As we struggle for greater unity in a divided world, In Search of Mary shows us a woman who can touch all people, regardless of their backgrounds. She is a profound reminder of the presence of the holy in ordinary life.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity, Feminism

432 pages, Paperback

First published August 20, 1996

Reviews

[Roger DeBlanck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cunneen offers an erudite study of the Mary we can know and interpret from Scripture, of the Mary we can uncover and discover from history, and of the Mary we have created and continue to invent for our own needs. By taking into account every source available to examine and understand what Mary represents to people across different cultures and religions, Cunneen’s tremendous research shows how our human perception of her and our devotion to her have changed and expanded throughout the centuries. Her scholarly research and her impassioned personal search to reveal every aspect of Mary makes her book both a fascinating and exhaustive study. It’s amazing to follow Cunneen as she charts the various sources and prominent thinkers of every era, but her methodical approach often became dense and made her search grow increasingly repetitive in its overall conclusions.

What I take away most from Cunneen’s work, which echoed similar conclusions conveyed in any serious work on Mary, is that the Blessed Mother has endured the test of time because she made Christianity possible as the intermediary between God and humankind. She humanized God and made the divine into flesh. She is the image of God through the figure of a woman. She is the feminine face of God. Therefore, she symbolizes the courage it takes to believe in and remain devoted to God’s plan in all its mystery. She links the mystery of God to life on our planet. She became the symbol of a mother who we can seek out in times of pain, danger, and suffering to provide us with strength, comfort, and protection. She is someone who has power and influence in Heaven and on Earth. She is the human channel that makes possible the forever flowing hope we can gain from Jesus’s mission.

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"As we struggle for greater unity in a divided world, In Search of Mary shows us a woman who can touch all people, regardless of their backgrounds. She is a profound reminder of the presence of the holy in ordinary life," reads the end of the Goodreads blurb on this scholarly yet very approachable look at Mary. The book gives a strong, clear account of how much theologians struggled to understand her role in human and church history that grew out of scant, yet critically important references to her in the Gospels, but Sally Cunneen also gives many accounts of both ordinary people and the great saints who saw in her both an approachable and extraordinary guide who helped them understand loving motherhood, the feminine aspects of the divine, and the mysteries of Incarnation. Many images of Mary from ancient to modern times are featured in the text too as Cunneen reflects on what these works reveal about Mary's influence. Highly recommended for anyone who wishes to know more about Marian history.

[Ella · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is just… it’s awful. It starts out as a pretty good spiritual exegesis but evolved into incredibly reductive theology and just plain historyfail. The author’s understanding of medieval women’s roles and opportunities are terrible, and she’s also obsessed with the idea of motherhood as the pinnacle of woman’s experience. And then of course it descends into terrible new age Marian stuff in the final chapter, at which point I was just waiting for the whole thing to be over. There’s also a whole lot of weird elisions of the ways in which the cult of Mary has been used to feed antisemitism through the medieval period, which feels like a weird form of apologism to show up in a book that aims to look at the good and the bad. Likewise, the author’s really into the Protestant reformation as an unambiguous net good for women (minus the minimising of Mary), and I would up screaming a long while about women’s active participation in medieval religion (spoiler alert: they had more chances for certain kinds of participation in medieval Catholicism than they did in early modern Protestantism). I’m getting incoherent here, but this book is just absolutely awful. If you’re looking for something similar but immensely better, Miri Rubin’s Mother of God is an excellent look at ancient and medieval cult(s) of the Virgin, with much more attention paid to the role of these cults in medieval antisemitism. Marina Warner’s Alone of All Her Sex is somewhat dated even by the author’s own admission, but it’s better than this turkey. And if, unlike the author, you realise that medieval Catholicism is more complicated than ‘motherhood and marriage bad, celibacy good’, Clarissa Atkinson’s The Oldest Vocation is, while slightly dated, an excellent look at Christian motherhood as vocation in the medieval west. Any one of those should do you much better than this thing.

[Amara Grajewski · Rating 4 out of 5]

a stunning ethnography of mary across time and cultures. cunneen does a great job showing a broad overview of marian interpretation while diving into the lives and opinions of individuals. overall, she artfully captures the universality and subjectivity of mary as a figure for women around the world.

[Mimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that I read this when it was newly published. I enjoyed the survey of the Theotokos in art, history, and poetry. For my tastes, it got a little too 90s woo-woo, but I can see it resonating with others who have that bent.

[James Prothero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on the mother of Christ

[Coleen Dailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fascintating review of the history of Mary from the early days of the church through the present. I thought the author did a great job in a short number of pages. Not only did I enjoy the history but I liked the section on modern interpretations of art, I would have liked the book better if the accompaning pictures had been in color.