Mary for Earth and Heaven: Essays on Mary and Ecumenism
William McLoughlin & Jill Pinnock edsGracewing, £20 (0-85244-556-3)
Not everyone is into Mary. It’s a cultural thing. But there has been a growing recognition, even with some of the Free Churches, that Mary has been greatly neglected; that perhaps the reformation abhorrence of anything not Christocentric has sufficiently abated to allow a re-appraisal. And that perhaps some hot-prots can laugh at the old chestnut caricature of a Catholic sermon: “It’s Easter Day and quite naturally our thoughts turn to Our Lady...” rather than imagine it reflects a widespread Catholic position.
In this collection of essays published by the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary (following the earlier volume, Mary for Everyone) the search for a deeper unity and shared common ground are pursued by 29 contributors. They are mainly Roman Catholic and Anglican, but there are also Methodists, Church of Ireland, Orthodox and even URC.
Essays are loosely grouped together with the larger sections being ‘Mary in Systematic Theology’, ‘Mary and Spirituality’ and ‘Mary and Unity’. But there are also sections on Patristics, Justice and topics such as Mary’s relevance to Irish politics today. Attention is also devoted to the Malines Conversations (initiated by the Anglican, Lord Halifax) whose 40th anniversary celebration in 1967 led to the establishment of the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (In Unity Week we light a candle before the Lord Halifax memorial here in St Mary’s where he was churchwarden.)
In general the articles are well written and researched, and even the four homilies included are scholarly in tone. There is a real desire to be both open-minded and yet respectful of tradition and of strongly held differences. For instance there is a very stimulating article by Edward Yarnold, SJ, of Oxford on ‘The ordination of women , gender symbolism and the BVM’, and in another article he arrives at the right conclusion concerning the controversial use of the title ‘Co-Redemptrix’ for Mary.
The Ecumenical Society of the BVM has proved a very stimulating forum for debate, and this book enables the reader to look in on the breadth and intensity of the discussion, while conveying an underlying irenic and optimistic attitude towards all our ecumenical endeavours.
Church Times
