Rating: 
Summary: in answer to mary
Review: i was offended by the remarks of an earlier reviewer. i think you need to have more respect for other people's faith. this book was not about whether or not her information was correct about mary. it was about trying to find her own identity. so the next time you feel like you need to look deeper, please have respect for others beliefs before you start telling them they are wrong and need to look in other areas.
Rating:
Summary: Full of grace!
Review: I'm a fairly recovered "good catholic girl" who was surprised to find this book lifted my spirits and allowed me to finally view Mary in a more holistic (vs. simply long-suffering virginal) way. D'Onofrio, in her perfectly imperfect self, has crafted a bridge which allows all to receive Mary in our own minds and on our own terms. Mary works her magic by pulling us up with her, as D'Onofrio shows in this authentic and honest book. I read all the time and can't remember enjoying a book as much as I have this one. It was a surprising, graceful joy!
Rating: 
Summary: disappointing, confusing and confused
Review: If you are Catholic and struggling, read this book! If you are a woman, a mother and struggling, read this book! If you need inspiration or faith, read this book!What a wonderful read! I found this book accidently and Beverly would suggest that maybe I was led to it. I wouldn't argue with her. Between the de-emphasis on Mary in the current US Catholic Church and the criticism of my Prostestant friends, I had lost a commitment to Mary. The rosary was passe and praying to her constituted icon worship. Though I am still grappling with the likelihood of the Assumption, Beverly's experiences have opened my heart to the love and support that Mary can provide. The Hail Mary is again tripping off my tongue. Beverly speaks directly from her heart into the reader's with a voice that is real and powerful. Yes, I believe Mary has a job for Beverly and it has started beautifully with this book.
Rating:
Summary: inspiring on so many levels!
Review: If you are Catholic and struggling, read this book! If you are a woman, a mother and struggling, read this book! If you need inspiration or faith, read this book! What a wonderful read! I found this book accidently and Beverly would suggest that maybe I was led to it. I wouldn't argue with her. Between the de-emphasis on Mary in the current US Catholic Church and the criticism of my Prostestant friends, I had lost a commitment to Mary. The rosary was passe and praying to her constituted icon worship. Though I am still grappling with the likelihood of the Assumption, Beverly's experiences have opened my heart to the love and support that Mary can provide. The Hail Mary is again tripping off my tongue. Beverly speaks directly from her heart into the reader's with a voice that is real and powerful. Yes, I believe Mary has a job for Beverly and it has started beautifully with this book.
Rating:
Summary: I Loved This Book!
Review: Literate, edgy, funny, relatable adventure of a rebel who hates organized religion, but longs for the solace found in its rituals. As a fellow ex-Catholic baby-boomer, I laughed out loud when, advised by a priest to talk to Jesus, the author's response is "But I hate Jesus... he's whiny."
Rating:
Summary: A must read for everyone returning home
Review: Rarely do I read a book more than once, but I could not put this down. As a former and returned Catholic, I found this to be a wonderfully honest and spiritual book that examines issues all returnees have. Her quest has inspired me to return to confession and find the peace that only Mary can give.
Rating:
Summary: in search of faith & healing
Review: Rebeccasreads highly recommends LOOKING FOR MARY as an amusing, heartbreaking, absorbing scrapbook from Beverly Donofrio's quest for meaning in her life: as a parent, a writer & a daughter of Mother Mary.
LOOKING FOR MARY is also a fascinating religious history course on the influence Mother Mary has had around the world & down the ages, in the form of sightings, miracles, paintings, pilgrimages & celebrations, especially those in Bosnia & Mexico.
It is a profoundly moving & infuriating memoir of a Baby Boomer who rejects her Catholic faith for all the right reasons: birth control, a woman's right to choose, & the hoary patriarchal hierarchy of an organized religion vs organic faith.
LOOKING FOR MARY is, ultimately, about a woman who finally grows up: finds herself, seeks forgiveness from & for those she has hurt (especially herself!), & replaces a life of depression, rejection & substance abuse with a day-by-day pilgrimage to serenity, compassion & joy. In the process she figures out what sorrow means, & comes to terms with her male-dominated faith.
Rating:
Summary: My Gourmet-Catholic Soul Appreciates This Book
Review: Reviewer: Cory Giacobbe Sassy Sainthood. That's the amusingly uplifting road, which I see the raucous Beverly Donofrio trudging. Basically, I wanted to hear even more details, than were given, about the author's pilgrimage to the Mary of Medjugorje. Still, Ms. Donofrio's probings of the belligerence, bravado, suffering, in her daily life were poignant: coping with single motherhood; her unhappy love affairs; her challenges as a female seeker (to which many of us women may relate) etc. She seems to be the real-life counterpart to the main character, in Barbara Robinson's reverently irreverent children's novel, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Here a child -- a scruffy, streetwise, tough cookie -- muscles her way into playing the Virgin Mary in the Sunday School pageant. Knowing little about the Nativity. Smoking cigars during rehearsals. Smacking Joseph and inciting riots. Then, during the program, she weeps with mingled joy and sorrow, in her identification with Mary's motherhood. Rather like B.D.'s experience. Throughout all its thematic moods, Ms. Donofrio's book honors the serious, ongoing self-query, that seekers undergo. It does so by not sugercoating reactions, beliefs, dilemmas. Ms. Donofrio mirrors my instinct, to steer away from controversial prophetic aspects, some interpretations disturbingly punitive, linked to several Mary Visitations. I feel my contemplations of Mary have quietly guided me, into sustaining optimism, and in how to petition God: not via groveling, begging, but in a state of assured grateful praise. To focus not on guilt, fear of punishment, or predicted biblical warfare, but on Divine Joy that cannot help but manifest as my worldly experience. I empathized with Ms. Donofrio's feminist struggles per the Church. Yet what I would share with her is this: Symmetry. Mary's quiet influence has helped me to realize, that to snub the masculine aspect of God is as unbalanced, disadvantageous, as ignoring the feminine energies. And that a role, "God as Loving Father" is not simultaneous with "rigid," authoritarian," and other negative labels. So I'd encourage the author to read even a few more children's books: One is the beautiful novel, Bambi, by Felix Salten. The original, unedited 1928 form. Far from the trivialized Disney Film caricature. What hauntingly hypnotic lyricism. Bambi -- so St. Francis of Assisi-like. For me, the story of Bambi is A Seeker's Survival Guide, as is The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. Like Bambi the deer, Ms. Donofrio engages in a fierce struggle per patriarchy. Bambi confronts the dichotomy: the masculine, "all-powerful," All-Punitive, All-Terrorizing "He," representing not just "man," but humans' traditional version of God. This is versus the "Old Stag," a masculine, nurturing symbol. The Old Stag appears and helps before Bambi even asks, teaches him how and when to explore, encourages, frees Bambi from "He." This theme of spirituality is not directly mentioned in the story, until near the end, when the dying Old Stag inspires Bambi to confirm, "There is Another who is ... over us, and over 'Him.'" Over human beings, and indeed transcending old-time, claustrophobic concepts Ms. Donofrio questions, and from which she veers. Subtly beyond Herman Hesse's Siddhartha (whose attitudes, path, once reflected mine) who in old age does discover universal love, Bambi and Ms. Donofrio find themselves leaping up, to encounter a personal experience with God. While revealing she is now a believer in God, the author resists labeling herself. That, too, resonates with me. It's puzzling when others insist on qualifying my Catholicism. In the media a category is publicized, "Cafeteria Catholics." Wait! Let me highlight an ugraded version -- personally, I'd consier myself what I call a "Gourmet Catholic," dining on the finest nuggets of world spiritual insight (the word "catholic" means "universal"). Not an expert on, but a basic appreciation for, mutual core truths. Embracing unity with whatever hearts radiate the Christ-Consciousness. All the while, I continue to ponder challenging aspects of my Catholic upbringing. To "ponder." A powerful, positive act, weighty with openness, awe, not depression -- isn't that, after all, what Mary did, per her particular spiritual issues? In wonder, she "pondered" these things "in her heart." The author exhibits a normal, healthy seeker's process of being still a bit diluted, "cafeteria-" oriented, in focus: e.g., she's intent on her chanting sessions at her yoga group, or receiving shamanic healing, etc. As an ex-Eastern meditation teacher, ex-New Ager, I know well these benefits. Ultimately, I'd seen the extent to which many initially refreshing theories/techniques petrify into rigid superstitions. Chapter by chapter, the author illustrates her ever-growing desire to know God. This apparently genuine commitment will yield her, I truly believe, indepth experiences.Over the years, absorbed in Eastern impersonalism, during my increasingly arid chanting/meditation-time, the Pesky Presence of God kept breaking through, a personal invitation to me. Gradually these spurts of grace rattled me with the realization, that God also created the Void, not the finish line as I'd been taught, but a stopover to a more intense, conscious relationship with the Divine. Not long ago a Holy Trinity-oriented, Mary-included, prayer-poem stirred with me, for my own upliftment. A sort of spiritual community grapevine led to my reciting it this past month, at a multi-parish prayer service honoring Mary. I was glad to see liberal and traditional Christians could unite in this way. So, blessings swift and beautiful, as this very book shows, happen around Mary. (p.s. -- it's fine, I feel, if you want to contact gia7cg@netscape.net for a copy of that prayer). The ending of the book leaves the readers with questions: Exactly how is Mary affecting the author's life today? Is the author overly dependent on outer signs, and is this a matter of her reading into things sometimes? I trust God will help Ms. Donofrio simplify, refine, her choices per prayer-technique. Touched by Ms. Donofrio's honesty, her sweet acts of love towards Mary, I find reinforced, my own instinct to ever strengthen my prayer-life. Thank you, Beverly, and the best of blessings to you.
Rating:
Summary: A must for every ex-Catholic baby boomer
Review: Some Catholic purists will be horrified by this book. Beverly Donofrio is a hardcore unbeliever who finds herself irresistably drawn to the Blessed Mother. Understandably, after thirty-five years as an atheist, Donofrio still carries a lot of residual baby boomer baggage - irritation with the Church's political incorrectness, an obsession with religious superficialities, and some rather heretical ideas, such as her notion that Catholics "worship" Mary (won't the Protestants have a field day with that!) not to mention a teensy propensity to narcissism, even in repentance. Nevertheless, I believe this little book is a miracle. This book is a message from Mary to every baby boomer who left the Church during the sixties and seventies. So what if Mary's messenger is not perfect? That is precisely why she is the perfect messenger for us, the hardcore feminists, the yuppies blinded by ambition, the New Agers toying with spirituality, the hardhearted unbelievers who think religious people are crazy fools. This book will work. Before the year 2000 is over, this book will touch the hearts of thousands of people, the very people who least expect it, all over the United States and beyond. It will inspire prayer in people who normally scoff at prayer. It will work because Mary is, as Donofrio has learned, a woman who gets her way.
Rating: 
Summary: Wrong Author
Review: They are marvelous subjects --- The Blessed Virgin and miracles and pilgrimages --- but what a shame that they have landed in the clumsy prose of a self-centered humorless untalented woman who's trying to get over the guilt of being a lousy mother.
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