Praying With Women of the Bible

Rating:
Summary: Unique woman writes unique book of spirituality
Review: Praying With Women of the Bible Bridget Mary Meehan, SFCC 158 pp. $12.95 Ligouri/Triumph The striking cover of this book shows a kind of classical woman looking thoughtful and serene: one would think the contents would be predictable. Not at all. Prayer to the saints without a reference to the word "intercession"? Mary of Magdala without sidelong glances - without the romanticism of prostitute or pedestalism as messianic consort - presented as an apostle, a prophet, a powerful force in the early church? Mary of Nazareth herself, Jesus' mother, without the hyperdulia, (the technical term for devotion given to Mary and not to others)? Instead, this is a "Be with us" approach to the Communion of Saints, with deep scholarship obvious in the text and elegant footnotes in back. It enables us to bring to our meditations all the riches of modern research plus many inventions of Meehan's unusual religious imagination. Discussion-starters and prayer-starters abound. Meanwhile the author occasionally pushes the envelope. On page 70 she even suggests women's full equality in the Church may be coming. "Perhaps biblical scholars like Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza are right," she says, "when they claim that the table ministry of Martha is associated with eucharistic ministry." The same point is made in the chapter on the Samaritan woman and elsewhere. Meehan starts each chapter with a wide-ranging survey that draws you into the biblical world and the meaning surrounding each model woman, Ruth, Judith, Junia, and many seldom studied. Next comes the biblical text, then questions for group discussion, and finally a step-by-step invitation to private meditation. The book exemplifies the wealth of insight and inspiration that women bring to the church and the world. So if you are curious how a great communicator (Meehan has a cable talk show) and author of many important books in the field of feminist spirituality (15 in all) -- who has done her homework in such scholars as Brown, Carr, Pagels, D.L. Carmody, Winter and their ilk -- might guide you into inventive styles of prayer involving 20 fascinating biblical women, it's the book to get. Nothing in modern spirituality seems to have escaped her. She even takes excursions into non-canonical scriptures. She's a non-canonical nun, after all, an "original." So is this newest of her gifts to the Church. #

Rating:
Summary: Unique woman writes unique book of spirituality
Review: Praying With Women of the Bible Bridget Mary Meehan, SFCC 158 pp. $12.95 Ligouri/Triumph The striking cover of this book shows a kind of classical woman looking thoughtful and serene: one would think the contents would be predictable. Not at all. Prayer to the saints without a reference to the word "intercession"? Mary of Magdala without sidelong glances - without the romanticism of prostitute or pedestalism as messianic consort - presented as an apostle, a prophet, a powerful force in the early church? Mary of Nazareth herself, Jesus' mother, without the hyperdulia, (the technical term for devotion given to Mary and not to others)? Instead, this is a "Be with us" approach to the Communion of Saints, with deep scholarship obvious in the text and elegant footnotes in back. It enables us to bring to our meditations all the riches of modern research plus many inventions of Meehan's unusual religious imagination. Discussion-starters and prayer-starters abound. Meanwhile the author occasionally pushes the envelope. On page 70 she even suggests women's full equality in the Church may be coming. "Perhaps biblical scholars like Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza are right," she says, "when they claim that the table ministry of Martha is associated with eucharistic ministry." The same point is made in the chapter on the Samaritan woman and elsewhere. Meehan starts each chapter with a wide-ranging survey that draws you into the biblical world and the meaning surrounding each model woman, Ruth, Judith, Junia, and many seldom studied. Next comes the biblical text, then questions for group discussion, and finally a step-by-step invitation to private meditation. The book exemplifies the wealth of insight and inspiration that women bring to the church and the world. So if you are curious how a great communicator (Meehan has a cable talk show) and author of many important books in the field of feminist spirituality (15 in all) -- who has done her homework in such scholars as Brown, Carr, Pagels, D.L. Carmody, Winter and their ilk -- might guide you into inventive styles of prayer involving 20 fascinating biblical women, it's the book to get. Nothing in modern spirituality seems to have escaped her. She even takes excursions into non-canonical scriptures. She's a non-canonical nun, after all, an "original." So is this newest of her gifts to the Church. #

Rating:
Summary: Helpful Book
Review: This book was recommended to me for use with a womens' spirituality class. We all fell in love with the authors' choices of women biblical characters to portray. As the class facilitator, I really appreciated the exercises at the end of the chapters and the questions to explore for discussion starters. Ms.Meehan really fleshes out the characters in a way that every woman can relate to them in a very personal way. I reccomend this book for anyone needing solid material for a bible study or womens' Sunday school class.