Excellent. Sheen never disappoints. Highly recommend

One of the greatest and most relevant books on Mary for our times. Highly recommend.

This book has become an instant favorite. It has revealed so much to me about Our Lady, Our Lord, and womanhood. My devotion to Mary has never been so strong. I find myself running to her and receiving so much comfort and consolation.
Sheen’s writing is incredible. Full of detail, love, and hope. This will be a book I plan on reading many more times.

This was the fifth book by Fulton J. Sheen that I read this year. With each book that I read I find that with each book I read the more of his writings I add to my reading list. This book was an amazing read. It was very interesting reading Sheen's theology of Mary our Mother and her role in leading people to Christ Jesus. And this book with its focus on Mary and Marian theology is inspiring.

The Chapters in this book are:
PART I THE WOMAN THE WORLD LOVES
1 Love Begins with a Dream
2 When Freedom and Love Were One: The Annunciation
3 The Song of the Woman: The Visitation
4 When Did Belief in the Virgin Birth Begin?
5 All Mothers Are Alike-Save One
6 The Virgin Mother
7 The World's Happiest Marriage
8 Obedience and Love
9 The Marriage Feast at Cana
10 Love and Sorrow
11 The Assumption and the Modern World
PART II THE WORLD THE WOMAN LOVES
12 Man and Woman
13 The Seven Laws of Love
14 Virginity and Love
15 Equity and Equality
16 The Madonna of the World
17 Mary and the Moslems
18 Roses and Prayers
19 The Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary
20 Misery of Soul and the Queen of Mercy
21 Mary and the Sword
22 The Woman and the Atom

It was very interesting reading about Sheen's focus on Mary in relation to the former Communist regime. But also his thoughts on Islam. For he states: "If Islam is a heresy, as Hilaire Belloc believes it to be, it is the only heresy that has never declined. Others have had a moment of vigor, then gone into doctrinal decay at the death of the leader, and finally evaporated in a vague social movement. Islam, on the contrary, has only had its first phase. There was never a time in which it declined, either in numbers or in the devotion of its followers." And from this his focus on the need to pray to Mary as an example to witness to and bring about the conversion of this group.

This book does an excellent job of explaining Mary's role within the Catholic church, and through her appearances, messages and ministry the job of drawing all of us home to God through Jesus. Sheen draws us in through the history of Mary and the church. And shoes her central role in history.

This was another excellent read. The book concludes with these words: "O Mary, we have exiled thy Divine Son from our lives, our councils, our education, and our families! Come with the light of the sun as the symbol of His Power! Heal our wars, our dark unrest; cool the cannon's lips so hot with war! Take our minds off the atom and our souls out of the muck of nature! Give us rebirth in thy Divine Son, us, the poor children of the earth grown old with age! "Advance, Woman, in thine assault upon Omnipotence!" Shame us all into enlisting as thy warriors of peace and love!" And this book will inspire us to grow in our faith and through that move is to action from the place of love. I highly recommend this book!

Read the review on my blog Book Reviews and More and reviews of other books by Fulton J. Sheen.

(Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: A Year of Reading Intention - Catholic Reading!)

Beautiful book about Our Lady that I had the privilege of writing a talk about. I have not picked up a book of Blessed Fulton Sheen's that I have not loved. He had a special God given gift with words.

This was one of the most beautiful books I have ever read regarding The Virgin Mary and Jesus. Fr Fulton Sheen is without a doubt in my mind, a writer that can use words in certain ways that you need to put the book down and just shake your head in awe!! I will be reading more by him. I have to thank my son for putting this book into my hands after I asked him this past summer if he had any books on his shelf that I could read to learn about Mary...and he placed this one in my hands. This is a book that I read slowly - it is “not” a book to read quickly but it’s one to read slowly and savor every paragraph on each page. I highly recommend this book!!

Awesome book, so eloquently written. This was my favorite paragraph from it describing Mary

Every man who pursues a maid, every maid who yearns to be courted, every bond of friendship in the universe, seeks a love that is not just her love or his love but something that overflows both her and him that is called "our love". Everyone is in love with an ideal love, a love that is so far beyond sex that sex is forgotten. We all love something more than we love. When that overflow ceases, love stops. As the poet puts it: "I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more." That ideal love we see beyond all creature-love, to which we instinctively turn when flesh-love fails, is the same ideal that God had in His Heart from all eternity— the Lady whom He calls "Mother". She is the one whom every man loves when he loves a woman-whether he knows it or not. She is what every woman wants to be when she looks at her-self. She is the woman whom every man marries in ideal when he takes a spouse; she is hidden as an ideal in the discontent of every woman with the carnal aggressiveness of man; she is the secret desire every woman has to be honored and fostered; she is the way every woman wants to command respect and love because of the beauty of her goodness of body and soul. And this blueprint love, whom God loved before the world was made, this Dream Woman before women were, is the one of whom every heart can say in its depth of depths: "She is the woman I love!"

While Fulton Sheen makes some excellent points about Mary, her purpose on the Earth, and how her example can help evangelize to the world, he supersedes his purpose by being a chauvinistic prick.

If you want to real all about how women are “innately” nurturing, pure, the better example for men, and solely responsible for holding together their marriages, this book is for you. If you are so unwomanly that you think with your brain more often than with labile emotions, read this only if you want to dig up a dead man and punch him in the face.

This book is truly a treasure! Archbishop Fulton Sheen gives us Mary in ways we have never experienced!

He breaks down for us all of Mary's most obscure life. He brings her to life!

One of the very first things he speaks about is freedom. This entity in our lives is in such a fragile state today. Sheen opens our eyes to what it means to be truly free!

Here is a little of what he has to say:

"The true concept of freedom is 'Freedom is the right to do whatever we ought', and ought implies goal, purpose, morality, and the law of God. True freedom is within the law, not outside of it."

Then Archbishop Sheen goes on to tell us about Mary's Visitation to Elizabeth, her perpetual virginity, the miracle at Cana, how it should be between man and woman, and Mary's role in our lives and those of our world.

You will be stunned by what you read here! Mary is here for us in love, in joy, in sorrow, in obedience, in mercy. You will find her here between these pages! Read this book now!

To begin: anyone who thinks that upon coming across this review will be reading a pleasant intake of this highly irritating book -will be utterly mistaken. So if you liked this review - it is simply for the reason that you understand its honesty.

Yes - I am a catholic. Yes - I did not like Archbishop Fulton Sheen and this book of his concerning Our Lady.

Why?
Let us take a look at page 139 entitled "Mary and the Moslems".
First thought - really? A whole ENTIRE book (considering this is an abridged version) about the MOTHER OF GOD and here it is that SOMEHOW islam is enforced into it? A whole entire CHAPTER dedicated to Islam and Mary? But i thought according to Islam Mary is one of the Persons of the Trinity..... whats this got to do with Mary and the doctrine of her being the Mother of God?

Now - already one is sketchy because in light of the Modern Church of today, everything is about INCORPORATING; islam, homosexuals, other religions (inter-religious dialogue), the overuse of charity for absolutely everything (as though charity is an excuse for anyone to do anything), and the entire and complete denial of the Justice of God {because God is forgiving, people, remember you do not need to repent, everything is going to be fine because you are all forgiven (sarcastic attitude detected!!!)} is ALL HEAPED UP INTO ONE.

And here we are; Fulton Sheen has the SAME, EXACT light tone, fluffy attitude, here concerning Mary, like every other modernist one will face in the church today.

And let's give SOME examples of why this chapter is particularly irritating.
In the third paragraph, Fulton writes; "If Islam is a heresy, as Hilarie Belloc believes it to be, it is the only heresy that has never declined".

WHOA>>>>>> Brain Explosion.

Are you serious? NEVER declined? Not ONCE declined?

Uhm... Lets take a look BACK into history. There were MANY MANY times when Islam declined. Lets not look too back and say how about the 18th century? Europe became a rising power, colonising the entire west in the advancement of technologies. And THEN is islam seen to wax up and down within the 18th-19th century and decline again within the early 20th century (the two world wars).

This sentence ALONE poses enough problems for me to write A WHOLE DARN ESSAY ABOUT.

And whats with this twisting when Fulton says; "as Hilarie Belloc believes it to be"?
What; do you think that ONLY Belloc believes islam to be a heresy?
Do you, Fulton, believe that because Islam has not EVER declined that therefore islam is not a heresy at all?
I do not understand what you are implying? What are you feeding Catholic Folk who are ALREADY weak in the faith? ???????

After this sentence, Fulton continues to examine how heresies have floated away and etc, but islam has not. This begs the question then ... if islam has not floated away like other heresies, then is Fulton saying that there is something special about islam? Is islam, here again is what im sensing Fulton is implying, not heretical?

Wait, it gets better. "There was never a time in which it (islam) declined, either in numbers or in devotion to of its followers".

WHOOOOAAAAA! What an assertion. So am i to believe that Islam has never declined in its numbers? What? Is Fulton an expert in population reports over THOUSANDS OF YEARS? There is evidence to the contrary as aforementioned about the decline of Islam. It only follows from this evidence that that the devotion of the followers would too also decline.... Fulton baffles me.

Does not Fulton KNOW that islam's growth AND decline is primarily BASED on the 6 empires/caliphates that arose out of islamic militant leaders and brought islam up and then back down upon its face?

Islam was not an accepted identity previously from the 19th, or lets say really and truly, 20th century. It was constantly in war with the western culture. It tried to take over Europe. It has NOW, right NOW, currently, successfully overtaken Europe. The first time out of the 6 various islamic caliphates.

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It looks like that Fulton fits in with the vatican two crowd of incorporating inter-religious dialogue within the church, like the acclaimed church document called "nostra atate" - literally in latin "in this age". Perfectly droll, isnt it?

Once again, it took me about a month to get through a fairly small book full of beautiful prose, and once again it is because the Blessed Archbishop packs so much philosophy into plain English that one has to stop and digest what one reads on nearly every page. Part I shows the proper role of Mary in Christianity, while Part II illustrates her role in our world today.

This is just such a beautiful way of looking at the world that I'm often dumbfounded that others don't flock to it more...scratch that, it dumbfounds me that I don't flock to it more often. The ideologies of the world mostly find their highest joy in schadenfreude, a joy infused with anger and hatred, of triumph over the hated other, but here...here is something very different. One cannot read Fulton Sheen without being deeply impressed by the joy, the simple joy the man had in his faith.

One could spend years preaching on this book alone. I already have it back on my to reread list. A couple minor errors and a surprisingly bold prediction that didn't come true stopped it from getting the fifth star in my rating, but the rest is the answer to our world's ever increasing loneliness, pointlessness, anger, and ultimately sadness.

"There are some who say they would be 'hypocrites' if they came to God. They would be hypocrites if they said they were prepared to be clean when they intended to go on being dirty. But they would not be hypocrites if they admitted they were sinful and really wanted to be children of God."

"Repentance, prayer, sacrifice- these are conditions of peace, for they are the means by which man is remade."

This book answered many questions I've always had about Our Blessed Virgin Mary, and I'm a "cradle Catholic". Bishop Sheen shares beautiful Scriptural insights and teaches early church history in a mostly easy to read format. I almost didn't finish this because by the second half of the book he is repeating reflections already presented and also the literary style gets a bit flowery or "old fashioned." That being said, I am very glad I stuck with it and am quite struck by a book written in the 1950's which has much to say about religious/political conflict, especially in Africa and the Middle East, in 2015 and how to solve it by going in prayer to the great Mediatrix, Mary the Mother of God.