A wrote:

I find all this attention to Mary rather amazing.

B: responded:

And rather Biblical….”from henceforth -all- generations shall call me blessed!”. I am sure that those who fulfill that injunction refer to St Mary as blessed. 🙂

Then C:

The veneration of Mary was a way of incorporating the feminie side of God (found in pagan fertility religions) into Christianity. If people had looked more closely they would have found that Wisdom is feminine in the Old Testament.

Read

– “The Gospel According To Woman: Christianity’s creation of the sex war in the west” – Karen Armstrong

– “Born of a Woman” – John Shelby Spong

– “Jesus and the Goddess” – Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy