Springs of Water in a Dry Land: Spiritual Survival for Catholic Women Today. - book reviews

Christian Century, Oct 13, 1993 by Debra Campbell

By Mary Jo Weaver, Beacon, 140 pp., $22.00.

IF SPIRITUALITY is a hunger, then many of us are simply famished." This is Mary Jo Weaver's premise, and she proceeds to show us how to begin to slake the hunger. Weaver, professor of religious studies at Indiana University in Bloomington. is probably most familiar to readers as the author of New Catholic Women (1985), but many have first encountered her in her concise and useful Introduction to Christianity. In Springs of Water Weaver demonstrates how to bring about a rapprochement between traditional Catholic spirituality and the new religious impulses represented by feminist theologies (including neopaganism) and process theology. A theologian firmly grounded in history, she demonstrates that the "usable past" includes the writings of Angustine, Dante and Teresa of Avila.

Weaver's writings and lectures on feminism have won her a reputation for sharp wit, insightfulness and courageous candor. The subtitle of this collection, Spiritual Survival for Catholic Women Today, attests to her unwillingness to overstate her case, or to promise her readers a feminist nirvana. Instead, Weaver generously shares herself and her extensive knowledge of theology, spirituality and the anatomy of the human heart and soul. She acknowledges the "conflict between hopelessness and despair experienced by many Catholic women in the second half of the 20th century, but proceeds nonetheless to speak prophetically and convincingly of the new territories awaiting women who dare to struggle for their own space within the church.

From her preface, "Four Stories," onward, it is clear that Weaver is writing for a diverse, intergenerational audience of female Catholics and those who care about them. She is not writing for a small cadre of the already converted. Scholars familiar with the complexities and nuances of the feminist theologies and spiritualities published during the past two decades cannot help but be impressed by the deftness with which she captures them in essays like "Who Is the Goddess and Where Does She Get Us?" Those who are neither academies nor feminists will be even more impressed by her ability to convey the richness of traditional and feminist spiritualities in language that is vivid, direct and concrete. In an age in which spirituality has become a cottage industry and too many authors in the field make promises to their readers that they cannot begin to keep, it is refreshing to discover a brief, lively, honest volume that delivers much more than it promises.