Spirituality and History: Questions of Interpretation and Method Book

This series of meditations mixing mariology with pneumatology left me cold. Fr Cantalamessa seeks to develop a much less glorious vision of Mary (as a woman who was tempted, got wrinkles and died) that might be palatable to Protestants, much like the New Mass. Orthodox readers are also included with a series of icons that serve as starting points for some reflections. Quite incredibly, the most laudatory marian passages in the book are from the pen of... Martin Luther. Cantalamessa is overenthusiastic about Vatican II, believing that it renewed interest in the Holy Spirit (he does not mention Jean-Joseph Gaume's popular XIXth century treatise on the subject) and ushered in a new, non-hierarchical Pentecost resulting in a burgeoning of individual charisms. He even presents Mary as the first charismatic and the first evangelical. For some reason, the prose washed over my mind like water over a duck's feathers, even though I had enjoyed two earlier volumes by the same author, and this one came particularly recommended by a biblical scholar for whom I have the highest esteem. Maybe I was just in the wrong mood, but I found this a most laborious read.