Saturday, November 23, 2013

Review: Walking with Mary



About the Book:
Mary appears only a few times in the Bible, but those few passages come at crucial moments. Catholics believe that Mary is the ever-virgin Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven and Earth. But she also was a human being--a woman who made a journey of faith through various trials and uncertainties and endured her share of suffering. Even with her unique graces and vocation, Mary remains a woman we can relate to and from whom we have much to learn.

In Walking with Mary, Edward Sri looks at the crucial passages in the Bible concerning Mary and offers insight about the Blessed Mother's faith and devotion that we can apply in our daily lives. We follow her step-by-step through the New Testament account of her life, reflecting on what the Scriptures tell us about how she responded to the dramatic events unfolding around her.

“This book is the fruit of my personal journey of studying Mary through the Scriptures, from her initial calling in Nazareth to her painful experience at the cross,” writes Edward Sri “It is intended to be a highly readable, accessible work that draws on wisdom from the Catholic tradition, recent popes, and biblical scholars of a variety of perspectives and traditions. With the riches of these insights, we will ponder what her journey of faith may have been like in order to draw out spiritual lessons for our own walk with God.” He add, “It is my hope, therefore, that whether you are of a Catholic, Protestant, or other faith background, this book may help you to know, understand, and love Mary more, and that it may inspire you to walk in her footsteps as a faithful disciple of the Lord in your own pilgrimage of faith.”

My Comments:
One problem non-Catholic Christians have with Marian devotion is that they say it isn't scriptural.  This is a book that looks at what the Bible does say about Mary and what it means.  Why does Jesus address her as "woman"?  What are Mary's famous last words?  What are the parallels between the Annunciation, the Presentation and the Crucifixion?  

One story in the Bible that has always confused me is the Finding of Jesus in the Temple.  Why is that story there?  Why do we make such a big deal of it, making it a mystery of the rosary?  I liked Sri's explanation--that we will have times in our lives when we experience the type of frantic  pain that Mary must have suffered when looking for Jesus, and we aren't going to understand all the whys at the time, but God has things under control, even if we don't like them.  

I enjoyed this book and its scriptural approach to Mary, and thank the publishers for making a review copy available via Blogging for Books. Grade: B+

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