Edward Sri - Walking with Mary: A Biblical Journey from Nazareth to the Cross

With the divinest Word, the Virgin

Made pregnant, down the road

Comes walking, if youll grant her

A room in your abode.

Saint John of the Cross

I express my gratitude to the many friends, colleagues, and students who have offered their prayers and encouragement throughout the writing of this book. I am thankful for the feedback and insights offered by Curtis Mitch, Jared Staudt, and Mark Giszczak and for my discussions with students at the Augustine Institute with whom I have explored Marys journey of faith in various courses. I am particularly indebted to Paul Murray, O.P.teacher, friend, and guidefor sharing with me throughout the years not only the epigraph for this book but also the many insights from the Catholic spiritual tradition that have found their way into the pages of this work. I thank Gary Jansen and the editorial team at Image Books for their suggestions that have helped make this a better book. I also thank my three oldest children, Madeleine, Paul, and Teresa, for our time opening the Scriptures together to study Marys faith journey in the year of this books production. Most of all, I am grateful for my wife, Elizabeth, for her prayers, support, and feedback and for her helping me find the time to make this work possible amid our full family life.

Im not sure how devoted Ive been to Mary. But I know she has been very devoted to me.

Thats how a friend once described his relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary. And his words capture an experience to which I can very much relate.

I grew up surrounded by Marian devotion in my home. Rosary beads by my mothers chair. Pictures of Our Lady and the holy child in my room. Hail Mary prayers at my bedside at night. Most of all, I will never forget those quick visits to a Polish Carmelite monastery just three blocks from my home in a town outside of Chicago. Almost every day my mother would stop by that monastery on our way back from school and take my siblings and me into a small, dark chapel with nothing to illuminate it but the dim refracted, colored light from the stained-glass windows and the rows of flickering red candles in front of the altars. For a child, walking into this mysterious chapel was like stepping into another worldinto the realm of the sacred.

Our brief visits always culminated with the lighting of devotional candles and a prayer in front of a very large painting of Mary crowned in royal splendor with twelve stars on her head. Each child would have a candle lit for their intentions, and we would kneel down before this picture of Mary as my mother offered very personal, heartfelt prayers to the Lord. God was real. Prayer was real. And I knew Mary was an important person very close to God, and somehow (though I could not have explained it at the time) a profound part of my experience in prayer.

I would not want to give the impression that I had a particularly strong Marian devotion as I grew up and entered junior high and high school. But I did say my prayers, and thought of Mary from time to time, especially in moments when I was troubled. I suppose my relationship with Mary back then was similar to how many adult children relate to their own mothers: I love my mom. I sometimes take her for granted. I sometimes forget to call. But I know shes always there for me.

This youthful affection for Mary was severely shaken one night shortly after I went away to college.

On my dormitory floor at Indiana University, I met a joyful, outgoing Christian student named Rod. He called himself a Bible Christiana term I had never encountered in my Chicago-area Catholic upbringing. But I figured that since I was Catholic and I also believed in the Bible, he and I would get along together quite well.

One night in the middle of the fall semester, however, I found out it would not be so easy. Rod came knocking on my door. He had a Bible in hand and a serious look on his face.

Ted, can we talk?

Yes, I replied. Whats wrong?