Mary Ford-Grabowsky is an award-winning writer and teacher of theology and spirituality who received her master of divinity and doctoral degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary. She is the author of eight books including WomanPrayers and Stations of the Light. Since having a mystical and healing experience with a Mayan statue of Mary in Guatemala years ago, the author has wanted to create a devotional book in honor of her. Here is a resource that compels us to ponder Mary's historical life on earth 2,000 yars ago and the many ways her spirit reverberates in our present-day lives.

Ford-Grabowsky has fashioned a sacred pilgrimage with Mary that emphasizes her most salient soulful qualities, such as thinking with love and with faith; being with joy, sorrow, gratefulness, and for others. There are 14 devotions based on the following Biblical stories:

• The Annunciation and The Visit to Elizabeth
• The Magnificat and The Nativity
• Pondering Things in the Heart and Simeon's Prophecy
• Meeting the Prophet Anna and The Escape into Egypt
• Finding Her Missing Son and The Wedding in Cana
• At the Cross and Jesus Speaks to Mary from the Cross
• Waiting for the Spirit and Pentecost

Each section includes meditation, reflection, prayer, Ignatian-inspired visualization, and ideas for freeing the creative spirit. We appreciated the mix of materials here bringing together insights from Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Sufi spiritualities. Ford-Grabowsky opens our hearts and minds to The Way of Mary and concludes:

"The fourteen steps or stages of The Way of Mary highlight many of Mary's personal strengths, virtues, values, and character traits that have made her the perfect spiritual model for men and women since the earliest years of the Christian community. She is everything the human heart aspires to be, and she lives the way we all truly want to live, without remorse, free of guilt, never harming the soul of another woman or man. Mary never has to retract a word she has spoken nor ask to be forgiven. In every relationship and role God calls her to — as a woman, wife, and mother; as her future teacher's teacher; as a deep thinker; as a prophet; or as a saint — she serves God's purposes wholeheartedly, bravely, lovingly."