Full of Grace: Meditations on Mary, Love, and Transformation

My review of Judith Dupre's book Full of Grace is up and running at Patheos.

I think this book would be a simply wonderful gift for ... well, practically any Catholic and for lots of people who aren't Catholic but would be open to reading a book about Mary.

Here's the beginning of the review to get you started.

Among the practices indelibly associated with Catholics is the veneration of Mary and praying of the rosary. To outsiders it can seem as if Jesus is being cast aside while his mother is being unduly worshipped. Or, it might seem to be precisely the meaningless gabble of thoughtless prayer that Jesus warned against when he said, "In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words" (Mt. 6:7).

Anyone holding such opinion while encountering Judith Dupré's extraordinary book Full of Grace will soon realize how wrong those ideas can be. Dupré melds myriad written and artistic images -- a glittering mosaic of perspectives on Mary through the ages. Always, she is pointing to Her Son, Jesus. If one could produce a symphony in writing it would be similar to Full of Grace, which combines art, history, poetry and prose, personal experience and hearsay, traditional Catholic theology and Islam, and orthodoxy and feminist theology, into a marvelous and comprehensive look at the Mother of God.