Mother Mary: Inspiring Words from Pope Francis

Interesting and easy to read and of course inspiring. Great Christmas gift!

I have prayed to Mother Mary throughout my life for inspiration and guidance through my trails of being a mother of seven children. The wise words and prayers Pope Francis shares in this book continues my journey with loving and learning from our Mother Mary. I need to be continually reminded and supported in this time that we live that being a mother is truly important. I struggle with this on a daily basis because of the stigma that now surrounds a stay at home mom in our society today. I always wanted to be a mother and one with many children. I was blessed with them and I thank God each day for my beautiful children. All mothers need to know that they are special and that they fulfill a very important job. Through his words in this book Pope Francis helps to remind us the importance of having a mother love and guide us all the days of our lives.

Whether you’ve devoted to Mary, or just starting to learn more about her, there’s something in this book to challenge you and to help you grow in your faith. Excerpts are fairly short in length, and they can be read altogether one after the other.  Or you could read it like a devotional.  Opening the book at random is a beautiful thing to do, too. Excerpts are taken from homilies, writings, papal addresses, and even social media accounts of Pope Francis.  They are full of prayers, messages of hope, notes of spiritual direction, and reflections.  Embedded in all of this is a golden thread that runs throughout the book, that is call to action for the Faithful, that we might pray with renewed fervor and zeal to our God, and that we might place ourselves more fully under the spiritual guidance and protection of the loving Mother Jesus gave to all of us on the Cross. I don’t usually scribble in the margins of books, but my copy of this book is covered in additional thoughts, little arrows and underlined sections, and ideas about where these excerpts can be used or referred to in my own personal life and ministry work.  In short, this book has proved to be a very useful companion for my own life, and it is one I will keep handy on my bookshelf so that I can turn back to it as needed. I’m grateful to the editor Alicia von Stamwitz for compiling these thought-provoking quotes from our Pope into six small, concise, easily accessible chapters you’ll be turning to again and again.

As the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio encouraged the people of Argentina to devote themselves to Mary. He had a special devotion to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots. So when the smiling, Argentinian Jesuit was elected to the papacy in 2013, ...