The Kiss of Jesus: How Mother Teresa and the Saints Helped Me to Discover the Beauty of the Cross. By Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle, Ignatius Press, 2015.
Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle’s The Kiss of Jesus is a personal spiritual memoir, covering her life from the present day. It is an incredibly revealing book, exposing some horrific events, as well as some disturbing truths about our divorce courts, as well as the beneficial effects of placing one’s faith and trust in Jesus and prayer. O’Boyle’s uses her personal life to explain the primary role that prayer and her Catholicism play in her life, along with how they helped her through some particularly crushing ordeals.
In the early pages of her book, O’Boyle describes her public image as a religious figure, saying that:
“What you see is not always what you get. Allow me to explain. I have lived a colorful life dappled with some overwhelming struggles but also brimming with amazing joy. Most people don’t know the whole story. They might have seen me on my television shows on EWTN, appearing all put together (I hope!), or they might have heard me on the radio. Others know me by reading my numerous books and articles. Many have told me that they are exceedingly thankful because my message has made a positive difference in their lives.”
The subtitle of the book mentions “The Beauty of the Cross.” When people talk of “carrying a cross,” the connotations generally present this action as a burden, a crippling weight that makes movement difficult and requires a great deal of strength to carry. Yet while the initial reaction might be to avoid carrying a cross, O’Boyle makes it clear that she believes that a cross is a means of support. The cross, in O’Boyle’s opinion, is not a gigantic mallet used for pounding people down into the ground, but instead it is a buttress one can use to support one’s life. One puts one’s own weight the cross, the cross does not weigh one down– if one knows how to use it properly.
The book takes the form of an autobiography, beginning, as is often the case, with an overview of O’Boyle’s childhood and early family life.
“Growing up in the Cooper clan, we always knew when it was Sunday. The day was occupied with attending Mass, going on family outings, and visiting with relatives, either at their homes or ours. We enjoyed a special dinner together in the afternoon, even if pickings were slim. My mother creatively churned out great meals from scratch. At night we gathered again at the table to eat a lighter meal, and then we watched family shows on television while delighting in our ritual Sunday night ice cream.”
The relatively happy childhood O’Boyle enjoyed was occasionally punctuated by bursts of turbulence, such as the occasional angry argument between her parents. Everybody who ever worried about the state of their parents’ marriage can understand how young O’Boyle felt one night when her mother stomped out of the house after a particularly heated exchange with her father, and the relief that she felt when she saw her mother returning and realized that her mother had only left the house momentarily for a quick walk around the block in order to settle her thoughts and cool her emotions.
There are frequent mentions as to how O’Boyle’s religious education and background prepared her for the travails she would endure later in life. O’Boyle’s example indicates how religious instruction in youth can affect one’s future behavior and attitude in later life. When discussing the role that her early family affected her prayer life, O’Boyle writes:
“My mother, grandmother, and the religious sisters planted seeds of goodness in my heart and soul and taught me to make time for prayer. Necessity drew the yearning to pray out of me too. There were times that I knew I had to pray– there was no other way. I followed my heart and got on my knees often, usually by the side of my bed, whenever I needed help. I also prayed regularly to keep up a communication with God. It was a practice that brought me deep comfort. I prayed a lot in the car too, sitting in the back seat while my father was driving, sometimes a bit erratically, worrying that we would get into an accident because he had had too much to drink. At such moments, many Our Fathers and Hail Marys were silently offered up from my little girl’s heart and soul. I somehow had the grace to know that I could run to prayer whenever I was scared or in need of any help. I expected results and they were delivered.”
Mother Teresa makes a brief appearance late in the book, when O’Boyle met her at an event. Mother Teresa responded to O’Boyle’s correspondence over the following years, including advice on how to bear spiritual burdens and face challenges. There are a few interesting facts about Mother Teresa’s uncomfortable relationship with her own celebrity, such as the revelation that she hated having her picture taken, but so many people insisted upon it that Mother Teresa “made a deal” with God that for every photograph taken of her, one soul would be released from Purgatory and sent straight to Heaven.
“After praying and pondering about this experience I realized that God wanted me to share more of myself with others. I decided to open the book of my personal journey– the good and the bad, the crazy, the ugly, the scary, and the redemptive– so that with God’s grace I could offer hope, especially to those who are struggling on the sometimes precarious or crooked path that leads to heaven.
I hope and pray you will enjoy this book and that by God’s grace it will deeply inspire you to follow God’s holy will in your own life.”
Unfortunately, O’Boyle’s early adulthood was often difficult, even traumatic. A good deal of the book is rather difficult to read, due in part to the horrible things that happen to the author. On two occasions, O’Boyle is sexually assaulted. Though these rapes are horrible, they are brief. A A horrific act committed by a stranger is in some ways less horrific than extended acts of cruelty by those closest to one. The most disturbing moments come from the times when O’Boyle’s life is torn apart by the men who are supposed to be loving and protecting her. O’Boyle has been married three times (her first two marriages were dissolved by Church-approved annulments). An early relationship led to her being isolated from her family thanks to a very controlling and violent man. Her first two marriages both started out happily enough, but her first husband’s increasingly erratic behavior led to years of strain and then an abandonment in one of the most unlikely and symbolic of places.
The breakup of her second marriage was more protracted and ultimately more threatening to O’Boyle’s family structure. After her husband, a lawyer, decided he wanted a divorce, he proceeded to use his insider’s knowledge of the legal system to make life exceptionally difficult for his estranged wife, and to threaten her with the loss of all of her children, including those from her first marriage. After reading these difficult chapters, one can be quite understandably unnerved by how the American legal system can put lots of innocent people through undeserved strain and terror (not to mention enormous financial expense, coupled with a steep loss in time and a massive amount of worrying).
Throughout the book, O’Boyle comes across as a loving mother and a woman of unshakeable faith, though this is not a Pollyannaish take on religion, where a simple embrace of religiosity is all it takes to find happiness and comfort. Faith does not lead to success and happiness, and as O’Boyle’s personal crises illustrate, prayers are a means of finding one’s way through a difficult situation rather than a guaranteed solution.
–Chris Chan
No comments:
Post a Comment