Book Review: The Heart of Motherhood

Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle, a Catholic mother of five and a journalist, writes an introspective book about the virtues of Catholic motherhood, The Heart of Motherhood, (The Crossroads Publishing Company, 2006). Recalling her own personal conversations and communications with then-Mother Teresa of Calcutta, now Blessed Teresa, Donna-Marie wrote this book that speaks of the heart and attitudes that women can aspire to as they perform their daily duties as mothers.

Donna-Marie's perspective is one of prayerful encounter with Christ within one's own home. Mothers often experience this as they serve their family in what Donna-Marie calls this "ordinary, yet quite extraordinary" vocation. Extolling the benefits and beatitudes of mothers, and in particular, stay-at-home mothers, the book draws on the classic examples of the Blessed Virgin Mother and Catholic mothers who are canonized saints. Less of a "how-to" and more of a"what-can-be" meditation, The Heart of Motherhood calls women to go deeper in prayer and personal sanctity within their vocation. Donna-Marie carefully weaves modern reflections from Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, the late Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, with her own anecdotes and prayers about this state in life.

The Heart of Motherhood calls women who are mothers to an interior life that is designed to produce saints, while living the external life that raises them. This book follows her previous book, Catholic Prayer Book for Mothers.


Copyright 2006 Patricia W. Gohn