The Passion of Mary-Margaret by Lisa Samson, CFBA’s tour feature, shares a rare status with some of the best novels written by Christian artists. This story captured my passion immediately. There is nothing about this novel I didn’t love—the cover, Mary-Margaret, Jude, the memoir-ish approach to telling a wonderful story that is full of life and death and everything in between.
[Since we’re discussing a story as told through the aging voice of a spunky Sister who came into this world under hardship, having lost her mother from childbirth, it would be appropriate to begin my take on it with a confession. Why not? Although I’m not Catholic, this book minimizes doctrine without losing the flavor of Mary-Margaret’s physical and spiritual heritage in the Catholic church. So here’s my repentant admission: I haven’t read a Lisa Samson novel until this one. That in and of itself is not “wrong”. However, the underlying resistance to her work was born out of less flattering (to me) circumstances: basically jealousy and/or envy. There you have it. Everyone raves about Lisa’s work, so I was holding off on reading any of her books because I didn’t want to feel any more inferior than I already do. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like my own work, pretty much all seven of the stories. But it’s yet another thing to not play the comparison game and come out lacking and losing. So, I’m sorry for waiting, but oh so grateful to have started with The Passion of Mary-Margaret. I trust I am forgiven.]
Mary-Margaret is now dead as we begin the story of her life, written with a foreword to her longtime friend Sister Angie. She’s recorded the events with her elderly voice looking back over her lifetime of a personal relationship with Jesus which led her into all kinds of exceptional and unpredictable occurrences. “Personal” in Mary-Margaret’s case means face-to-face encounters with the Savior, hugs, encouragement, laughs, and specific directions she never expected to hear or experience. Up until the writing of this memoir, these precious encounters have been kept a secret.
All Mary-Margaret has ever known is the comfort and grooming of the church to become a religious Sister, supposedly fulfilling the call on her mother’s life before her strange demise as an unwed mother. Raised by her grandmother and crazy but loving Aunt Elfi, she is left an orphan when her grandmother dies in her childhood, and she is adopted by the Sisters at Saint Mary’s. We begin the journey of her life with many of her personal questions unanswered. By the end of this story, we know most of the answers. (I would’ve loved to hear about the trip to Aruba . . .)
We meet the young rogue Jude Keller, the handsomest boy on the island, who teases and flirts with Mary-Margaret in their youth, becoming her outlandish friend in spite of his wild and promiscuous lifestyle, sharing private kisses igniting the flames of passion which would singe her memory of him when their lives separate before time and circumstance reunite them.
The symbolism of the lighthouse, a vivid part of everyone’s life on Locust Island, bringing salvation to some and implicating destruction to another . . . the patience and protection of Jesus as He delivers His instructions to Mary-Margaret . . . the long term haunting pain and desolation of sin executed upon another . . . the daring obedience of Mary-Margaret to fulfill the desires of her heart placed there by her Savior before she truly recognizes them . . . All these interwoven story parts told in a personal testimony which mixes the past and present as the writer veers down one rabbit trail of multiple memories after another leave the reader anxious for each culmination of events, each resolution of mystery, each fulfillment of God’s gracious and grand plans.
I loved this book. I don’t want to tell you anything more about it and risk spoiling the journey for you. This is a reward for readers, a terrific tale, a loving fictional memoir of the beauty and ugliness of lives fully lived, of faith fully realized, of heaven visited upon the earth. Lisa Samson is a master of the language, the visual, the voices of her characters, portraying the reality of all things physical and faithful in a profound way. This is an absolute must-read. A must.
Father, you know Lisa's heart and soul. I pray you would provide for all of her needs, continue to give her stories from your heart to hers, and speak revelation knowledge into her spirit. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595542116
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