The Passion of Mary-Margaret
- Fiction
- Publisher: Thomas Nelson
- Published: 2009
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Publisher's Description
Mary-Margaret has always planned to join the church as a religious sister, but falls in love with her childhood friend, Jude Keller, a ne'er-do-well with a soul needing saving. Born in 1930 on a beautiful island off Chesapeake Bay, Mary-Margaret Fischer knows exactly what she wants to be: a religious sister. Despite the violent circumstances of her conception and birth, she simply wants to be in love with Jesus and serve Him the rest of her life. When Mary-Margaret met Jude Keller, the lighthouse keeper's son, she was studying at a convent school on a small island off Chesapeake Bay. Destined for a life where she could never marry, she nevertheless felt a pull toward Jude—gorgeous, rebellious, promiscuous Jude. But Jude, driven by demons no one really understood, disappeared into Baltimore's seamy red-light district to a life working the streets. Mary-Margaret moved on with her life, preparing to serve God with her sisters as a teacher and artist. Then Jude comes home—but now he's bitter, dissolute, and diseased. And Mary-Margaret receives a divine call that shakes her to the core, a call to give up her dreams and marry the troubled man who befriended her so long ago. For Jesus' sake, can she forsake the only life she ever wanted for a love that could literally cost her life? A beautiful novel of God’s grace in impossible circumstances Book length: approximately 90,000 words Includes discussion questions for book clubs Also by Lisa Samson: Quaker Summer, Embrace Me, Bella, and The Sky Beneath My Feet
Endorsements (1)
“although there are plenty of other challenges to take its place. And naturally, at that age, I wasn’t able to talk about how God uses his power for love and goodness and for our benefit because, unfortunately, I’ve never been quick at defending my beliefs. Ten minutes after the conversation ends, oh yes, my goodness, I’ve got all the right answers. It’s God’s way of keeping me from being a real boob, I guess. After calling me superstitious, he would proceed to remind me of the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, Bloody Mary, and, because he was smarter than he pretended and snuck over to the library when nobody was looking, every single pope who committed homosexual acts, had sexual relations of the heterosexual variety, sired children, or was otherwise a scoundrel. Don’t even get started on the alcoholics. Oh yes. If you find yourself in the Church, you find yourself with some of the worst. But thankfully, God calls sinners, not the righteous, and our tradition is chocked full of the former, as any parish priest could tell you. From his perch on the step where Jude sat, his one leg following the contour of the stairs, the other raised up next to him, bent knee providing a rest for his thin but muscled arm, he whistled at us—a juicy, leering sort of whistle that lifted up our skirts like an unwelcome wind off the bay, demanding a peek. He would have seen the standard issue white underpants we all wore in compliance with our uniform policy, which was as stiff as our dresses, but that wasn’t the point. Even as a fourth grader I felt besmirched and yet a little bit excited at the same time. I asked Sister Thaddeus about it that night as I handed her the mugs she lined up on a shelf in the kitchen. “Is that really the way it works?”
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