An Unquenchable Thirst Book Giveaway

An Unquenchable Thirst Book Giveaway and Review 7/27

An Unquenchable Thirst – Following Mother Theresa in Search of Love, Service, and an Authentic Life is an amazing and controversial memoir recounting Mary Johnson’s twenty years spent working under Mother Teresa of Calcutta as a Missionary of Charity and her struggle to find the love and connection we all desire. Read about her struggle with her faith, her sexuality, politics of the order, and her relationship with Mother Teresa. You will also journey into places many of us are not privy to see or understand. One Moms Own Words reader will win a copy of An Unquenchable Thirst.

An Unquenchable Thirst Review

I was interested to read Mary’s story because we share the same faith. However, I am what you would call a “cafeteria” Catholic. It’s like being in line at a cafeteria, you pick and choose what foods you like. In this case, I pick and choose the rules of the Catholic Church that agree with me and the others I ignore.

How someone like Mary could know at 19 that she wanted to devote her life to God and follow Mother Theresa is astounding to me. I was too busy hanging out with my friends and dying to find a boyfriend. What was it honestly like?

I was very curious to read about her life as a nun working for Mother Theresa. Mary reveals that her relationship with Mother Theresa was complicated. Despite her deep love and respect, Mary didn’t always agree with her. At one point she was assigned to rewrite Mother’s rules. She shares a rare view of Mother Theresa as she knew the real human being. Mary’s story is painfully honest and her life experiences as a nun brought about her own self-discovery.

This quote from the book that expresses how she grappled with her faith, sexuality and politics of the organization.

“The conflicts over the last five years seemed to bombard me anew: Sister forcing me to report on priests and encouraging me to report on Sister Leonard; watching my superior slap a child; guilt about a kiss on the cheek; all the energy uselessly wasted on liturgical correctness and the proper length of curtains. Was I really crossing the ocean to bind myself to this group forever?”

Ultimately, Mary experiences her own self-discovery, and to be true to herself, makes the difficult decision to leave the Missionaries of Charity. An Unquenchable Thirst is so well written and honest. It’s a fascinating story that I am glad the author decided to tell.

About An Unquenchable Thirst

An unforgettable spiritual autobiography about a search for meaning that begins alongside one of the great religious icons of our time and ends with a return to the secular world

At seventeen, Mary Johnson saw Mother Teresa’s face on the cover of Time and experienced her calling. Eighteen months later, she entered a convent in the South Bronx to begin her religious training. Not without difficulty, this bright, independent-minded Texas teenager eventually adapted to the sisters’ austere life of poverty and devotion, and in time became close to Mother Teresa herself.

Still, beneath the white and blue sari beat the heart of an ordinary young woman facing the struggles we all share — the desire for love and connection, meaning and identity. During her twenty years with the Missionaries of Charity, Sister Donata, as she was known, grappled with her faith, her sexuality, the politics of the order, and her complicated relationship with Mother Teresa. Eventually, she left the church to find her own path — one that led to love and herself.

Provocative, profound, and emotionally charged, An Unquenchable Thirst presents a rare, privileged view of Mother Teresa. At the same time, it is a unique and magnificent memoir of self-discovery.

An Unquenchable Thirst
Following Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service, and an Authentic Life
By Mary Johnson
Published by Spiegel & Grau
Hardcover: 560 pages
September 13, 2011; $27.00 US/$32.95 CAN; 9780385527477

About Author Mary Johnson

Mary Johnson, author of An Unquenchable Thirst: Following Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service, and an Authentic Life, moved with her family to Beaumont, Texas from Ann Arbor, Michigan at the age of twelve. After completing a year at the University of Texas, she joined the Missionaries of Charity, commonly known as the Sisters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, where she worked with the poor in the South Bronx, Washington DC, Winnipeg, and Rome. With the trust of Mother Teresa she rose quickly in the ranks and was sent to study theology at Regina Mundi, a pontifical institute aggregated to the Gregorian University in Rome, where she received a diploma in religious studies. For twenty years, as Sister Donata, Mary Johnson served as a Missionary of Charity until she left her life as a nun in 1997. She went on to complete a BA in English, at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas and an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. A respected teacher and public speaker, she has been named a Fellow of the MacDowell Colony and her desire to write her story was the initial impetus behind the A Room of Her Own Foundation. She lives in New Hampshire.

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is available on Amazon.comfor $16.18.

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An Unquenchable Thirst Book Giveaway

~~One Moms Own Words readers will win a copy of An Unquenchable Thirst.~~

Giveaway ends on July 27th, 11:59 PM EST. Open to US and Canada. No P.O. boxes please! Winner will be chosen by Random.org through Rafflecopter and contacted by email. Please respond in 48 hours or a new winner will be chosen. To be fair to everyone, comments not meeting requirements will be deleted. Thank you for entering and good luck!!
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