Catholic Review of: Prayerfully Expecting

Published a year after The Heart of Motherhood, Prayerfully Expecting: A Nine- Month Novena for Mothers To Be presents a nine-month devotional book and prayer journal specially designed for pregnant Catholic women.

Based on the traditional nine-day novena for a special occasion or prayer petition, Cooper O’Boyle presents this book of prayers and reflections to guide a woman on a prayerful journey through her nine months of pregnancy. Like The Heart of Motherhood, Prayerfully Expecting is practical (including a monthly report on the baby’s growth and development), prayerful (offering monthly novenas to Sts. Anne and Gerard Majella, as well as Cooper O’Boyle’s own meditations on the mysteries of the Rosary), and soundly theological and catechetical (again drawing largely on quotes from Pope John Paul II and pertinent Church documents).

The format of Prayerfully Expecting is made up of short prayers, reflections, and space for personal journaling and pictures, so the slight choppiness present in The Heart of Motherhood is not problematic here. However, numerous typographical errors and other editorial mishaps are a bit distracting. For example, a quote by Pope John Paul II on parenthood being realized more fully in the woman is included twice, the first time properly attributed to the Pope, and the second time without any citation, seeming to (though not deliberately) attribute the quote to Cooper O’Boyle herself.

Fortunately, these editorial errors do not extend to the content of the book (with the small exception of a strange reference to Anne, mother of Mary, blessing Mary Mayo continued from page 13 . . . at the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple rather than the prophetess Anna; Cooper O’Boyle later says herself that it is not known whether Anne was alive at the time of Jesus’ birth).

Cooper O’Boyle wrote this book while on complete bed rest due to serious complications with her fifth pregnancy, and as someone whose own experience of bed rest early in my first pregnancy led from prayer and reading the Great Books to word searches and watching daily soap operas, I am impressed by her sharing of spiritual nourishment given to her in a challenging time. Having read this book during my second pregnancy, I found it to be a helpful spiritual guide for any pregnant Catholic woman.

Choppiness and editorial errors aside, Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle’s The Heart of Motherhood and Prayerfully Expecting nicely balance the practical and prayerful aspects of Catholic motherhood and pregnancy. I would recommend them to Catholic women themselves and to those looking for a helpful gift for a Catholic mother or mother-to-be.

 - Leslie A. Amoratis (from Lay Witness magazine. www.cuf.org)

You can purchase this title here.