Loved Through the Heart of the Father: My Journey as Bishop David's Spiritual Daughter

By Shaunna Bowler

Journey of Healing: A Spiritual Daughter's Tribute to Bishop David O'Connell's Unwavering Dedication and Love. Profits Aid Trauma Victims and Society's Marginalized.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Jul 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798822951754

Shaunna Bowler

Shaunna Bowler, a devoted Catholic housewife and mother of three, shares her transformative journey from trauma to peace in her book, Loved Through the Heart of the Father. Her 17-year marriage and the love of her children have been her pillars of strength. Yet, it was the intervention of Bishop David and three parish priests that truly healed her heart. Their love and mercy led her to a profound understanding of God's love, allowing her to fully embrace life. Shaunna's story is a testament to the healing power of divine love, offering hope and comfort to those who have experienced trauma.

Book preview

May 29, 2019,

T

his is not the date of the beginning of my story but it was the date of the beginning of my new life; I was so unaware. On this day I met Bishop David O’Connell. I waited 2 months for that appointment, looking at my calendar every day. Excited about the fact that I was going to meet a Bishop and even better that he was an Irish Bishop. I am not sure what luck brought me to attain this appointment, but after what felt like forever, the day finally arrived. 

I took the children to school and then anxiously cleaned the house until it was time to get ready. My entire body was shaking with anxiety that I could hardly wash my hair. I tore apart my closet trying to figure out what a girl should wear to meet a Bishop. I had met with and loved many good priests my whole life. But this was going to be different. 

I called my friend Pat and asked her what I should do. She told me to just be myself, be comfortable, and pray that he could help me. I ended up in a black shirt dress with leggings, pink Kate Spade flats, and a matching pink bag. I headed out the door and drove to his office where I was met by his lovely secretary. She offered me a bottle of water as I nervously waited in the chair for Bishop David to come out of his office and down the hall. There was a picture of Our Blessed Mother behind the doorway. He finally appeared in the doorway and said, You must be Shaunna. It’s nice to meet you. 

He was wearing his black clerics with a gray overshirt. He had a large silver cross around his neck. I was terrified! I had contemplated for eight weeks about what I was going to tell this Bishop. All that planning instantly went out the window as I felt my heart in my mouth. I watched him peculiarly place his thumb over the forehead of this painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe as if to bless Her, and then he smiled at me. 

In silence, I followed him down a couple of small hallways before arriving at his office. As I followed him, I remember noticing how gentle his steps were and this assured me he was a very careful man. Walking down that tiny hallway, I had no idea that our Lord had just sent me consolation for a lifetime of pain and suffering. I did not know how deeply my heart would come to love this man as a father or that my wounded heart was even capable of that kind of love. I didn’t know then that he was about to walk me down the narrow path to freedom where I would come to know and truly love Jesus through simply being loved and known by Bishop David.

We walked into his office where there was a large desk. I wondered what great, important decisions he had made sitting there. There was a small sitting area with a simple square, side, table, and two wooden chairs with gray upholstered facing each other three feet. He motioned for me to have a seat on the chair facing him. I placed my bag on the floor and sat down. He shut the door. When it clicked, I felt all the air leave the room and I couldn’t breathe. He sat down in front of me and said, How can I help you? 

I couldn’t talk and my eyes welled with tears. The pain was so great and I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say. 

He said, Let us begin with a prayer. He asked Our Blessed Mother to console me and to help me to speak with him. He did not know yet how well I knew Her and how I depended on her for everything. I did not know his relationship with Our Blessed Mother. I would soon come to learn that we had this in common. 

I decided to tell him everything! I was taking a risk that I felt was worth taking because I needed help. I had come to the end of what I thought doctors and therapists could do for me. I told him I was a survivor of Ritualistic Satanic abuse under the 33rd Order Masonic cult as a child. I told him of the pain I endured in the orphanage. I told him of all the torment, brutality, and sexual abuse I suffered. I sat with him for almost two hours during that first appointment. He placed his hand over his mouth, whispering, My heavens, child. 

I told him of my pain of never having a father. The pain it caused as I came into womanhood. The struggles of motherhood and being a wife. Being a survivor of sexual abuse, gave me so many fears. I told him how hard I tried to be a good wife and a domestic woman, despite my pain. I told him of my life as a patient in and out of the psychiatric hospital with PTSD, chronic suicidal thoughts and feelings, suicide attempts, self-harm, hysterical episodes, disassociative episodes, eating disorder, treatment centers, therapists, and psychiatrists that I felt had paraded around me like a terrible circus. 

As I went through the truth that was my life, I will forever remember the way he looked at me as he quietly listened. It was a look of such deep compassion and mercy, unlike anything I had ever experienced in my entire life. He told me he did not understand how a woman, who had been through so much, could appear to not be bitter. He said he was wrestling with the wounds in my life and how could I not be angry, but instead seek help and God’s Mercy. 

When I ran out of words and tears, I thought I was going to die of shame. I was awaiting Bishop David to give me the answer to all my life’s suffering and pain, hoping he was going to tell me how I could possibly go on. Instead, he got up from his chair and put on his stole of Padre Pio. He invited me to place my palms face up on my knees and to close my eyes. He asked me to please simply breathe into the pain and once I was within the deepest part of the pain, to say the name of Jesus. 

Ready? Begin, he said. Move your hands back and forth and imagine they are like an accordion or music box going from the center and back out while saying, Jesus.

I remembered feeling frustrated, wondering how this could possibly be his response. After I poured out my life to him, he wanted me to breathe, seriously?

What I didn’t know was that I would grow to love and breathe these prayers for survival. He called them the Prayers of the Heart and he smiled and told me I had much more to learn. 

Fear set in as our meeting came to a close. He must have seen it in my eyes because he asked if I would see him again in a month. I gratefully accepted. He had offered me an open door in the midst of blinding fear. He gave me his blessing that day and I left him. I turned around halfway down the hall and looked at him as he gave me a nod. A nod that, to this day, makes me cry. A nod that was the beginning of new hope in Jesus.

In the several months to follow, we continued in the Prayers of the Heart. He would lead me through these prayers with a deep concern for how much I had been wounded. We discussed how suffering makes you very close to Jesus. He asked me about my birth parents. I told him that I was the youngest of eight and my parents were Glen Murphy and Sonia Magaughey. My father died of a heart attack right after I was born. This devastated my mother so much that she was unable to care for my siblings and me. She went into depression and drug addiction. 

I was born with a broken clavicle. My mother never took me in for treatment. After 18 months of missed and rescheduled appointments, Child Protective Services went out to the house to visit my mother. The house was in shambles and the situation was dire. There was suspicion that she might have also had schizophrenia, and thus unable to care for us. The sheriffs were called right away and we were removed from the house immediately. In an act of desperation, to keep my brother, Sean, from being removed from her care, our mother cut his arm with a knife. I was found in a dirty crib where I had not been fed or changed for a long time. The rash in my diaper was so bad that I was no longer crying because the pain was so severe. I was taken to the hospital for evaluation. The rash was so severe that I had to have skin grafts in order for the wounds to heal. Several years later, my mother committed suicide. 

Bishop asked me how I came to know all of this. I explained to him that in 2010, I had requested the documents from my adoption. All of this was in the report. I told him that my siblings and I were separated except for Sean and me, who went to the same orphanage. I was eighteen months old at the time. Sean was four. 

Once again, Bishop David put his hand over his mouth and said, My heavens, child, such pain, as he shook his head. You went from one terrible situation to another. 

He asked how things were going with my therapist whom I had been seeing for the past couple of years, several times a week. I told him about our work. Bishop felt that there was a way that the sessions could complement each other if he were permitted to speak to my therapist. I agreed and the proper releases were signed. 

They made a plan and Bishop David decided he was going to start calling me a few days a week in addition to our monthly appointment to check on me and see how things were going. A few days later, he called and told me he had been praying for me quite a bit. He had some ideas that he wanted to discuss with me. He explained he wanted to talk about my inner child, to know Little Shaunna. While on the phone, He asked me to close my eyes and tell him what I saw when I thought of her. 

I told Bishop that I hated Little Shaunna and that I was terrified of her. 

She is gross and dirty and scary! Don’t you understand, Bishop, what those men did to her? We had been discussing the brutality of the sexual abuse for several months at great length. I’m scared, Bishop. How could anyone ever love a horrible creature like her? 

This made him very upset because he wanted me to love her. Yet I could not. Discussion of my hatred for my inner child with my therapist and Bishop David lasted a few weeks. Then Bishop had an idea. Even if I did not yet love her, he asked me to consider taking care of her. He asked me if I might have a blanket and some baby toys for a little girl left over from my daughter. I replied that I had everything still in the garage in case I had another baby. He asked me to go pick out a few items, and if there was something I always wanted as a child, I should go buy it. 

I did not question him. I gathered the blanket and a few toys and I bought a toy horse. When I bought my horse, I bought Bishop David a toy horse with a knight and he loved it. He asked me to place the blanket on the floor in a room and put the toys on top. I also brought in from the garage a child-size rocking chair and I set it up in the living room. He asked me to imagine her there, Little Shaunna. He thought that if she had a place and I was mothering her like my other children, then perhaps I would have less internal turmoil over the abuse because now she had a place. 

He asked me to go over to the area four times a day and to repeat these four affirmations: I love you, I’m sorry, I forgive you, and I’m grateful to you. 

 I did this for several weeks and then I would find myself checking on the area more and more as I would go around my house cooking, cleaning, putting away laundry, and making beds. I felt my heart shift from disgust to compassion for Little Shaunna. I knew in my heart that I would never consider a child who had gone through such trauma to be gross. So why would I think this of myself? I began to understand Bishop’s concern and why he felt loving her was so important. 

At our next appointment, he took me through a guided meditation that he created on the spot. It was a journey to find Our Blessed Mother and see what she thought about little Shaunna. So, I closed my eyes. Little Shaunna and Bishop David went for a walk in a garden. He told me to let him know when I saw the Blessed Mother. As we walked through the garden, the Blessed Mother appeared. I couldn’t believe it. There she was in a green dress; Our Lady of Good Help. The Blessed Mother wanted us to come with her to her house. It was a beautiful cottage surrounded by fields of sunflowers. She brought me and Bishop David inside and offered him a cup of tea and me a tall glass of milk. 

The Blessed Mother said I needed a bath. She wanted to clean me up from all that had happened to me. 

I turned to Bishop and asked, Are you sure I should go with Her? 

He said, You let your Mother take care of you and I will happily wait here on the couch with my rosary. 

She took my hand and brought me up the stairs. I went into The Blessed Mother’s bathroom with her. It was blue and white and everything was simple but lovely. She turned on the water and filled the tub with bubbles that smelled like roses. Then, she peeled off my tattered dirty clothes and socks and she undid my knotted braid. Into the warm water, I went. She handed me two small toy horses to play with while in the bathtub. She knew how much I loved horses. 

The Blessed Mother said, You can call me Mommy. So I did. 

She gently scrubbed away all the filth and washed me from head to toe. She then shampooed my hair three times and put it in the conditioner. I smiled as the pitcher of water was poured over my head and my hair was rinsed clean. When She finished, out I came into a pink fluffy towel. Mommy hugged me as she dried me off. 

Into her bedroom, I went and she had the most beautiful bed with tiny blue flowers. She put me in a white dress with a pink sash. Then she brushed my hair and gave me two braids with simple white ribbons. I got a pair of ruffle socks and black Mary Jane shoes that were so pretty and shiny. I had never known this feeling. 

Now, let’s go down to see your father, She said. 

We went downstairs and the Bishop was sitting there in his cassock praying the rosary. He looked up, then stood and smiled. I hid behind Mommy feeling shy and afraid. 

Bishop said, Don’t be afraid, child, no one is ever going to hurt you again.

Blessed Mother explained to Little Shaunna that Bishop would now be my Papa. For I now had parents that were going to love me and heal my heart of all the trauma, bit by bit. 

Bishop said, Child, if you would let me, I would very much like to be your father and help you. 

I replied, Yes, and thank you!

Bishop David invited me to open my eyes and return to the room. He said that that was one of the most powerful meditations he had ever been a part of and that it deepened and strengthened his dependence on God the Father. 

He said, I don’t know exactly how we are going to figure all of this out Shaunna, but I can make a promise to stand by you and not give up on you if you can promise to not give up on yourself. Helping you, dear, is an honor and a privilege. You were harmed by such darkness, but now the cavalry has arrived and you are in good hands.

 His promise was enough for me to decide that life was still worth living for now. I only needed to take it day by day. At the end of the session, he asked me to go home and listen to a song by Harry Belafonte, called Scarlet Ribbons from the 1950s. He said this meditation reminded him of that song and he wanted to dedicate that song to me. I listened to the song later that night and cried. 

My Papa was a practical man and he gave me practical advice. Some days it was hard to get out of bed. The PTSD and depression were crippling and the daily tasks of being a wife