Embodied Summer 2023

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5 THE VIEW FROM HERE

IT’S TIME TO PIVOT

8

THE GIFT

7

THE CALL TO LOVE

FROM ATHEISTS TO ARDENT APOSTLES

16

10 WAYS TO SIMPLIFY YOUR KID’S CHILDHOOD

PHIL ERVIN

How do we live in a world that is increasingly complex? Longing for the past or closing into a cloistered bubble won’t get it done. But a simplified, wholesome upbringing that honors our identity as humans will. Here are 10 practical ways to work toward that. 20

‘NO ONE WAKES UP AND CHOOSES THIS LIFE’

JOHN STEGEMAN

Scarlet Hudson, or “Mama Scar,” as she’s affectionately known by those she serves, tirelessly runs a ministry for those caught in addiction and prostitution. She sees what others don’t in “the girls” and is often the only one who does.

HEALTHY FUEL

‘WHY HAVEN’T I HEARD OF THIS BEFORE?’

ANNE MARIE WILLIAMS

When her boyfriend described what he knew about observing signs in a woman’s body to determine her fertile and infertile times, Megan Faller was interested but wondered, “If a woman could really do that, wouldn’t someone have told me?” Little did she know, his question would spark a journey that would lead Megan to deep discovery about fertility awareness. And she’s not alone.

26 AN INVITATION TO THE LONGING ONES

ANNA CARTER

“I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Anna used to think these words meant that, once she figured out the holy trick, the ache of her longings tied to same-sex attractions would go away. The truth she found was much more wonderful.

29 ORIGINAL BEAUTY

FRA ANGELICO’S MASTERPIECES

30

DREAM BIG!

KATHLEEN BASI

Lisa Canning’s success lies in her willingness to embrace a simple truth: God reveals His plan for us through the burning desires of our hearts. These longings are holy—knit by God into our very being. We are meant for more than a daily grind and a to-do list. But it took her a while to figure that out.

40

LEAP OF FAITH

CHRISTINE RIES

A look at four Catholics who turned their bold visions into action plans (and early mornings).

39 THE EUCHARIST

WATCHING LOVE STORIES UNFOLD

MARIA COSSELL

Having a front row seat to watching her students fall in love with the Eucharist is unforgettable for Maria, as is the note she keeps tucked away from one of them in her jewelry box.

44 PHOTO ESSAY

PLANS

THEOLOGY OF THE BODY: WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN

When Karol Wojtyla, the cardinal archbishop of Krakow, Poland, came to Rome in August 1978 to help elect a new pope, he brought along the lengthy handwritten manuscript of a book that he had been prayerfully crafting for nearly four years. It was almost complete, and he wished to work on it, when he could, during the conclave. Page one bore the unusual title (in Polish): “teologia ciala”—“theology of the body.” The hundreds of pages that followed held perhaps the most profound and compelling Biblical reflection on the meaning of our creation and redemption as male and female ever.

After the election of Pope John Paul I, Wojtyla returned to Krakow and completed his manuscript. Soon after that, to the astonishment of the whole world, he emerged from the second conclave of 1978 as Pope John Paul II. And his “theology of the body”—delivered as a series of Wednesday talks between September 1979 and November 1984 rather than being published as a book— became the first major teaching project of his pontificate, establishing the core of John Paul II’s great vision of what it means to be human.

Still, it took some time for people to grasp the significance of what John Paul II had given us. It wasn’t until 1999, for example, that papal biographer George Weigel described the TOB to a wide readership as “a kind of theological time bomb set to go off, with dramatic consequences....perhaps in the 21st century.” While the pope’s vision of the body and of sexual love had “barely begun to shape the Church’s theology, preaching, and religious education,” Weigel predicted that when it did it would “compel a dramatic development of thinking about virtually every major theme in the Creed.”

From “Theology of the Body for Beginners” by Christopher West

Summer 2023

PUBLISHED BY Embodied Publishing info@embodiedmag.org

EDITOR

Ann Gundlach • ann@embodiedmag.org

SENIOR EDITOR

Christina Ries • christina@embodiedmag.org

THEOLOGICAL ADVISOR

Katrina Zeno, MTS

DESIGN and PRODUCTION

b graphic design • www.b-graphicdesign.com

Embodied Magazine is published four times per year. The print edition is available for $49/year and includes a digital edition. The digital subscription alone is $25/year. Single copies are available for $12.00 each plus shipping. To subscribe or order, go to www.embodiedmag.org and click Subscribe.

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THE

I HAVE FOR YOU

It’s time to pivot

by Ann Gundlach

This is not the column I was expecting to write for this issue. In fact, I’m a bit incredulous at the irony that in the very issue where we focus on dreaming big and using the talents that God has gifted to each one of us, I have to announce a scaling back of my own big dream for this magazine.

This Summer 2023 issue was all ready to go to press. But our board of directors wisely chose to stop the presses and deliver this to you in digital form only. What is the reason? Funding.

It takes a great deal of capital to get a print magazine launched. We knew that going in. We prayed about it and trusted God as we contemplated starting the first print magazine sharing stories of people living their Catholic faith through the lens of theology of the body. And we always received just what we needed— just as we needed it. Not more. Not less. This quarter, we had what we needed to produce the Summer Issue (writing, photography, design, etc.) but fell short by $10,000 to see it printed and distributed.

How you can help

How can you help keep this beautiful publication growing? Share this good news with the people you know and love. Encourage them to subscribe. Or better yet…buy them a subscription as a gift. If you know of someone who can help fund our operation as we grow, please introduce them to me and I will share with them our story. And as always, keep our writers, designers, photographers, contributors and readers in your prayers. With God all things are possible.

www.embodiedmag.org

At some point, when we exceed 5,000 Embodied subscribers, we will no longer be in need of angel donors or grant monies to cover production costs. Until then, the board of directors has decided that we will continue to work and pray for the additional funding we need to build our momentum while delivering the same high-quality content you have come to expect but through a digital format instead.

How has Theology of the Body impacted you? Do you have a witness to share—big or small? I want to hear your stories!

Email ann@embodiedmag.org.

I have learned many lessons on this journey after giving my yes to the continual urgings of the Holy Spirit to create this magazine. Also a bit ironically, God crafted one for me just two months ago at the SENT Summit, a conference of Catholic entrepreneurs. Of all talks to kick off with, they chose a panel discussing “Pivots, Failures, and Near Death Experiences.” Think God was sending me a message? There’s more. One of the three panelists was Kara Bach, who founded a fabulous women’s magazine that I greatly admire—Verily—in 2011 that also went digital-only after several years.

The takeaway of that talk was clearly to not give up on your dream, be able to pivot based on circumstances, to trust that God has a plan even if you feel like you’re at a dead end.

As I said, God has always given me just what I need, when I needed it. So we are pivoting and trusting.

(By the way, Verily magazine is now back in print.) Your subscription will automatically revert to a digital subscription, and you will have the option to renew that when your expiration date arrives. But we will honor your print subscription purchase. When we are able to start the print magazine again, you will automatically receive the number of issues left on your current subscription.

Until then, please enjoy Embodied in its online form at www.embodiedmag.org.

Ann Gundlach is the founder and editor of Embodied magazine and invites your comments at ann@embodiedmag.org

The centrality of the gift

by Katrina Zeno

Growing up, I was chubby. In my fourth-grade school picture, I sport a double chin. I also wore glasses, which means my classmates called me “fatso” and “four eyes.” This wasn’t a happy scenario to engender a healthy body image nor to even think of myself or my body as a gift.

Many of my friends had similar experiences. One grew up in a communist country where the message was that God was a myth invented by people who were intellectually weak. Since she didn’t want to be intellectually weak, she rejected any belief in God and embraced science as her god.

In this atheistic, survivalof-the-fittest system, every person was her competitor, a threat to her happiness and survival. So, she worked hard to perform at the top of her class to gain entrance into an elite university and get a top-paying job. And…she failed.

When she didn’t perform perfectly, my friend’s human identity crashed, invaded by shame. To escape this cultural shame, she studied in the United States, where she encountered the love of God for the first time. She was surprised to realize it was possible to be intelligent and be a Christian, so she became a Christian and eventually learned about her identity as gift from St. John Paul II.

Oh, how I wish every person could learn that he or she is a gift! And how I wish the Catholic Church would embrace with gusto the centrality of the gift as articulated by St. John Paul II in his theology of the body!

So, where did St. John Paul II get this idea from? He borrowed the centrality of gift from Section 24 of a Vatican II document entitled Gaudium et spes or GS 24 for short. Here’s the quote he cites repeatedly in his writings: “Man…cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.” In other words, the way to experience the fullness of human happiness and life is not by beating out

the competition, getting a high-paying job, or marrying the perfect spouse (because there are no perfect spouses!), but by making a sincere gift of yourself.

In fact, the Holy Father uses GS 24 to describes how we image a Trinitarian God: “To say that man [the human person] is created in the image and likeness of God means that man is called to exist ‘for’ other, to become a gift. This applies to every human being, whether woman or man…” (Mulieris Dignitatem 7).

Every person is created as a gift to be a gift, whether chubby, communist, college student, or construction worker. This is our human vocation. But to whom do we make this gift of self?

Jesus provides the answer when He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength,” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

You are created as a gift to be a gift to God and others. No matter what your age or stage in life, your vocation is to make a sincere gift of self with all your heart, soul, mind and strength to God and to your neighbor, both friends and strangers.

What does this look like practically?

My next column will share concrete stories about making a gift of self to God and others. In the meantime, you might want to memorize GS 24, “Man…cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” and begin exploring your own body image to make room for the centrality of the gift.

Katrina J. Zeno, MTS, received her master of theological studies from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute in Washington, D. C., and is currently pursuing a second master’s in theology from the Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio.

From atheists to ardent apostles

by Father Walter Schu

In the midst of the turbulent 1960s, Drs. Paul and Timmie Vitz, both confirmed atheists, married in the living room of the house of Timmie’s mother, pronouncing vows Timmie had written herself. Paul was an assistant professor of psychology at New York University and had been an atheist even before he bought into the secularist ideology which prevailed in the field at the time. Timmie was also a young professor, specializing in medieval French literature.

The stage was set for a dreary existence in the faculty housing of NYU in Greenwich Village. But unbeknownst to either of them, Someone was seeking their hearts and their lives. That Someone had a plan that neither of them would ever have dreamed of in their newfound love for one another.

While neither one would have quite put it into words at the time of their marriage, they both felt a certain restlessness inside, as if something were stirring. For Paul, it came to the fore with the birth of their first child, Rebecca, in 1971. He began to ask himself, “What does it mean to be a father? What do I stand for in life? What will I pass on to my daughter?”

He concluded that only four possible choices could be made: “I could pick liberal politics, new age spirituality or traditional Christian religion as a world view. Or I could remain pretty much as I was: a self-worshipping skeptic.”

Paul knew many young people active in liberal politics, but they didn’t impress him at all. New age spirituality seemed little better than a tourist religion: people would pick aspects of spirituality that suited them, and within a few months move on to something else. As for the worship of oneself, he came to see that anyone who engaged in that was pretty much a fool. (He even later wrote a book he describes as his seminal work: “Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship.”)

That left traditional Christian religion. Though not particularly pleased with this option, it drew him and Timmie enough to begin attending services at an Episcopal church.

Paul recalled, “The Gospel was being preached quite articulately from the pulpit, and that attracted me.” As Paul and Timmie joined a study group, they found themselves more and more often adhering to the Catholic position on issues. Timmie remarked, “It wasn’t difficult for me to return to Christianity, but I found myself embarrassed at being an Episcopalian—a member of a church founded by Henry VIII.”

The tug continued, and in June of 1979 Paul and Timmie officially entered the Catholic Church together. One thing that helped draw them was becoming friends with a good number of strong, solid Catholic priests. One of them was Father Benedict Groeschel, CFR, himself a psychologist, who would become Paul’s sponsor at his confirmation into the Catholic Church.

After that, their adventure truly began. Five more children were born, one of whom, Daniel, later became a priest. The moving story of his desire to be a martyr for the faith ended with his death from brain cancer on Good Friday of 2019.

In the midst of these joys and sorrows, Paul found himself helping to found the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC. Now known as Divine Mercy University, its mission consists of instilling an integral, holistic, faithbased vision of the human person in future psychotherapists, counselors, psychologists and spiritual directors, often incorporating the writings of St. John Paul II and the theology of the body.

After more than 53 years of marriage, Paul and Timmie have come full circle from atheistic professors to training the next generation of faith-filled psychologists and counselors. And they couldn’t be happier.

10 ways to

simplify your kid’s childhood

by Phil Ervin

If you paddle to the right spot on Agnes Lake in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, you’ll see Native American pictographs believed to have been etched more than 500 years ago.

Here in these lakes straddling the United States-Canada border, there’s no cell phone service. No motorized boats, either. The only way to get around is canoeing and portaging, which means picking up your vessel and carrying it—usually along with a few days’ worth of camping gear, food and supplies—through one of the dirt trails paved by voyageurs who moved fur and goods around the region centuries prior.

Squint hard enough, and you feel like you can see back in time.

Each summer, the Catholic nonprofit ministry Into the Deep invites teens to the Boundary Waters for a retreat. For a few days, they live primitively while diving into themes from the theology of the body. The setting reinforces the beauty of St. John Paul II’s teachings.

There are fewer and fewer places like this that can be considered free of distraction.

Truth is, we’re more distracted than ever. According to Forbes, digital marketing experts surmise we receive between 4,000–10,000 ads each day. You’ve surely heard (assuming you were able to focus long enough) the claim that we have an attention span shorter than that of a goldfish. Eva Krockow, a lecturer at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, estimates we make 35,000 decisions every single day.

Added to all this distractedness, we’ve got smartphones making us dumber and artificial intelligence that makes real intelligence look artificial. And that’s just the adults.

It’s no secret our era is increasingly daunting for parents who want to raise whole, happy, healthy children. Indeed, a simplified, wholesome upbringing honors our identity as humans. The theology of the body teaches that we are unique and unrepeatable, which is easy to lose sight of in a world of comparisons and ever-fluid moral compasses. It also notes we’re loved for who we are—not what we can achieve.

So how do we live simply in a world that’s increasingly complex?

Simple living starts with an approach that’s both straightforward and profound. Longing for the past or closing into a cloistered bubble won’t get it done. But building a strong fortress where charity and virtue prevail, from which your entire family can push out into the wider community and spread love, will.

With that as a backdrop, here are—in no particular order—10 practical ways to make less more as you seek to bring up future saints in your household.

1. Seek, build and nurture community.

Right in the middle of Augusta, Ga., about a 20-minute drive from where the Masters is played, there’s a sizable neighborhood where many of the backyards are shared and residents meet regularly for prayer, Bible study and fellowship. The group has its own school and its own set of covenantal commitments.

This is the Alleluia Community, one of a growing number of intentionally designed Christian neighborhoods that, according to Atlanta Archbishop Gregory Hartmayer, are “a true reflection of the early Church as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.”

This isn’t a closed-off wannabe Catholic eutopia. The families who live here work in Augusta and attend one of a couple of nearby parishes. Not all of them are even Catholic.

But when they come home, their children are surrounded by those who share their values.

This is the way the American parish model was supposed to work. When European immigrants brought Christianity to this part of the world, they set up churches and built neighborhoods around them.

Unfortunately, that’s a far cry from our transient existence today. And while it might not be practical to

found or join a physical community like Alleluia, there are lessons we can take away from this type of living.

In his book “The Benedict Option,” author Rod Dreher uses old-school Benedict monasticism as a potential model for developing environments where children see the same virtues and lessons prioritized among their peers and their parents as they’re exposed to at home. The point isn’t to be sequestered from the big, bad world out there, but rather to be better prepared to interact with it in ways that uphold the true, good and beautiful.

So find a community. Ideally, it’s your parish. Maybe it’s a loosely organized group of Catholic friends. Perhaps it’s a formalized ecclesial movement like Communion and Liberation or the Focolare Movement. Or maybe you’re crazy enough to buy up some land and form your own version of Alleluia Community.

2. Live liturgically.

Looking strictly through a Catholic lens, simplicity starts with the sacraments. This is where God reaches into our world, into time and space through easily recognizable, tangible and supernatural ways to interact with us and communicate grace to our entire embodied person.

than trying to get through an entire rosary with multiple energetic toddlers running around screaming.

God doesn’t need our prayers; we do. And even the simplest of conversations between him and our youngsters is enough for his love to come through.

3. Be open about your children’s mental health. Not everything about modernity is negative.

One recent sociological development is healthier: more open conversations around children’s mental health. Good thing, too, because depression and anxiety in kids is increasing at an alarming rate. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of children aged 6–17 years diagnosed with either anxiety or depression increased from 5.4 percent in 2003 to 8 percent in 2007 and to 8.4 percent in 2011–2012. That number has steadily climbed in the decade since.

If you or your child needs to see a counselor, you’re not failing as a spouse or a parent. There are plenty of great Catholic/Christian psychology experts who can help. Your local diocese should have a list of trustworthy places to start.

So make Sunday Mass as a family a priority. Regular confession too. Even if your kids aren’t old enough, seeing you take part in penance makes an impression.

Dozens of Catholic family-life experts will urge you to have some sort of dedicated prayer space in the home. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it signals the importance of the domestic church to your children every time they pass by or kneel down for family prayer.

On that note, pray as a family—but don’t have unrealistic expectations. There are few things more frustrating

4. Commit to a structure.

According to Paul Ruff, director of counseling services at The Saint Paul Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., there actually is a silver bullet for taking care of one’s health.

OK, three silver bullets: diet, sleep and exercise. This is especially important for children. No doubt

If you or your child needs to see a counselor, you’re not failing as a spouse or a parent. There are plenty of great Catholic/Christian psychology experts who can help.

you know why their bodies need proper nutrients and the ability to get those wiggles out, but this is easier said than done.

A little planning goes a long way. My saintly wife makes a menu for the week then orders groceries for instore pick-up based on it. This saves us time, money and a lot of unnecessary added sugars.

Eight to 10 hours of sleep seems to be the going needed rate for young kiddos. Most parents have seen what happens when we compromise on this. Of course the

addiction and depression is alarming.” Access to degenerative content like pornography is easier than ever. Young women have never had lower self-esteem thanks to the constant barrage of highlight reels of their peers and the rise of “influencer” role models. These images run counter to TOB, with its focus on a healthy integration of body and soul.

So why are we putting this garbage right in our kids’ hands on their 12th birthday (or earlier)?

Kids under 18 don’t need social media accounts. Their daily interactions ought to be with the embodied and imperfect people around them. They can get along fine with a dumb phone that can call, text and take pictures and videos—that’s really all that’s needed till college.

Radical? Probably. But these are extreme times.

It’s not just the Crazy Catholics saying this, by the way. Gen Z in particular has shown a desire for less screen time, hence the recent rise in sales of dumb phones.

If you haven’t, watch the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma” and you’ll see former employees at Facebook, Pinterest and Google who don’t allow their kids to access the platforms they helped build. Ever.

It’s a pretty telling policy.

occasional exception is going to arise, but studies show consistent bedtimes and wake-up times can help kids thrive.

It’s also worth pointing out the three-legged stool of eating well, sleeping enough and working out is just as important for Mom and Dad. We can all do a better job of prioritizing this—if not for ourselves then to ensure we have enough energy to keep up with our growing offspring. These fundamentals honor the wisdom of TOB by caring for our embodied selves.

5. (Heavily) moderate technology.

There are days it appears the greatest hope for modern society is that we’ll wake up one day and realize smartphones have followed a similar path to tobacco— many used to partake in excess until we realized how bad it was for our bodies.

A recent study by the National Institutes of Health found the “positive correlation between smartphone

Then there’s screen time in general. There are many ways to approach this. In our home, we keep the TV in the basement, and it’s only used for special occasions like a movie night or sporting event. These happen maybe once every couple of months. Listening to sports on the radio has become a great alternative for my two sons and me.

Video games aren’t necessary either. Try replacing them with board games and books.

However, as children get older, they will spend time online. This is where tracking tools like Covenant Eyes or Norton Family come in handy.

Accountability is key.

6. Take the lead in their education.

As part of Vatican II, the Catholic Church issued a document called “Declaration on Christian Education.” This landmark guidance includes the notion that parents are to be the primary educators of their children.

That means different things for different families. For those forming their children in the faith, it’s getting increasingly harder to find public schools that don’t contradict what’s being taught at home.

Dad’s crazy adventures

by Joseph Olson

My favorite adventures often begin with wheels and no planned direction. We go down the driveway and whichever way the first bike turns, that’s the way we go. Dad’s wheels with a trailer bike attached for the 3-year-old, one spider man bike and “gear bikes” for the 7- and 9-year-old.

One time we took a left out of the driveway, down past the tennis courts, around the park and to the hill steep enough that there is no reasonable return from the reverse direction. Really, the only sensible way back is a five-mile winding path across the river, back into downtown and up the quarter-mile high bridge.

A quick inventory yielded half a pack of trident gum and one full water bottle. The kids asked if we could continue on, not realizing what they were asking. I happily obliged. We had no timeline or otherwise scheduled event.

Down the hill we went, wind blowing in our hair, having an absolute ball. We wound around unfamiliar bike paths, getting knowing winks and nods from passers-by as they dodged out of the way of our not-veryquiet crew busting down the black top.

As each child, one by one, realized we were a ways from home and felt pangs of hunger and thirst, the inevitable questions started to come. “I’m hungry. Do we have any snacks?” “My legs are tired. Can we stop for a break?” “How are we getting home?”

“Well,” I answered, “unless we’re going back up that insane hill behind us, we’ll have to cross the river and head to downtown.”

The 7-year-old quickly assessed the situation. “Dad,” she said, “you did it again. You have us on one of your crazy adventures.”

I offered up $20 to spend at the next gas station, and the pedals started to push a little faster and we soon reached a Holiday gas station that is a haven for professional snackers. We refueled, pushed through

a few tough hills and then stopped at a family-friendly restaurant on the river with an open-air sitting area and lawn games—the perfect distraction.

The final test: the quarter-mile uphill High Bridge to bring us home. All in all, the trip spanned seven miles and about three and a half hours. Bedtime came early that evening without a peep or protest.

We still talk about that adventure as an “epic” ride. It opened up a world of possibilities for us when we discovered how far we could push ourselves.

Theology of the body calls us to love as God loves, in a way that is full, faithful, total and fruitful.

The unstructured play and discovery time we carve out for our children is where we find them truly learning, finding their own limits and boundaries. God guides us through our desires, imagination and curiosities when we are free of an agenda and open to skinned knees.

A childhood that has lots of fresh air and freedom built into it seems more full, more fruitful—and even more faithful. This summer, watch how God becomes present through play. And don’t forget the snacks!

We still talk about that adventure as an “epic” ride. It opened up a world of possibilities for us when we discovered how far we could push ourselves.

So find a school that backs up what you’re saying. Maybe it’s Catholic, maybe not. Maybe it’s homeschooling, but that’s not practical for everybody. And be wary: Not all private institutions are created equal. A public school that’s neutral on important issues might be better than a Catholic school that’s lost its way and is teaching lessons contrary to the faith.

Sports and extracurricular activities can be part of this equation too. These can teach valuable lessons about teamwork and work ethic, but sadly, the culture around them has become too often one of fierce competition and

8. Let them get their hands dirty.

I’ve heard it put this way: Give your kids the ability to explore as much as possible. This often means suffering on the part of the parent, but it’s a cross we have to bear.

Let ’em get muddy. Let ’em make messes without ruining your house—so long as they clean them up. Let brothers wrestle and sisters do each other’s hair.

Giving your child his or her own agency allows for learning about the gift of the body and all it is capable of—a hands-on TOB education. When you let your son help you build that dresser, it might take twice as long, but he’ll learn valuable skills and get the sense of achievement that comes with putting something together. When your daughter assists you in the garden, she’ll learn to appreciate God’s creation while spending valuable time with you—which also makes her feel valued.

9. Be present.

We can all do a better job of practicing mindfulness, a mental state achieved by focusing our awareness on the present moment. Simply being fully present to our spouses and kids can have a more profound impact than anything we say or do.

Your kids can tell when you’re distracted. So put the phone away yourself.

Presence also means being physically, emotionally and spiritually available. There will come a day when your child comes to you with a big issue—a rough relationship, struggles in school, feelings of same-sex attraction. Will they come to you knowing you’ve always been someone they could talk to, no matter what?

parental ego investment. Extracurriculars through your school or strictly local leagues are preferable to the traveling circus that has become competitive youth sports and dance.

On a simpler educational note: Read! All the time. Read to your kids. Give them their own library card when they’re old enough and let them explore. There remains no substitution for the written word on a physical piece of paper inside a paperback or hardcover. It’s a little TOB delight!

7. Get the heck outside!

No excuses here. Kids need to get out of the house. If it’s too hot, go to the pool. If it’s too snowy, get some snowshoes or a pair of ice skates. As often as possible, take them to the neighborhood park to blow off steam.

The Good Lord gave us our bodies so they can be active. Your child squirming in church will remind you of this every week.

10. Take vacations.

It doesn’t have to be the Boundary Waters. But getting away as a family provides irreplaceable time to bond, experience God’s creation and make lasting memories together.

Some scientists have even found vacations make kids happier and smarter.

The gift of the body is often experienced in new ways on vacation—a hike in the mountains, a ride on a rollercoaster. Togetherness in a separate physical place also allows parent and child to express their love for each other via the language of the body—an arm around your son as you sit around the campfire, holding your daughter’s hand at the beach as the waves lap around her feet.

Ultimately, simplicity is simple. Cut out the noise and replace it with presence—yours and that of the Almighty.

TOB PARENT CORNER Healthy fuel

by Lindsay Caron

Because I am not obese, anorexic or bulimic, it never occurred to me that I might suffer from disordered eating, until recently. A friend introduced me to a wellness program that focuses not on diet or workout trends but on retraining your thoughts and feelings around food. I have come to believe it is sorely needed for those of us (millions likely) who have uncategorized diet-industry trauma.

That industry naturally ballooned in the 1980s as the U.S. rates of obesity began to skyrocket, climbing from 17 percent in 1980 to 35 percent by 1989, and its influence remains strong today. It has sucked many of us into its dark hole of obsessing about our bodies in very unhealthy ways.

The new program I found is slowly helping me replace one unhealthy thought with a new healthy thought. Best of all, it has had a trickle effect on my children. How? It is changing the way we think, feel and talk about food.

Here are some questions that can help you bring healthy food attitudes to your own kids.

“Is this the right amount of food that feels best in your body?”

When your child is filling his plate, ask him to think about what his stomach is telling him. Does he feel hungry? Perhaps he needs more food on the plate. Is he not that hungry? He needs less food on the plate. Then, as he is eating, help him pay attention to fullness cues (i.e., he no longer feels a pang in his stomach; he is slowing down; the food is starting to taste more bland). When he finishes, ask if that felt like the right amount of food for his body. If not, he can have more. If so, he can be finished. Neither feeling overly full nor deprived is what’s best for the body. Show your child how to eat so their body feels best.

“Do you like this?”

Learning how to be polite and try every food is a great skill. But do you repeatedly eat things you dislike? I hope not. Focus on fresh fruits and vegetables and ask your

kids to pick at least one produce item at each meal. I’m still inconsistent on this but find it does work. On taco night they can add sautéed bell pepper, corn or avocado. For salads, have them start with lettuce and then add anything they like. For lunch they can pack a fruit of their choice. The point is to teach them how to select and enjoy healthy foods they like.

on

and

“How will this food fuel your body?”

Instead of speaking of donuts as good or bad, present a donut informatively: “This donut will give you a sugar rush now that will give you quick energy, but because it contains so much sugar, your energy will spike and then crash. Let’s look at the ingredients list. Can you find it on the package? It’s very long plus there are many ingredients I don’t recognize. I wonder how well your body will be fueled by this donut?”

Instead of “eat the eggs because they are good for you,” explain that the egg-and-toast combination has a balanced ratio of protein to fat to carbohydrate that helps keep blood sugar stable. (Little kid version: Eggs and toast have a good balance of nutrients that make you feel full longer and give you good energy). When you present foods objectively they will speak for themselves. Kids will gradually learn to make choices about them that will at least become more informed, even if the choices are still not the easiest ones.

Eating should be an enjoyable source of fueling our bodies to do and feel our best! A healthy body helps nurture a healthy physical, emotional and spiritual equilibrium, which is the all-important foundation to making a gift of ourselves to God and others.

Lindsay Caron lives in Portland, Ore., with her husband and three young boys. She is the founder of the TOB Parent School, which empowers parents to introduce TOB principles to their children. Learn more at www.tobparentschool.org

Focus

fresh fruits

vegetables and ask your kids to pick at least one produce item at each meal.

‘No one wakes up and chooses this life’

by John Stegeman

Scarlet Hudson, or “Mama Scar” as she’s affectionately known by those she serves, tirelessly runs a ministry that defies easy labels.

It isn’t a shelter, though the women in active addiction who act as prostitutes in the area are welcome to rest there during open hours. There are showers and clean clothes available. It isn’t a food pantry, but there is a kitchen from which many are fed. It isn’t a healthcare facility, but it does house Josephine’s Clinic for women who have been trafficked. It isn’t a church, but it spreads the Gospel. It is a base of operations for frequent outreaches into difficult neighborhoods.

Women of Alabaster, founded by Scarlet in 2012 in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, is, at its core, a ministry that recognizes the image of God in the women it serves.

Scarlet, 65, of Dillsboro, Ind., says she didn’t choose to begin her street outreach ministry. Rather, she was called to it by God. In 2010, she was 30 years into a successful career as a corporate trainer. That year she joined with members of her church, Church on Fire in Harrison, Ohio, in serving local homeless. The group did an outreach ministry for prostitutes. One night, Scarlet found herself behind a hotel protecting a woman who had just been pistol whipped by a pimp. That experience changed the course of her life.

“I had been out every week on the street bringing clothes and food,” she said. “Then it got to be that the women just kept calling more and more, saying we need this, we need that. I prayed about it a really long time and my husband finally said, ‘Quit your job.’ So, I did.”

By 2015 Women of Alabaster was a full-time ministry for Scarlet, who is also a pastor. She’s shepherded the small organization through several locations around Cincinnati’s historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood and got it through the pandemic. When the center couldn’t be open due to lock down, she and her team left coolers of food out and worked from their cars to provide care. In 2022, they opened a second center in Hamilton, Ohio.

SCARLET’S STORY

Scarlet has an unwavering compassion for the women she serves. She notes repeatedly that no one wakes up one day and chooses a life of drug addiction and prostitution, but that traumatic experiences are almost always part of the story.

She knows of what she speaks. In her case, Scarlet was molested by a woman for five years in early childhood. Her father, as well as nine aunts and uncles, were alcoholics. As an adolescent and young adult, she was active in church but when it came time to go to college at a Baptist

Scarlet Hudson walks through a parking lot near downtown Cincinnati. While helping another woman several miles away, Scarlet took a call about a panicked woman who had run out of gas. In less than 10 minutes, Scarlet was there to help pump the gas.

university, she rebelled. She chose a secular college and quickly fell into a life of drugs, alcohol and promiscuity.

“My life is not much different than the girls, but that they get paid for it and I didn’t,” she said. “Trauma has a lot to do with the way we respond to things.”

At age 30, Scarlet said she accepted Jesus again and her life changed overnight. With God’s grace she stopped most of her addictive habits. Smoking persisted for some years, but she has since quit that as well.

“He took all of my brokenness and used it for the ministry,” she said.

THE MINISTRY

Much of the work done by Women of Alabaster happens at its primary locations. Women come seeking food,

best life? Very few.” The small numbers don’t faze her.

The driving force behind Women of Alabaster— named for the unnamed “sinful woman” who poured perfume on Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke—is faith. It’s the only thing that makes it possible to continue against long odds.

“Being a pastor, I know that we’re all going to pass,” Scarlet said. “We don’t know when, and some will pass sooner than they should.

“But God is merciful,” she added. “These women are abused every day; they’re raped every day.

“Our goal is to not only to give them basic needs and stuff like that, but really to share the love of Christ with them and show them that there’s a better way and that He is the better way, and He will help them, whether they stay or whether they leave. So, we always offer them salvation.”

THE CLIENTS

There are some constants, but the story of each person in addiction is unique. They come from wealthy families, and poor. Some began experimenting with pills, others took them first as legitimate prescriptions. The clients Women of Alabaster serves are typically addicted to heroin or crack.

hygiene items and the opportunity to feel understood and loved. The other part of the ministry is outreach. Scarlet and her team drive around the neighborhoods others often avoid, approaching women and offering help on multiple levels.

Of course, Scarlet would love to see all the women she encounters take steps toward sobriety but the reality, she said, is that most won’t make it. In one recent year, Scarlet saw nine women she cared for die from drug-related complications.

“One out of every 100 girls will make it off the block,” Scarlet said. “They might have some sobriety for a little while. But to say they’re completely free and living their

Megan* witnessed her father stabbing her mother to death at age 2. She was adopted by a loving family—a professor and a doctor—but the memories haunt her. She turned to drugs. She visits Women of Alabaster, but she remains in active addiction today.

Nova* almost made it. Through the support of Scarlet and company, she found sobriety for a time. She had a job cleaning houses. When COVID came she lost her job, started using and eventually died from complications of addiction.

Susan* is trying. Women of Alabaster has been working with her for two years. She’s suffered from terrible wounds all over her forearms, even down to the bone, from intravenous drug use. She’s always refused extended hospitalization programs for fear of withdrawal.

Scarlet holds hands in prayer with one of the women she serves on the streets of Cincinnati.

Volunteers have dressed her wounds, given her food, and shown her love. Eventually, she said yes to getting help. By late April, she was recovering in a local hospital, her wounds nearly healed. Time will tell if she moves into recovery or back to the streets.

Lisa Mertz, 40, of Clermont County, is the 1 in 100. A registered nurse, she started recreationally with marijuana and alcohol, which led to cocaine. In time she was stealing pills from work. She was arrested, lost her job and went to jail. In time, she was living as a full-time prostitute and heroin addict.

“I was going to kill myself,” she said. “I was waiting until after Christmas because I didn’t want my kids to have their mom kill themselves during the holidays.”

Instead, Lisa went to treatment and, in time, got clean. Now she is the president and CEO of the Addiction Services Council, a non-profit which provides prevention, assessment referral and treatment services. She’s also in law school at Northern Kentucky University.

Lisa met Scarlet after starting her own recovery, but she is now a volunteer partner in the ministry. She wishes there had been someone like Scarlet there for her.

“I do street outreach. On Wednesday nights I go out with [Mama Scar] and a couple volunteers, walking the streets, working with women, praying with them. I offer recovery services with them,” Lisa said. “I was completely homeless [for a time]. If I would have met [Mama Scar] there, I might have found God, found a safe place to go. I didn’t really know what resources were available to me because nobody told me.

While only 1 in 100 might make it out, the main reason the ministry matters is that it treats the 99 with the same dignity and compassion.

“My experience is that women like me who were out there, whether you get off the streets or not, you have this empty feeling that you are nothing, that no one cares about you,” Lisa said. “And no one would care if you were missing or gone. It’s very important to love them no matter where they are. People say just let them die. Well, my life was worth saving.”

Scarlet doesn’t like reducing the complex lives of the women in addiction and prostitution to numbers, but Women of Alabaster does track its work. In March the

two locations saw 14 new girls visit the centers, part of 114 visits overall. They also made contact with 51 women on the street during outreach efforts. And each location is open just two days a week.

“Just think what would happen if we were open every single day,” Scarlet said.

THE CHALLENGES

At the top of Women of Alabasters’ challenge list is mental health. Many of their clients suffer from undiagnosed or untreated mental health conditions, but there’s nowhere for them to get consistent care. Megan, the woman in active addiction, suffers from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

“You can’t give medication to people that can’t come in and get it,” Scarlet said.

Second, sometimes women aren’t ready to receive help. They have their routines, and the fear of detox and withdrawal is real. Some don’t know any other way to live.

“We just keep loving them, and we keep asking,” Scarlet said. “I’ll say, ‘Are you ready yet? Is today the day?’ And they know I’m going to continue to ask them because we never know.”

Finally, like any charitable organization, Women of Alabaster needs financial support. Most funding comes from individual donors and churches.

“We need substantial financial backers, and this is not a pretty nonprofit,” Scarlet said. “Women are offended by women who are in this lifestyle, because some of their men are the ones buying. For men, it’s a very uncomfortable topic. It’s just not like saving furry animals.

“People can donate money to it, and we need that, but we also need a lot people to make food,” she said. “We need people to go out on the street. We need people to share the Gospel. We need people to come alongside of us.”

More than 10 years in, though, Mama Scar is still going. She almost quit once, but said the Lord asked her for one more day. One more day turned into one more, and so on.

“I’m glad I said yes,” Scarlet said. “I don’t know what else I would do. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I don’t want to go back to my old career. I don’t want to pastor a church. I don’t think I’ll retire; you don’t really retire out of ministry. It’s not like your call goes away.”

*Names have been changed to protect privacy. Learn more at www.womenofalabaster.org.

‘Why haven’t I heard of this before?’

by Anne Marie Williams

Megan Faller, 39, of Menofee, Calif., first heard about fertility awareness in her early 20s from her then-boyfriend.

Growing up non-Catholic, her knowledge of women’s health and fertility primarily came from teen magazines like Seventeen. So when her boyfriend turned to her one day during lunch and asked, “What do you think about natural family planning?” Megan responded: “I literally have no idea what you’re asking me. I’ve never heard of this!”

When he described what he knew about observing signs in a woman’s body to determine her fertile and infertile times, Megan was interested but wondered, “If a woman could really do that, wouldn’t someone have told me? Wouldn’t I know?”

Little did she know, his question sparked a journey that would lead Megan to deeper and deeper discovery—

Megan Faller and family

knowledge that would become a cornerstone of her conversion to Catholicism, her method of family planning and her life’s work. Now a mom of four, it is hard to understate the impact of encountering fertility awareness.

The first step: to reverse the messaging from all those secular magazines. This, it turned out, was a welcome rearrangement of thought.

“Our culture told me that my cycle and its life-creating nature was a burden that could be manipulated to fit my desired end,” Megan said. “It wasn’t worth knowing or understanding. It was designed to work against me, to present a multitude of problems and roadblocks to my success. My body was bad. The work-arounds—contraception, sterilization, artificial reproductive technologies—existed to save me.”

This is not the case, she came to see. “As I began to know and learn more about my body and cycle, I realized my body and its natural design are good. And my greater appreciation for the goodness and nature of my body led to the desire to support its natural state—to create more harmony, to allow it to function as intended and to desire

response to infertility—and compelled her to go further. She became a Creighton Method instructor and taught many years.

Life was busy, teaching school in a stressful environment while dealing with an autoimmune issue.

“It seemed like each month there were times when everything was falling apart,” she recalled.

Megan began researching a more sustainable selfcare routine, which led to interesting advice: a woman should rest during her period. The idea made sense, so she tried it, laying low for several days while menstruating. When her period was done, she found herself more energized moving forward. She explored the idea more and discovered how to maximize its flip side—leaning into those parts of the month when things seemed to happen more easily. Ultimately, she founded a program to share this life-changing wisdom, The Aligned Cycle course, empowering women to learn their cycles and leverage that knowledge to enhance their work.

“Now I use my cycle to plan my schedule so I can enjoy more flow and ease in my work, and I help other female entrepreneurs to do the same,” she said.

‘NOT MUMBO-JUMBO’

Megan is one of many women who have been surprised by the power of fertility awareness methods.

Take Cassie Moriarty, 32, of Bloomfield, N.J., who, like Megan, also heard about fertility awareness in her early 20s from her now-husband. Growing up, MTV, The Hills, Laguna Beach, and other TV shows were her primary source for information on sex and relationships. When her then-boyfriend, who had heard of NFP in high school, broached the subject of using it in their marriage, she was not receptive at all.

more good to flow from it: full giving of self, creativity, connection. When compared to the products and ideologies that I had been sold, suddenly the work-arounds quickly lost their appeal.”

Megan converted to Catholicism and, three years after being introduced to fertility awareness methods, learned natural family planning during marriage prep. As she and her fiancé studied the sympto-thermal method, she found she had more questions from her charting than the volunteer instructors could provide. The church’s probation on in vitro fertilization and other reproductive technology procedures remained a big question for her.

Then one day she heard a program on Catholic radio about the Creighton method of NFP and NaProTechnology. It answered her question about the church’s

“I just didn’t believe in it. I had it mixed up with the rhythm method,” Cassie said. “But then I kind of went behind his back and did some research.” When she read Toni Weschler’s women’s health manual “Taking Charge of Your Fertility,” she began to think that maybe there was something to this. “Maybe it’s not mumbo-jumbo.”

Then there’s Abby Schmid, 31, a youth minister who, while growing up in Dayton, Ohio heard about NFP because her parents used the sympto-thermal method. But she was only aware of it being used to avoid or achieve pregnancy in the context of marriage. However, she did become familiar with the birth control pill when she was put on it at age 11 or 12 for ovarian cysts and painful periods.

While the pill improved her menstrual symptoms somewhat, after six months the doctor switched pill

“As I began to know and learn more about my body and cycle, I realized my body and its natural design are good. And my greater appreciation for the goodness and nature of my body led to the desire to support its natural state.”

brands because “I didn’t like how it made me feel [overall],” Abby said. “But on the new brand I vomited for three days straight.”

Her and her mom decided she should stop the pill, and she just put up with period problems for years. Time and again the only treatment option she was offered was hormonal birth control. Whenever she visited her doctor and reported her symptoms she was repeatedly asked, “Well, are you trying to get pregnant? Because if you’re not, it doesn’t really matter.” Abby felt as if the doctor wasn’t taking her symptoms seriously enough to do anything beyond just writing a prescription.

MIND-BLOWING INFO

Then there’s Sarah Denny, PhD, a 34-year-old bioethicist, professor and speaker from New Orleans, La., who was introduced to theology of the body in her teens. A few years later a friend returned from attending a NaPro conference and told her in no uncertain terms: “I know what you’re supposed to do with the rest of your life!” and described NaPro as “theology of the body meets medicine.”

Not long after that, a coworker at the women’s health center where Sarah was working texted an invitation to a presentation happening the next day to learn chart her cycle. Sarah jumped at the opportunity.

She has never forgotten the Creighton Method intro session PowerPoint slide that changed everything for her. It showed a microscopic photo of estrogen-produced mucus—which is secreted during a woman’s fertile time leading up to ovulation. The mucus reminded her of a connected interstate system, with “channels” that served to help sperm move up to the egg that was soon to be released. This estrogen-produced mucus picture appeared side-by-side a picture of progesterone-produced mucus, which is secreted during the infertile second half of the fertility cycle.

“It looked like a brick wall, impenetrable to sperm,” Sarah said. “Wow, that is so cool!”

A HAPPY DISCOVERY

Then, around five years ago, Abby met Emily Vork Young, another woman with a history of similar reproductive issues but who had found answers by working with a doctor trained in something called NaProTechnology, the reproductive science arm of the Creighton Method, a fertility awareness method. After doing some research, it wasn’t long before Abby, too, sought out a NaPro doctor and was subsequently diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), low progesterone and insulin resistance.

For the first time, “I felt like a person being taken seriously and not like a problem to be pushed aside.”

Emily, 28, from Cincinnati, Ohio, has been on a similar path. She learned of fertility awareness methods while converting to Catholicism during college. A friend in her Catholic campus ministry group heard that Emily suffered from severe thyroid problems and encouraged her to chart her cycle because “all hormones are related.”

Looking back, Emily remembers thinking, “I was really open to [FAMs]. I was wanting answers because a lot of the doctors that I’d seen didn’t have any answers…I was ready to try anything.”

It was an aha moment for her, a memorable awareness of the amazingly intricate and beautiful design God created in the female body. And each of these women, who all learned of fertility awareness in different ways and at different times, had the same reaction to what they learned: They had to tell others.

SPREADING THE WORD

Like Megan, these women were compelled to share the power of FAM. Cassie went off the mini-pill and went on to become “that annoying person at the party” who brought up FAMs to everyone she met. She learned the Billings Ovulation Method, the Creighton Method, the sympto thermal method and FEMM! She now teaches multiple methods and works as a lactation consultant.

Abby’s reaction to her Creighton Method intro session was: “I can’t believe my body does all of those different things! ...The attention to detail and the way that everything is connected, how could I not be created by a good God?” Through NaPro she was introduced to a deeper culture that affirms the goodness of the human person and of how our bodies work, and how when they aren’t working correctly there are ways to get help for that.

“So many women don’t know what’s normal or what’s not normal when it comes to their cycles, and I found out

“So many women don’t know what’s normal or what’s not normal when it comes to their cycles, and I found out ‘Oh, I’m not supposed to have debilitating periods!’ Other women need to know about this!”

‘Oh, I’m not supposed to have debilitating periods!’” she said. She became convicted that “other women need to know about this!”

Meanwhile, Emily found that learning the Creighton Method and working with a NaPro-trained doctor led her to become a Creighton Method instructor herself. Then, she went on to found New Eve Foundation (NEF), “a Catholic non-profit apostolate seeking to bring women to an encounter with Christ through the truth, beauty and goodness of their femininity” that incorporates both cycle charting and catechetical accompaniment for single women. Abby became New Eve Foundation’s Director of Retreats and Outreach, and both she and Emily, NEF’s Executive Director, are training to become FEMM instructors.

After her “that’s so cool!” moment during her charting intro session, Sarah committed to one day teaching other women. She began teaching the Creighton Method at age 24 and is now also undergoing FEMM training while

she crafts a fertility awareness-focused sex education curriculum. She’s presented on fertility awareness to friends, prayer groups, LifeTeen missionaries, seminarians, medical students and, more recently, moms and young daughters.

THE RECURRING QUESTION

Each of these women hear the same question from their now clients that they themselves had when they learned of fertility awareness methods: “Why did no one tell me this?”

“Why do women not know this?” Megan asked, “Because they should.”

Her Creighton clients asked her, “Why is this a secret?”

They consistently experience both awe for their bodies and their ability to understand their cycles, and “frustration, maybe anger, at the lack of knowledge” or “misguided information” they received from past medical providers. She remembers one client who said, “I need to go home and call my mom because she’s had reproductive and cycle issues her whole life, and she doesn’t know any of this!”

Cassie’s fertility awareness clients similarly report feeling “duped or betrayed” that they’d never been taught how their own bodies worked, or were ever encouraged to seek root causes for common reproductive health issues like painful or irregular periods and heavy bleeding.

During the Creighton Method intro sessions she gives, Emily said that inevitably “when we get to the slide that talks about the different health implications that charting can uncover, they stop me and say ‘why haven’t I heard about this before?’”

Even among secular audiences, Sarah has found that fertility awareness has a place as our culture slowly comes to acknowledge the fallout from the sexual revolution and its rejection of the gift of women’s fertility. Frequently after presentations, Sarah hears, “Why don’t they teach this in medical school?” In her role as a Christian Ethics professor, she found that even students who were unfamiliar with Christian teaching were interested in learning more

about “this reality that within our very bodies there’s a language that can be understood. As you learn to track your cycle, it’s like keeping a biological diary.”

AN ISSUE OF JUSTICE

Each of these women are united in the belief that all women deserve to learn fertility awareness for health monitoring. Even among faithful Catholics, they see that too many do not know that ovulation—not menstruation— is the main event of the cycle, or that there are wholebody benefits of a healthy fertility cycle that impact bone, brain, breast, heart and immune health.

Find your method

There’s a FAM for every woman and lifestyle...yes, even for irregular cycles!

• Mucus-only Methods methods rely exclusively on cervical mucus observations.

• Sympto thermal Methods combine cervical mucus observations with basal body temperature (BBT) readings and, optionally, cervical position checks.

• Sympto-hormonal Methods combine cervical mucus observations with reproductive hormone urinary metabolite readings using a ClearBlue Fertility Monitor, Mira Monitor, etc.

Which FAM is right for you?

Take a quick, 12-question quiz to find out at naturalwomanhood.org/learning-materials/quiz/.

Learning about the natural hormonal patterns of the female body arguably needs to happen much sooner than three months before the wedding (as often occurs during marriage prep). Taking a crash course in female fertility, especially with the intention of quickly using that knowledge for pregnancy avoidance or achievement, can be unnecessarily stressful. In contrast, learning fertility awareness far in advance for the purpose of health monitoring—even during the teen or pre-teen years—can equip young women to enter marriage aware of the unique reproductive challenges they may face in conceiving or maintaining a pregnancy.

Abby has seen this lived out. She has been part of a young adult community with 17 other women over the years, and because of fertility awareness knowledge, several of them received accurate reproductive health diagnoses before marriage. With full knowledge of what their challenges might be, they could work to optimize their fertility and whole-body health.

But fertility awareness isn’t only for women called to marriage. Abby stressed: “Single women have every right to know how their body works just as much as married women. They’re going to be better married women or religious sisters or whatever they’re called to because they know physically how they are created, and that reveals something to them about who God is as well.”

THE TOB TIE-IN

Emily is known to quip, “Fertility awareness and TOB go together like peanut butter and jelly!”

She elaborated: “Fertility awareness is a practical application of theology of the body. St. John Paul II speaks of the language of the body and how we’re not the authors of this language. Fertility awareness teaches us to take the time to read the signs that our body gives us about our fertility, and when we do we can come into contact—sometimes very, very closely—with the creation that God has made and the goodness of our bodies.”

She continued: “Every single woman should have the opportunity to be evangelized through fertility appreciation. It’s an avenue for evangelization that is largely untapped. Not only are there so many health benefits and marriage benefits, like a stronger relationship with our spouse, but our relationship with God can also be enriched.”

Cassie observed that whereas porn and masturbation are “a given” in secular society’s view of relationships, through TOB she learned “it doesn’t have to be that way. [The main concepts of TOB] felt very safe to me and very honoring of women’s bodies and our minds and our hearts.”

The New Eve Foundation’s approach regarding TOB is this: “We proclaim the Gospel by first proclaiming ‘this is the goodness of who you are’” by teaching them

fertility awareness, and then inviting them deeper, saying ‘Imagine how good the Person who made you is.’” Abby emphasizes to the women that “You are a body and a soul and both are good, and we’re going to talk about both of those.”

That statement echoes Megan’s discovery years ago: our bodies are good. Sarah is quick to share the same message, also framing it in theology of the body.

“The glory of TOB is that it brings to our awareness the gift of woman and man in our creation,” she said. “We are very good. And in that reality, every single part of our

humanity and our human experience is good, is sacred, and has the potential to image God back to the rest of the world and creation. In a particular way, fertility awareness gives to a woman—and when she’s in relation to a man, also to the man—an insight into the inner experience of woman. It gives her the very tools to understand the language that her unique body, and so her unique personhood, is speaking. And we need more of that today.”

In a particular way, fertility awareness gives to a woman—and when she’s in relation to a man, also to the man—an insight into the inner experience of woman.

An invitation to the longing ones

by Anna Carter

You know the feeling. The abyss that stretches in your chest in the silent places. We’ve all felt it. Sometimes the ache is cast in a halcyon glow, like when the sun rises over the water in a riot of color or we stand before the staggering expanse of mountain peaks. It’s those moments when beauty threatens to carry us out of our chest.

But sometimes the ache feels like something else. It’s not a bursting out. It’s a caving in. You know that feeling, too. The cavern, the canyon, the dark valley. It’s the feeling we all brush up against in the solitude. It’s an ache that demands to be filled.

Before we proceed, there’s a few things you should know about me. I’m a woman. I drink coffee every morning. I know way too much about Star Wars. I’ve gone on cross-country road trips more than once. I have two tattoos. I taught myself how to play guitar, and most days I sing really, really loud. I’ve also been sexually attracted to both women and men.

The boys were first, in middle school, but standing a full head taller than most of them and rocking wirerimmed glasses didn’t do me many favors. Then came high school. I had some friend drama and, as one friend slipped away, I realized I wanted to kiss her. The next year I wanted to kiss my best friend, also a girl. The longing went ignored.

I can still remember when I fell in the love for the first time. No, it’s not what you’re thinking. It wasn’t the boys and it wasn’t the girls. I fell in love in the back corner of a massive gymnasium. I fell in love among dim lights, lit candles, soaring music, and 2,000 other teenagers. We were at Eucharistic Adoration during a Steubenville Conference. In the packed crowd, I looked down at the little host like He and I were the only ones in the room. I can’t describe the realization that a God so great would want to come and be with me. I was trembling. I think Heaven was, too. The longing wept for joy.

There was no going back from that moment. I was a tenacious little thing, devouring every Catholic book I could get my hands on, driving myself to our parish adoration chapel once I got my license and spurning the “worldly ways” of my classmates. I went to college at Franciscan University of Steubenville, where I majored in Catechetics and Theology, grew in prayer and learned the value of committed Christian community. I also found myself in a series of co-dependent female friendships, each tinged with romantic feelings on my part. The longing pierced.

Next I worked with NET Ministries for several years, serving teens and young adults. I experienced the love of Christ-centered brothers for the first time, gained

invaluable ministry skills and had adventures all over the country. I also fell, over and over again, for my dearest female friends. The longing wanted to punch my heart in its metaphorical face.

Reading this, you can call me what you want. I say I’m a person, and I’m complicated. Those words should be familiar to you, since you too, fellow longing one, are a complicated person. You’re a human being, after all.

opposite. He’s the One who took on a body Himself, forever elevating our flesh by His very presence.

If I want to believe this God fashioned the glory of the world around me, how can I deny that He fashioned us? Can I embrace one and reject the other? Of course not. My heart cannot shrug off splendor.

The truth is, my Maker has a plan for me, for my body, for my life, beyond what I could ever know in any given moment. At the end of the day, the longing isn’t that I choose not to kiss women I’d want to kiss. The anguish is that I haven’t fully seen the God I’m seeking. That’s the longing for every human person. Our hearts were made for an infinite love, and we don’t always know how to receive it.

“I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” I used to think these words meant that, once I figured out the holy trick, the ache of the longing would go away. The truth is much more terrible and much more wonderful. In the words of the saints, we ascend to God through a series of disappointments. At each step of the way, at each idol we face down, a Sound whispers truth into the silence: “This is not the god whom you are seeking.”

No matter our individual temptations to settle, Christ invites us beyond compromise. This side of the grave, we will always exist in a tension between Lover and lesser. We will always face competing desires, from the innocent—eat the kale and be healthy or eat the donut and be satisfied?—to those with far more import—watch the pornography or face the loneliness? When our busy schedules finally still, do we take the opportunity for solitude or do we pour the red wine and turn up the volume?

Like most complicated people striving for holiness, I’ve realized there are key areas I need to prioritize. I pray every day. I have intimate friendships and supportive community. I receive the sacraments regularly. I deepen my knowledge of theology and spirituality. I drink coffee, sing loud and plan my next road trip. I take a deep breath and step into the longing.

Because here’s the thing. Someone already waits for me there. He’s the One who created the universe through an overflow of love, causing galaxies to become raging bursts of light in the darkness. He’s the One who tailored the rules of astrophysics to bring us these delights in the night sky from billions of light years away.

He’s the One who made me with a similarly intricate intentionality, who sculpted my body with the means for unity and new creation when it became paired with its

Brothers and sisters, God didn’t invite us to be “fine.” He didn’t invite us to numb the ache and get by being moderately contented. Jesus Christ wants to live His life in us. He re-enters our fallen humanity every Eucharist, every confession by the indwelling of His Spirit and sanctifying grace.

We all face crosses we didn’t choose, but somehow, He allowed them for us. This is no cause for shame. It is no cause for mistaken identity. It’s just our particular version of the phantoms of half-love that confront every human being. Christ is alive in us—every fragile, slipshod, striving part. Let’s not be afraid to meet Him. His longing Heart is waiting.

Anna Carter is the founder and executive director of Eden Invitation, a movement for adult Catholics with LGBTQ+ experiences seeking to follow Christ and his Church. Learn more at edeninvitation.org. This piece was originally published by NET Ministries.

Like most complicated people striving for holiness, I’ve realized there are key areas I need to prioritize.

Fra Angelico’s masterpieces

by Katie Lovett

Once, in a serene monastery tucked into Italy’s rolling hills, there lived a Dominican.

Like all good Dominicans, he could often be found in prayer before the tabernacle or with rosary beads in hand, making of his life a masterpiece worthy of the Lord of Hosts. But he could also be found on a scaffold with a paintbrush in his fingers and a vision taking shape before him on the walls—a different sort of masterpiece.

In later centuries, the world would know this humble man as one of the great Renaissance masters. The Church would know him as a Blessed. But to the friars of San Marco, he would always be the man who spent countless hours serving the dignity and salvation of his brothers, one painting at a time. He would be the artist whose works were not for the masses, but for monastery cells—and for the individual men who slept in them. He would always be their “Angelic Brother”—their beloved Fra Angelico.

He was a theology of the body messenger centuries before St. John Paul II was even born.

How could a man so far removed from St. John Paul II live out his principles without even knowing them? The answer is simple, really. Fra Angelico lived the theology of the body because it is rooted in the Scriptures, the divine revelation God gives us all.

In his TOB writings, St. John Paul II affirms the dignity of each person our Lord creates. God does not craft man as a conglomeration—He crafts individuals. He crafted you. We can speak of man as a group; we can say God made us all; but He did this one by one, detail by detail. He built for you a body and soul through which to build a beautiful existence and painted it with signs of His very Self.

Likewise, Fra Angelico lavished unbridled, enthusiastic attention on a single man. As God pours out His

entire self in His act of Creation, as Jesus pours out His entire self on the Cross, and as He does this not for the herd of mankind, but for you, personally, intimately—as if you are the only man on earth—so Fra Angelico poured out his entire being for the individuals who would gaze upon his works in twilight’s stillness and ponder the marvels of their God.

The effort Fra Angelico spent on paintings hidden from the eyes of all but one man would be seen by many today as frivolous. Ours is a mass-produced culture; most of us are given clothes, food, music, art, and educations that are slapped together by the thousand. The modern world’s goods and services are only valued, it seems, if they can feed a horde.

We face a similar situation when it comes to persons. Individuals are often disregarded, their needs—and even lives—tossed aside for the so-called good of the masses. Today we are only valued if we can serve the horde.

But little by little, this can change. It can change if everyone who knows the truths of Creation and the Cross becomes a TOB messenger.

From houses tucked into America’s highways and byways, we can live as Fra Angelico lived. In prayer before the tabernacle, making of our lives a masterpiece, yes. But also serving the dignity of those around us through the work of our hands and our bodies—not serving them as a conglomeration, but as individuals, marveling at their unique loveliness.

And in this act of love, we will find ourselves united with Love Himself and encounter His salvation—the salvation of the most Angelic Brother of all.

Katie Lovett works for the Angelico Project, a Catholic arts organization that seeks to evangelize through beauty. She lives in southwest Ohio with her husband and four children.

dream big !

STORY BY KATHLEEN BASI

PICTURES BY MICHAEL DAVE DIZON

The first time I saw a picture of Lisa Canning, I thought, But she’s so young!

Canning, 39, is a wife, mother of nine children on earth and one in heaven, and a successful Catholic business coach. She has 10,000 YouTube subscribers and 16,000 on Instagram. And her house! It’s beautiful! And clean!

She seems too good to be true— especially in light of my own struggle to reconcile my vocation as mother with my firm belief in my calling to write music, nonfiction and novels. (Especially the novels!) The obvious question is how she does it all. But perhaps the more important one is: how does she give herself permission to do it all?

The key to understanding Lisa’s success lies in her willingness to embrace a simple truth: God reveals His plan for us through the burning desires of our hearts. These longings are holy—knit by God into our very being. We are meant for more than a daily grind and a to-do list. When we trust that we are beloved, that God has a unique and unrepeatable purpose for us, we can use that security as a springboard to propel us toward a healthier, holier future.

THE MINIVAN MELTDOWN

Lisa Canning didn’t always have all this figured out. She grew up in a faithful Catholic home in which education, achievement and a meaningful career were highly valued.

She flourished in this environment, and shortly after graduating from college was offered a job helping design a home on the HGTV show “Marriage Under Construction.” She got married in December, and the show aired while she was on her honeymoon. She came home to an inbox full of interior design requests.

She threw herself into building a business—and a family. Her first child was born in April 2009, and as she became active in Catholic mom circles, she recognized a disconnect between her life and the conventional image of a “good Catholic woman.”

As her family grew, Lisa felt as if she were standing in a giant divide. Her parents and university professors affirmed her passion for her career. Yet whenever she asked Catholic women, “How do you make money if you just stay home and raise your kids?”, the answer was always: “You don’t.”

“Motherhood is the most important thing you can do,” people told her.

“It was so black and white, totally binary,” said Lisa, who now splits her time between Ave Maria, Fla., and Toronto, Canada.

The trouble was, Lisa wanted to please everyone. So she tried to do it all. And for a few years, she managed.

Then came the minivan meltdown. “I’d just given birth to baby No. 4 in five years,” Lisa said. “I felt so pressured to show people you can do it all, you can be a great entrepreneur with a baby on the hip. I took her to a job site seven days out of the hospital.”

That day, Lisa found herself sitting in her van: delirious with exhaustion, still sporting a bandage from her epidural, with one bag full of baby paraphernalia and another with interior design material, painfully aware that, although her business was flourishing, her husband felt their life was a mess.

She fell apart. “God,” she prayed, “this cannot be what You want for my life!”

God’s answer? “Trust Me with the plan. Trust Me that you can do things differently.”

So she did. From that day, Lisa set out to reorganize her life to reflect her priorities.

She asked herself, “‘What do I really want in my life?’ I want more time with my children. So I created blocks of time for my children. I want a healthy, amazing marriage! So we started scheduling weekly date nights. And then work had to fit around those things.”

But what work? Clearly, the everything-everywhere-all-at-once model wasn’t sustainable.

Lisa found someone to help her identify her strengths and her passions. Then she reverse-engineered a business to suit it: 2-hour consults with interior design customers, who then carried out the work themselves.

Eventually, her business evolved into mindset and business coaching. Most of her clients were Catholic, and so she leaned into that niche, helping Catholic moms

restructure their lives through the same questions she’d asked herself: “What keeps you up at night?” “What do you fight for?”

It wasn’t a slam dunk, making this leap. After all, who was she to claim to be a Catholic life, business and mindset coach? She was no theologian. Surely she needed somebody to give her an imprimatur!

But the fruits of following the unique path God set for her have been marvelous. These days, Lisa runs two online academies: Motherhood Without Guilt and Wealth Without Guilt, with different levels of membership and the option of personal or group coaching.

“I love coaching by exploring the idea that the change agent in your life is the grace of the Holy Spirit,” she said. “I love coaching in a way where relying on God is the measure of success.”

and contribute to the world, to our families, and to our domestic churches.”

A write-from-home mom with a published novel and a home-schooling mom who just wants to be able to enjoy the moment—both of these are holy endeavors. “Women wearing dresses, women wearing pants; women veiling, women not veiling—God loves diversity!” Lisa said. “If you think, ‘I am less than because I don’t do fill-in-the blank,’ take a moment and ask instead, ‘Lord, how do You see me? What do you want from my unique life and my unique domestic church?”

WHO I’M MEANT TO BE

It was profoundly affirming to speak with Lisa Canning about these issues. For so long, I felt torn between

NOT SELFISHNESS, BUT SELF-GIFT

What made it possible for Lisa to give herself permission to pursue new paths was a deeper understanding of the theology of the body principle of self-gift.

So often we swallow the false message that pursuing dreams is selfish. However, if our deeply-rooted desires are a gift from God and they reflect something given to each person uniquely to accomplish, then expressing that gift, pouring it back out into the world, is an act of discipleship.

“I wish I had known sooner that the Lord has a unique path for everyone,” Lisa said. “And this is what will make you set the world ablaze. The Lord loves diversity! He did not create us all to be carbon-copy Catholic moms and women! We all have been blessed with gifts and life experiences that can build the kingdom here on earth

being a “good Catholic mom” and the passion for creative writing that simply would not be squelched.

I began writing ensemble music for Catholic worship late in college and began submitting to publishers in 1997. By the time I received my first acceptance, I had been through grad school, three years’ worth of infertility and I was a mom of a newborn. In fact, I got the email while I was breastfeeding. I screamed so loudly I scared him half to death!

At the same time, I was a closet novelist. I’d been writing stories as long as I could remember, but it was a guilty pleasure, something I rarely admitted publicly, and only

“We all have been blessed with gifts and life experiences that can build the kingdom here on earth and contribute to the world, to our families, and to our domestic churches.”

sheepishly, the same way my husband reacts when he’s scrolling Facebook while there are dishes to be done and broken fixtures to repair!

Even as I began to write for Catholic magazines, I felt guilty, as if I was somehow cheating my family by nurturing these passions.

It took time and a lot of spiritual wrestling to realize that the stories and songs were something God had placed within me specifically to give to the world. My fiction is not religious, but it reflects a broken world populated by broken people in need of healing. It is formed by my faith, and by the desire to grapple with difficult questions in a space where maybe, just maybe, a deeply divided people can find empathy for each other.

It turns out my writing is a vocation. Who knew?

THE BLUE FLAME

At the age of 49, my husband, Christian, doesn’t really “do” high-flown religious language anymore, but he, too, has a God-given dream. He calls it making a difference.

Sixteen years ago, when our newborn daughter, Julianna, was diagnosed with Down syndrome, “Everything was a nightmare,” he said. “We were fighting the doctors and nurses, so we just circled the wagons. Times like that, you don’t go outside the comfort zone, and the comfort zone is really small.”

But shortly after Julianna’s birth, I started a blog, intending to build an author platform. The most popular posts were consistently the ones about our “chromosomally-gifted” girl. For Christian, those glimpses of her life were eye-opening. “I saw how she impacted people, even at a really young age,” he said. “Where people in the grocery store came up and said how pretty she was, or the way she’d lunge toward someone who needed a hug at that moment.”

As spokesperson for the University of Missouri, everyone in town knows him. Plus, we’re highly visible in the local Catholic community. We are pastoral musicians who got engaged during the announcements at Mass at the local Newman Center, and for four years, I worked as liturgy-music director for the biggest parish in the diocese. By the time Julianna was born, we were co-directing a 35-member contemporary ensemble at our parish. “Given our visibility, I almost felt an obligation to look for opportunities to educate people,” Christian said.

It started small: pushing back against the “r-word” in one-on-one conversations with colleagues and family members. Personal witness made an immediate impact. Over time, our yearly music recital morphed into a fundraiser for Down syndrome services.

Overcoming Mom Guilt

In her coaching, Lisa Canning has seen a lot of unnecessary misery among Catholic moms. And a lot of it boils down to guilt. Guilt around how we spend our time, and with whom. Guilt surrounding our need for fulfillment beyond our families.

“Guilt can be a helpful tool for one to assess one’s life,” Lisa said. “But more often than not, it’s toxic. It’s a massive obstacle to becoming who you’re created to be.”

Again and again, Catholic moms tell her, “There’s something wrong with me. I don’t love motherhood enough. I’m just not holy enough.”

Well, let’s face it; none of us are! But more than likely, Lisa says, you’re also miserable because God has given you something to do, and you’re not doing it.

“We’ve been conditioned to believe that since motherhood is the highest goal, everything else is optional,” she said. “But often these passions are going to be life-giving, a gift to your family. They’ll give you energy. They’ll fuel your family—as long as they’re used in appropriate blocks of time.”

And when advocacy in the school district yielded more frustration than progress, Christian decided: Why not focus in his own wheelhouse, the university?

In 2018, Julianna’s Special Olympics cheer squad performed on campus. There, in the middle of an academic hall at a major university, they did their routine for students, faculty—and the special education department chair. No time like the present, Christian decided. He approached her and asked, “Would you be interested in starting a college program for people with intellectual disabilities?”

The answer was a resounding yes. They had to start from scratch, learning what had to be done and what they needed to learn. It was slow going. Often, months went by with no measurable progress. Yet just when he despaired, another piece would fall into place.

In 2020, I read Jennifer Fulwiler’s book Your Blue Flame. I told Christian, “I think disability advocacy is your blue flame.” Next thing I knew, he was getting a blue flame tattooed on his arm, nestled inside a Down syndrome awareness ribbon.

And now, after five years of work, my husband’s dream is becoming reality. In August 2023, PAWS—

“Preparing Adults for Work and Society”—will open on the Mizzou campus.

“In high school graduation speeches, people always say, ‘Let’s go out and make the world a better place,’” Christian said. “But who actually does that? Twenty or 30 years down the road, with 3 or 4 kids, is that on your mind? Or are you just thinking about getting through today—‘I have to do my job and feed my family’? That’s very important! But I didn’t want to lose sight of the fact that we’re not here for a very long time. I asked myself, ‘Is there a way I can make the world a better place, not just for Julianna, but for a lot of people?’”

Everyone needs to have a “blue flame,” he says—“that hotter-than-hot flame that gives you a purpose in life.

Continued on page 38

Everyone needs to have a “blue flame”—that hotter-than-hot flame that gives you a purpose in life.

Inspiration from The Berenstain Bears: When Mama Chases a Dream

In 1984, during the height of The Berenstain Bears book series, Random House released a title by Stan and Jan that went largely overlooked. It came smack dab in the middle of the most-popular titles— after the bears went to camp and had trouble with money, before they got the gimmies and grew a prize pumpkin—“The Berenstain Bears and Mama’s New Job.”

It was a cultural commentary and a quiet encouragement to stay-at-home moms everywhere.

The book begins with a depiction of Mama’s “happy, busy, full” life. She is the glue for the family, spread thinner than anyone else.

One day, she receives unexpected praise for her quilts and urgings to open a business.

“Mama in business?” Papa asks incredulously, patting her shoulder. He makes and sells furniture. He is the entrepreneur. “I don’t think so. One business-bear in the family is enough.”

But Mama falls quiet, pondering the prospect all day long. The next day at lunch, she announces her plan: “I’ve decided to open up a quilt shop, and I’ve rented the empty store just down the road.”

Papa is dumbstruck, his spoon frozen halfway to his mouth and his tongue hanging out.

He and the kids protest, voicing worries about Mama’s absence. She proceeds calmly, swapping her polka-dotted mobcap for a yellow bowler hat with a perky daisy and straightening it in the mirror on her way out.

“Supper may be a little late tonight,” she tells them. “Ta-ta!”

The next page is the crux of the story. Supper is, in fact, “a lot late—and it was Papa and the cubs who prepared it. But they didn’t mind, because although Mama was very tired, she was very happy, too—happy and excited!”

The expression on Mama’s face as she sinks into a chair is priceless—wide eyed, goofy grin, delirious. She’s exhausted—even the daisy in her hat is drooping—but in the best possible way. She is dizzy with possibility.

As Brother Bear brings her tea and Papa brings her a barrel of hot water to soak her feet, they tell her how well they managed without her, taking on roles that used to be hers.

Two weeks later the Bear Country Quilt Shop opens, and Papa is perched on a ladder proudly painting a “Grand Opening” sign. It is a sweeping success—including a visit from the mayor—and the Bear family celebrates that night by eating out at Burger Bear, where Mama treats.

The story concludes with an image of her holding her hard-earned cash. “The extra money came in handy too!”

In ensuing books, Mama remains a present, hands-on parent. Her quilt shop isn’t mentioned, though her quilts surface regularly, a passion that never appears at odds with her primary vocation as a mom. Maybe she scaled it back at some point, perhaps she hired a full-time employee and grew the business while being home more.

But readers can be sure that the sense of accomplishment from her successful business endures. And those pondering a creative new venture can take heart in Mama Bear, accepting this 1984 book as a permission slip that has no expiration date.

—Christina Ries

It’s the parable of the talents. When you hang onto what you’re given and don’t use it, no one benefits. When you use it and invest it, you can have an impact.”

Self-gift, indeed.

LIVING HOLISTICALLY

The story no one else can tell. The music no one else can write.

The ability to leverage existing connections to launch an opportunity for people with disabilities.

A vision of helping Catholic women balance health, faith and the well-being of their families with building a fortune that can be re-invested in communities.

Each of these big dreams expresses the reality that the body and soul are one. We cannot shut off one part of ourselves and claim to be following God wholeheartedly.

“I thought business development and spiritual development could not co-exist,” said Lisa Canning. “But they

cannot be separated! Your Catholic anthropology does not allow this! God made us as whole, integrated people.”

In her coaching business, Lisa sees the fruit of living holistically. There are big projects launched and fortunes being built.

But some of her favorite client success stories are quiet, hidden things:

I no longer yell at bedtime.

I no longer leave my kids’ rooms feeling frazzled and desperate for a glass of wine.

“People might not know you didn’t have to reach for a glass of wine to cope,” Lisa said, “but you and God know when you’ve exercised that virtue of temperance.”

Helping clients exercise discipline over their emotions gives them agency over their own lives.

“Because let’s not be naive,” Lisa said. “Motherhood can be overwhelming. Prior to getting on the phone for this interview, I left the room to go to the bathroom and came back. And during that trip I had four people talking to me at the same time. I had a small toddler grabbing my leg and my 13-year-old asking about some book he wanted from the library. The reality of a large family can be overwhelming, when a baby cannot sleep for hours and hours and you cannot sleep.”

But by renewing our minds, we can turn away from reactivity and toward peace and docility, Godly obedience, humility. We can “grow into beatitude.”

Lisa is grateful for the understanding God has granted her and how it has transformed her life.

“There’s room for improvement, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “But my children can say, ‘My mom was there for me. She worked hard, but she was present and available.’ “

Lisa leaves us with a series of beautiful questions to ponder:

What is your unique call?

How are you going to serve the world?

How are you going to be light to others?

We cannot shut off one part of ourselves and claim to be following God wholeheartedly.

Watching love stories unfold

by Maria Cossell

Tucked into a small compartment of my jewelry box is a folded up piece of paper. Every so often I unfold it and reread a letter written to me by a student about her encounter with God in adoration. During the time I taught her in sixth grade, she was bearing a large cross that was having a physical effect on her in a way that was noticeable to her peers. Every time I read about how the Lord told her in adoration that He wanted to heal her, I am continually reminded of the gift of the Blessed Sacrament in my life and the lives of my students.

As each school year progressed, I would become more aware of specific crosses my students were carrying, through hearing their intentions shared during class prayer to reading concerned emails from parents and written responses on assignments. My heart would ache for them to be going through so much at such a young age. I desperately wanted to ease their load by completely getting rid of their crosses. However, this was not something I could ever truly accomplish and deep down I knew it. I had to lead them to the man on the cross. I had to lead them to the Eucharist.

And I got to witness my students beginning to realize that the Lord was meeting them in their suffering and ache through the Blessed Sacrament. Their crosses became avenues to the living God.

The time they spent in adoration and Mass with the Lord during the school day was changing their hearts and became evident in their bodily actions. They radiated joy in a way that was not present at the beginning of the school year. It permeated everything they did, from

being fully present to the needs of those around them to being grateful for the little things in life. Their eyes were open wide as they grew in their awareness of God working in their day-to-day life. They would become excited for First Friday adoration and beg to sing a song to start off our holy half hour with the Lord. I can still picture them giddily opening the song books and looking at me for confirmation that we could begin.

Being an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion during school Masses started to take on a whole new meaning for me. I saw them stand before me with open hands as a sign of their inner openness and the expansion of their heart to receive the one who heals and equips. As I watched the body of our Savior enter into their bodies, I prayed for the desires and aches they had shared with me. I begged the Word made Flesh to flood their whole being with grace beyond compare. My own devotion and love of the Eucharist was growing with my students. The Lord has chosen me, a sinner who was broken just like my students, to share the healing power of God. What a gift and honor it was to be used as an instrument of the Lord.

Every year I would stand in awe of the intimate relationship my students had formed with the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Nothing has ever been more beautiful to me as a teacher than to watch my students fall in love with the Eucharist. At times it would bring tears to my eyes as I shared with others what I was experiencing, a front row seat to a love story, the love story of God with his beloved.

Maria Cossell currently works for Ruah Woods Institute creating curriculum to educate individuals in theology of the body. Prior to this she taught more than 13 years in Catholic schools in Indiana.

Nothing has ever been more beautiful to me as a teacher than to watch my students fall in love with the Eucharist.

LEAP of FAITH

These

Impetus to finally take action: When my heart wasn’t in the right place, prayer got me where I needed to go. A weekend retreat made it clear that I had to begin the long process. The journey had been postponed already for more than 10 years.

Steps that got you there: Two years attending the archdiocesan catechetical institute, one year for the application process and its interviews, the aspirancy year, four years as a deacon candidate and then ordination. But before all of this, I had developed study habits from electrical school, which I attended every other Friday for five years. I learned to use every spare bit of time between classes to do homework. When we studied time management, one assignment suggested I make an inventory on how I spent my free time. With the findings—some of them shocking, the number of hours wasted!—I made adjustments: reducing time on entertainment and involvement in activities outside of work.

TOB principles that inspired you: No one should enter the diaconate as part of their career accomplishments. I was called to serve God’s people expecting nothing back but the increase of my love for him. And so, I was driven by love of God and neighbor. Strengthening my relationship with God provided ample inspiration.

Adelmo Gracia

Catholic deacon • Age: 60

Big, bold dream: To become a deacon.

Obstacles along the way: Family, my own business, my fears of inadequacy and possible self-delusion.

Lessons learned along the way: How to become a better human being, husband and father, a better son and brother, a better neighbor, coworker and classmate. These have been priceless lessons. I am a fulfilled and happy person. I don’t waste time and energy on useless enterprises anymore. Everything in life has the potential to make you a saint—just go back to the basics and begin today.

Catholics turned their bold visions into action plans (and some early mornings)

Dan Hartig

Founder of Fructus, a Catholic farm-to-table network • Age: 40

Big, bold dream: To re-establish true, Catholic community. I want people to interact with institutions that serve God every day instead of just seeing fellow Catholics only at church on Sunday and maybe another event or two each week. I want your landlord to serve God. I want your employer to serve God. I want your grocer and your restaurant and your tailor to serve God.

Obstacles along the way: People don’t think this way anymore. Centuries ago, the famous Italian merchant Francesco Datini dedicated his business ledgers, without irony, “In the name of God and profit.” Even the most faithful people today usually separate God from the major areas of their lives.

Impetus to finally take action: My first dream involved housing. I read about the Minneapolis 2040 plan (a comprehensive community plan that will eliminate single-family housing) and realized there may be an opportunity to purchase housing at a lower rate and upgrade it into multi-unit homes. Then I could deed the properties to a Catholic organization to provide housing to those of lower income levels. So in 2019 I moved to Minneapolis and did just that.

Later I read about the struggles that farmers were having during the pandemic. As I waited for the housing project to come to fruition, I decided to develop a better way for Catholic farmers to find customers in the Twin Cities.

Steps that got you there: I met a farmer who was intrigued by the concept. This farmer and a few friends started a business, and I talked to everyone I knew at my parish to find customers. We started providing whatever was available—at that time, whole frozen chickens, quarters of cows, and eggs. Slowly we have added more customers and products, and this summer we mark our 3-year anniversary.

TOB principles that inspired you: A central concept of the theology of the body is human dignity. This underlies our concepts of respect for life, marriage and many more things. The farm-to-table network operates in a way that everyone is equal in dignity as recipients of the farm products. Everyone deserves wholesome food, and everyone gets their food delivered to their door. We have customers who cannot afford their own food and their purchases are covered by charitable donations. But instead of having to go to a store and present food stamps, they have the ability to order online and receive their deliveries with the same dignity as our wealthiest customers.

Lessons learned along the way: Most of my lessons are in perseverance. I’ve committed to waking up at 4 am every Saturday of the year, driving out to a few farms and driving back to the cities to deliver food. In just under three years, I have only taken off Holy Saturday, Christmas and one week when I was in a car accident on the way out to the farms.

For more than a year, I did all the deliveries myself, even if I was driving out to the farm to buy just 12 dozen eggs (about $20 at the time). Having established the business as stable and reliable, I now have volunteers to help me drive and world events (like the recent rise in egg prices) have driven many more customers. We now average $400 or so per week in deliveries to 15 or more customers.

Father James M. Perkl

Acclaimed iconographer • Age: 64

Big, bold dream: To follow the Great Commission. When I was ordained a deacon in 1983 and a priest the following year, I was given the biggest dream of all: The Great Commission of Jesus to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” (Mt 28:19).

Obstacles along the way: In the 40 years since, every obstacle that I have encountered has been overcome in prayer. As St. John tells us in the words of Jesus, “I . . . pray that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us…” (Jn 17:21).

Impetus to finally take action: It is the Holy Spirit who inspires me to write icons. While my homilies may be heard in about seven minutes, it is wonderful to realize the icons will serve to proclaim the Good News for

generations. The icons that invite contemplation have also been sold to provide food and drink to Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor.

Steps that got you there: The writing of an icon follows the steps of creation, redemption and sanctification, so you could say that I am simply following the steps of Jesus. For example, the icon is painted with egg yoke mixed with the minerals of this world for the color. The egg, which contains life, when broken open is revealing Jesus’ resurrection from the tomb!

TOB principles that inspired you: The Re+Membering icon that I am painting now for the U.S. bishops’ Eucharistic Renewal efforts shows Jesus being scourged at the pillar. In the icon we see Jesus’ Body and Blood covering those scourging Him. In the icon, Jesus looks at his crucifiers with love as He sees Himself in all. He desires those striking his Body to embrace him with love and so be Re+Membered to him, i.e., there is hope of conversion for all! Theology of the body also taught me to see Mary as the mother of the Church, as she is the mother of Jesus. My inspiration to write icons and pray the Rosary have been become enriched by the Holy Spirit, as I work to embody within my person and my ordained

priesthood the self-giving mysteries I am contemplating. The way I seek to embodies the mysteries of Jesus’ life is by embracing him through each moment of my life.

Lessons learned along the way: Writing icons has allowed me to gaze into the mystery of life, as I see Jesus’ life embodied so beautifully in the people I have served for 40 years. The paschal mystery has revealed to me, and I hope to many gazing into the icon, the sovereignty of God’s goodness and the awesome wonder we experience, receiving Jesus’ body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist at Mass.

It is wonderful to realize the icons will serve to proclaim the Good News for generations.

Marysarah Stokman

Owner of The Olive Branch, a home-goods store • Age: 28

Big, bold dream: To open my very own brick and mortar shop.

Obstacles along the way: My own fears of failure, a lack of experience in accounting and finance, starting out in a time of transition away from pandemic life.

Impetus to finally take action: I experienced a moment of grace where I really understood that this desire of my heart was something to take seriously, something that Jesus would bless.

Steps that got you there: Throughout my life, my mom has been a constant witness to me of creating a beautiful home and welcoming others in. I spent a few years working as a product and brand photographer and fell in love with telling the stories of makers and their craft. I also worked for a small shop and learned everything from visual merchandising to web development. When I finally realized the desire to open my own shop, it was like seeing this thread throughout my life that had perfectly led

me to and prepared me for this adventure. Once I found the right space, the door opened and I never looked back.

TOB principles that inspired you: In my exposure to TOB I have come to understand my desire for beauty even more. John Paul II says the body is a sign that I am made for communion, and ultimately communion with God, which has allowed me to understand that every instance of gathering can be a sign of this. Making a beautiful home through my feminine nature can become a way to receive the other and together to experience the communion that our bodies are a sign of.

Lessons learned along the way: So many! It sounds cliche, but seeing every failure as an opportunity to learn and grow has been essential. This mindset allows me to take risks and to keep evolving as both a person and a business. Also, I am not in this alone—even if it’s tempting to think that I am. When I’ve pushed myself to reach out to someone or to ask a question, I’ve always been grateful I did. Bringing others into the process has helped me see that this work is not just for me, it’s for the world!

The plans I have for you

Photos by Laura Wills Photography • laurawillsphotography.com

“For I know well the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope. When you call me and come and pray to me, I will listen to you.

When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, and I will change your lot. I will gather you together from all the nations and all the places to which I have banished you and bring you back…”

—Jeremiah 29:11–14