Embodied Winter 2023

A SENSE OF DUTY

THE VIEW FROM HERE IT’S THE SMALL THINGS

THE WHOLE STORY

THE TRUE MEANING OF HISTORY

THE CALL TO LOVE SELF-GIVING LOVE ON AN UNEXPECTED PATH

STOP THE SCROLL

KATHLEEN BASI

Mom of four Kelley Burns admits that social media often leaves her with the feeling that she just doesn’t measure up. How does that dovetail with a belief that we are good simply by virtue of our existence? Is the answer that we must leave all social media behind?

AWE OF THE ‘SPECIAL 15’

FEMININE + FIERCE

Q&A WITH SAMANTHA KELLEY

Meet Samantha Kelley, a former Division 1 soccer player at UConn and now the founder of FIERCE Athlete. “I didn’t necessarily fit the mold of what a lot of people would define as a feminine woman,” she said, “and a lack of understanding of femininity leads to a whole slew of issues within female athletics.”

FINDING MONICA

ROXANE B. SALONEN

The behind-the-scenes story of two women writers who found solidarity through their shared suffering over children who had left the faith.

THERE A MASCULINE GENIUS?

DEBORAH SAVAGE, PH.D.

A scholar of St. John Paul II not only advocates there is indeed a “masculine genius” but offers insights into how it complements what the pope introduced as the “feminine genius.”

RECLAIMING MASCULINITY

PHIL ERVIN

“Lay down your life,” Bill Donaghy said, “and you’ll be given it back again.” A lesson he first learned from his father has come full circle in Bill’s own journey to find meaning in masculinity in today’s #MeToo culture.

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THE EUCHARIST

THE LIFE-GIVING HEART OF THE LORD

MARIA COSSELL

As a young religion teacher, Maria was stunned to learn that a consecrated Host that had bled in Argentina in the 1990s was tested and found to be heart tissue and it brought new understanding for her of the word “mercy.”

AGO’ ROXANE B. SALONEN

To grasp the depth of the turnaround of George and Robin’s marriage, one need only look at their family photo from last Easter and imagine two fewer smiling faces. The noticeable gap in ages of their children is a reminder that several years ago, divorce loomed large.

PHOTO ESSAY A HYMN OF PRAISE

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

Winter 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

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‘WE SHOULD HAVE DONE THIS A LONG TIME

It’s the small things

by Ann Gundlach

I love the small changes that learning about the theology of the body has wrought in me. Here is one example.

About 18 months ago I noticed a car pull up across the street in front of my neighbor’s house. Then I watched as he very slowly came out of his house and gingerly made his way down the walk toward the car using a walker, and I saw his left foot was in a boot. An elderly women helped him get in and off they went.

This was unusual because we don’t often see this neighbor come and go, and it was even more rare for anyone to visit. He definitely keeps to himself.

I was moved by what I saw, partly because I had a major foot surgery a couple of years prior where I was completely non-weight-bearing on that foot for three months, and then in a boot for almost three more. I immediately felt sorry for this man, and more so because he lives alone. I, at least, had the help of my husband to fetch or carry things I needed or to help me maneuver about.

Next thing I knew I had written a note and was across the street tucking it in his mailbox. Well, that was after I had to go digging through the kitchen junk drawer where I found the crumpled, stained, years-old piece of paper listing all of the neighbors on our block to find out his name again. Aha! Michael. Like I said, he is a bit of a recluse.

The note explained that I saw him leave and to let me know if he needed me to run any errands for him. I also offered up my husband, Greg, to cut his grass if it would help. And I went on with my day.

Late that evening I received the following voicemail:

“Yes, hello, this is Michael from across the street.... so, um, your note kind of made my day. I actually just got home from having outpatient ankle surgery and I’m

going to be laid up for probably at least six weeks at a minimum...I might need some help, and that is very, very nice and so neighborly. Take care.”

So we began texting and talking. And, yes, Greg not only cut Michael’s grass all summer but cleaned out a lot of his yard’s overgrown bushes and trees for him.

Not an unusual or remarkable story, I’ll grant you that. But we have lived here 28 years—yes, 28!—and I had never reached out to Michael. But TOB has changed me.

Ten years ago I would have watched him maneuver his way toward the car with his walker, and I would have felt that same compassion. But it would have ended there. I would have a litany of reasons in my head to justify keeping to myself (i.e., it’s way too awkward to reach out now, we don’t even know each other, I’m sure he has other people who are helping him, he might be creepy, and so on).

Email ann@embodiedmag.org.

I’ve changed. Learning more about TOB has re-shaped me. I’ve always believed each person is created in God’s image, but that knowledge didn’t always translate into how I treated them. I was definitely too selective in my encounters, and that is not what Christ calls me to.

The other day Michael saw me sitting on my porch, and yelled out, “Mind if I come join you?” He did, and we had a delightful visit.

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

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

THE WHOLE STORY

The true meaning of history

by Katrina Zeno

If you had to describe the central message of Sacred Scripture in one sentence, what would it be? “Christ died on the cross to forgive our sins”? Or “The Bible tells us God’s plan of salvation”?

St. John Paul II has a very simple answer: “God loves His people.” But what does this mean?

It means Sacred Scripture is a Love Story from beginning to end set within the framework of Covenant Love, both fatherly and spousal. As fatherly covenant love, the Bible reveals God as Father and Creator of a good world and a good human race. As spousal covenant love, the Bible reveals Jesus as the Divine Bridegroom of humanity who lays down His Body for His Bride.

by random, evolutionary chance, lacking any specific goal or purpose. And that our human intelligence, aided by technology and science, occupies the driver’s seat of human history. We “make” history and thus determine its meaning and purpose. History as the arena where God acts and reveals Himself is rejected.

Fortunately, St. John Paul II gets us back on track in his theology of the body. He unveils the “mystery hidden from eternity in God,” which consists of three realities:

1) The inner life of God as Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

2) God’s plan of salvation revealed and accomplished in Christ.

3) The unique role of marriage and spousal love to reveal the fullness of God’s plan and purpose.

However, no single Bible verse captures this divine love story. Instead, we have to read the whole Bible from beginning to end. So why doesn’t God reveal the fullness of his love and plan all at once? Why does He take so long?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides an insightful answer: “The divine plan of Revelation is realized simultaneously ‘by deeds and words which are intrinsically bound up with each other’ and shed light on each other. It involves a specific divine pedagogy: God communicates himself to man gradually” (CCC 53).

So, history is God’s gradual revelation of Himself through words and deeds (actions) that are perceived and written down by human authors. It is indeed “His Story.”

Unfortunately, our culture today tells a different story. We are told that the world around us is driven

History is God’s gradual revelation of Himself through words and deeds.

History will at some time come to an end, but not because of human progress or violence, but because Christ comes again as the returning Bridegroom, and the divine plan of salvation is revealed and accomplished in its glorious, spousal fullness.

In the meantime, if you aren’t reading Scripture regularly, I encourage you to start (or start again) this new year by reading the Gospel of Luke for at least 15 minutes a day. As you read, look for the three aspects of the “mystery hidden from eternity in God” and keep track of them in a notebook or on your phone. (Hint: The first explicit revelation of the Trinity in human history comes in Luke 1.) Try to identify the pattern of the divine pedagogy as God gradually reveals Himself through the words and deeds of Jesus Christ. And begin to see history as “His Story,” as the Divine Trinitarian Love Story where you—yes, you!—are the one on whom God’s fatherly and spousal covenant love is bestowed.

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.

Self-giving love on an unexpected path

by Father Walter Schu

A deep place in my heart will always be reserved for Marshall Voris. When we were both students at the University of Dallas, he quickly became a vibrant friend to me and my three roommates.

Marshall was engaged to a beautiful young woman named Shirley Good. Inspired by Marshall’s verve and vivacity in the way he lived out the Catholic faith, she left the Mennonite religion to become a Catholic herself. Both Marshall and Shirley were studying psychology, urged on by a desire to walk with those who suffered in their moment of need.

While Marshall radiated his joyful faith to Shirley, it impacted us four young men as well. So much so for me that, the summer after my junior year, I left our tight-knit and happy community at UD to follow a call to the priesthood with the Legionaries of Christ. Another roommate, Dan Healy, also felt the call to become a priest. Today he is serving as a missionary in the Philippines.

In 1982, Marshall and Shirley joyfully married. Their life as husband and wife was not without its sorrows. The child who would have been their firstborn died in the womb at seven months. No other children followed. But the two of them made up for it by inviting young men and women with psychological or spiritual difficulties into their home. They also invited a religious, Sister Joan, into their household to help with their healing ministry. Marshall and Shirley soon became parents to many spiritual children, who prospered and flourished under their self-giving love.

After 21 years of happy and fruitful marriage, a mysterious series of events occurred. Marshall was away on retreat and as he began his days of prayer, he called Shirley. “This phrase keeps coming to me: ‘Let your

servant go in peace.’ I find myself weeping, and I’m not sure what it all means.” Shirley encouraged him to keep praying, perhaps by the end of the retreat there would be an answer.

A couple of days later, Marshall called again. “I had this dream that I was standing on the Mount of the Transfiguration with my former spiritual director and Jesus. Now I really don’t know what’s going on.”

When Marshall returned to their home a few days later, Shirley was even more excited than usual to see him. She even went out and bought him white roses. “What’s going on?” he asked. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just felt this desire to get you white roses.”

A few days later, Shirley traveled to Indiana for a family reunion. She was just settling in when the phone rang. It was from their home, but it wasn’t Marshall. It was the police: “Your husband has died of a heart attack,” they told her.

The date was August 2, 2003, just four days shy of the feast of the Transfiguration. Marshall was 48 years old. Looking back, she sees the white roses as a sign of his impending death.

“I miss him immensely, even to this day,” Shirley said. “People say to me, ‘Are you going to get married?’ But that’s not on my radar.”

What has sustained Shirley for so many years as a widow? She answers quite simply, “My faith and my work.” The same self-giving love she and Marshall poured out to those in need continues to animate her life as a widow. She still makes her gift of self to others as a counselor today while awaiting another heartfelt embrace from Marshall when the Lord chooses to call her home. Maybe Marshall will have a dozen white roses for her as well.

Stop scrolling, start living

by Kathleen Basi

How TOB guards us against the perils of social media

I don’t use a smart phone, and I don’t text.

Those two statements never fail to raise eyebrows wherever I go. I get pushback from family, friends and occasionally professional contacts.

I do use social media…with wifi. This lets me participate in the online world, but I’m free to disconnect.

I walk this line because I see in myself the same dangers that play out all around me: susceptibility to addictive behaviors, discomfort with stillness and a tendency to crave the virtual world at the expense of the real one.

According to the Pew Research Center, 85 percent of people now use a smart phone. For better or for worse, we are plugged into the virtual world.

Yet the theology of the body reminds us that we are most fully human when we love as God loves—that is, when we make visible the invisible divine life of the Trinity, a constant giving and receiving between the three Persons that overflows with love. Given the physical distance between persons online, this gift of self is harder to do virtually. How can TOB help us navigate the complex intersection of the real and the online worlds?

KEEPING UP, SPENDING MONEY

Kelley Burns, 41, is a mother of four and a director of worship in Ann Arbor, Mich. She says social media can, in fact, help her reflect God—but mostly, it “feels like sorting through junk mail.”

“Facebook is constant noise—people screaming about their opinions, trying to make sure their voice is the loudest,” she said. “I stay on it because I like to see updates on people’s lives and share my own.” It’s also her major source of news.

She prefers Instagram, which tends to be more peaceful. But that brings its own dangers. “There is certainly beauty to be found on Insta that you don’t see in other places,” she said, noting that she follows a number of Catholic users.

But recently she encountered the term “boutique Catholicism,” the idea that the appearance of a Catholic lifestyle can be portrayed online and not reflect reality. “Is my Catholicism meaningful or is it just a filter I put on my social media?” she said. “Meaningful Catholicism is messy and not always beautiful. Are we willing to engage with the messy questions?”

“Even faithful followers of Jesus are cultivating and packaging an online life that real life doesn’t measure up to. I find myself wanting to buy things promoted in some posts because it seems they will help me be more Catholic.” But even though posts like these, on the surface, affirm faith, they can become another way to “keep up with the Joneses.” It’s just that these “Joneses” happen to love Jesus. “Their houses are still immaculate. Their scented candles and trendy T-shirts with names of saints on them still put a strain on my bank account and my ability to actually give alms and make sacrifices.”

But most troubling to Kelley is the feeling that she just doesn’t measure up. How does that dovetail with a belief that we are good simply by virtue of our existence—that we are made in God’s image and likeness—and that our focus should not be inward but outward, intent on finding ways to make a gift of ourselves to others?

It doesn’t.

And to Kelley, that’s the problem.

“When it really comes down to it, there are few

Instagrammers who actually help me see an unfiltered reality of who we are as children of God and who we are called to be,” she said. “If I spend too much time online, I lose touch with reality. At some point, I find myself content to look at pictures of flowers someone else posted rather than go for a walk and find some myself.”

Paul Ruff, a licensed Catholic psychologist in St. Paul, Minn., noted that the “high” we get off scrolling and posting is no accident; social media companies know exactly what they’re doing. “Almost every time we click, we get a little dopamine release in the brain,” Ruff said. “It’s meant to be addictive. You start to be externally referenced—‘I need to look for me out there, not in here.’”

The more often you check in online, the more that feeling is reinforced.

Pondering priesthood? Ditch

the iPhone!

The Saint Paul Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., has launched a new program to help young men take one step closer to priesthood: a pre-seminarian program to foster healthy and holy priests. Although the program has a fancy name—it’s called a propaedeutic preparation stage—the word “propaedeutic” simply means “to teach beforehand.” This preparation stage was called for by the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy in 2016, and a handful of seminaries and dioceses have responded to this call.

Now in its second year, the program at the Saint Paul Seminary has 16 participants, and it is facilitated by priests, psychologists and theologians. The program has a specific, 21st-century purpose: to help the men “discern where God wants them to grow and detox from the culture,” said Father John Floeder, the seminary’s director of the propaedeutic stage and human formation. Part of that detox is ditching their cellphones and computers. The men may use them only on Saturdays— a policy many have come to appreciate.

“It has really kind of pushed us to encounter each other, to engage with each other on a much deeper level than we might initially do right away,” said Dominic Wolters, 23, a St. Paul native who participated in the program’s inaugural year and is now in his first year of theological studies. “It’s the sort of thing that’s both challenging but also deeply enriching and just very bracing.”

Adults may be self-aware enough to navigate those waters safely—maybe. But what about our kids? According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, it’s a mixed bag. Social media can facilitate vital connections, especially during times of isolation. At the same time, kids who use it a lot report high symptoms of loneliness, depression and anxiety (this is more problematic in girls, but also affects boys).

For Kelley, it’s a no-brainer. “Even if porn or other inappropriate content weren’t a factor, I still wouldn’t let my kids use social media. I see how much people are battling to be noticed. I don’t want that for them.”

THE POTENTIAL

So what’s a good, faithful person to do? Must we turn our backs on the online world altogether?

Not at all. There is nothing wrong with sharing beauty or human connection—or with seeking it out online. In fact, great goodness can come from online friendships.

For instance, three years ago, at the start of the pandemic, an authors’ organization of which I am a member started holding online “Writing Dates.” We now hold two to three a day, with a rotating cast of several dozen. We follow each other on social media and know each other’s families and our kids’ mutual interests.

In fact, one of our members had a life-threatening illness and needed a kidney transplant. Our members mobilized our online networks and blanketed social media with requests for people to be organ donors.

But in the end, it was one of our own who gave her kidney and saved the life of a woman she’d only ever met on Zoom. If that’s not the theology of the body in action, I don’t know what is!

Sometimes it’s a matter of how we focus our online energy. Angelle Hall, 47, a campus minister in central Missouri, loves to learn—about the world, about her faith, about anything. As long as she focuses on issues like paid maternity leave and supporting women, which illuminate life and guide her ministerial work, instead of who said what on Reddit, social media is a force for good.

A year ago, when her family was impacted by Hurricane Ida, Hall shared their needs. Prayers and donations poured in from around the country. Being online also allows her to continue caring for the students she’s nurtured over the years. A mother of two, she always wanted more

children, but it didn’t work out that way. She’s come to embrace spiritual motherhood through the college students she serves. Social media allows her to love and support them beyond graduation.

FINDING BALANCE

Like most things, social media can be used well or poorly. How many of us have found ourselves looking at our lives as if we are the producer of a show? How often do we watch events through a screen—even when we’re physically present—instead of allowing ourselves to sink into the moment?

Angelle joined social media when she moved 12 hours away from her family. “I missed my people,” she said. “I wanted to know what was going on with them. I wanted them to be able to see photos of my son.”

Facebook and Instagram allow her to share in the joys and sorrows of loved ones—but they can also swallow time and replace more authentic, embodied ways of connecting with them.

So one year during Lent, Angelle decided to give up social media, allowing herself to get on only for work. But it was hard to be sure what was work and what wasn’t.

Plus, she mourned the good she gained by using social media. After some soul searching, she realized the reason social media was a problem for her was not envy of others but that she got on first thing in the morning. Instead of centering herself in prayer for the day and getting ready, she’d get caught scrolling for 45 minutes.

As a result, she adjusted her Lenten fast to “no social media until after noon.” This proved so successful that Angelle returns to this practice year after year during Lent as a reset.

There are many ways to check ourselves and keep in balance. Kelley says when she’s tempted to pick up the phone, she asks herself what she’s craving. Is she tired? Maybe what she really needs is a nap! Does she really just want something to keep her hands busy? What about a Rubik’s cube? In need of a change of scenery? Why not take a walk!

She also sets some basic boundaries—like no social media until she’s at least read Scripture for the day.

For some, it could be as simple as a reality check: look

Old-fashioned dating

The Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) staff have a message for their first-year missionaries: Stop texting your boyfriend or girlfriend! Their formation directors encourage them to cool off romantic relationships, making fewer phone calls to a significant other and not texting at all. Instead, they’re encouraged to write letters in order to communicate “in more intentional ways,” as Shannon Hicks, a formation director, put it. The policy is designed to give them “a freedom of heart,” Hicks said. “We’re asking them to examine whether electronic communication carries with it the meaning their relationship deserves. I have seen it give missionaries the space to take a step back and look at their motivations for romantic relationships.”

Tessa Soukup, a 22-year-old from Duluth, Minn., serving at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, struggled with the policy at first, wishing she could connect more readily with her boyfriend, Jacob. “Is it hard?” she said. “Yes. But is it worth it? Even more so, yes. It truly is an opportunity to be stretched to learn how to love better, to discover where some of my priorities were not ordered. Now I think of him throughout my week in moments and think of ways I can share that with him when we do have our conversations. I look forward to sharing my week with him in that way, and I’ve learned to pray for him when I can’t have that immediate gratification.”

at usage stats and see how many minutes—hours?—we are spending online.

Or perhaps the root problem is our own approach to social media. What if all those people posting beautiful things do so not to prop up a false image of themselves at our expense but because they crave beauty in a world filled with systematic deceit and injustice?

There is a both/and tension involved in social media, as in nearly every facet of life in the faith. Each of us must find solutions that work for us as individuals. You may decide to set limits on your devices for each app, while I will continue to be a conscientious objector to the smart-phone revolution. What matters is that we let the principles of the theology of the body—our belovedness, our call to be an image of the Trinity through our interactions with others in the real world—help us navigate the narrow way to holiness.

Family over Instagram

How Anna Liesemeyer learned to prioritize the wellbeing of her family over the lure of social-media profit

When Gabe Liesemeyer realized he could quit his day job to join forces with his wife, it felt like a golden opportunity. Anna worked at home on her online home renovation and design business anchored by a popular blog, InHonorOfDesign.com, and a flourishing social-media following. It was generating enough income for Gabe to quit teaching and help her. He’d reached a point in the education field where he craved a change—and he thrilled at the prospect of collaborating with Anna and spending more time with their young children. So in July of 2017, he became her full-time business partner.

“It felt surreal,” she said at the time.

The two complement each other well and enjoyed building In Honor Of Design together as they settled in Nashville and their family grew. They amassed a larger readership—more than 170,000 followers.

But they started to feel pressure to keep up with daily Instagram posts and stories, and the demands of social media began to take a toll. And yet, they’d put all their eggs in that one basket. Their large family—seven kids ages 13 to 1—relied on this business.

What now?

Anna, now 38, filled us in.

When did you first start to notice pressure mounting from your big Instagram following that relied on frequent postings?

At first, it felt like an extension of what I had already been doing for a few years on our blog. I loved styling, creating and connecting with others. I would say the pressure had always been there to some extent. When numbers are inherently connected with the measure of how your business is growing, it is impossible not to feel

the pressure to keep up. There was a year, though, when I went through a really hard loss and was going through depression. I could not keep up, and Instagram felt like such a harsh contrast to what I was experiencing in my own life. That is when things started to shift.

How can Instagram disrupt family life or warp a mom’s thinking?

Since social media is relatively new to our culture, I don’t think anyone could see the effects at first. It is clear by statistics now being revealed, though, how it can cause anxiety, depression and even attention deficit problems in both youth and adults. For me, I started to see the fine line blur between creating and designing as a job and presenting a false reality. It caused a big shift in conscience for me, and I started to slowly shift what and how I shared.

What empowered you to take a stance?

I had been a part of Instagram since the very beginning. I was already a blogger, and it was exciting to find this easier way to reach our community. A few years later, we signed with a well-known agency to help manage the business side of working with brands. This was what allowed us to treat In Honor Of Design more like a growing

The unhealthy side became clear when we had to rely on metrics and numbers to put a value on everything we shared. Brands want to know your numbers and stats in order to put a dollar amount on what they think your work is worth. When you are the face of your brand, and your presence online relies on its success, it can easily start to mess with your mental health. There was no true break from the job; there was pressure to never take days off since it affected our engagement rate. There was also a pressure to post consistently and often. Any artist, designer or creator will tell you that you cannot force or rush creativity. As a mother, I was having very long, hard days with little ones. It felt impossible to create some days.

It was this burnout that helped me decide to create some Instagram boundaries. God had been working on my own deep-rooted belief that I needed to be productive in order to see myself as valuable. Gabe has always been immensely supportive. We had several conversations about how to create a healthier balance. I wrote out guidelines that helped us define what we wanted for our business and family life.

Looking back, do you wish you had reached that point sooner?

business and job. At first, it was exciting to be able to see our platform grow by doing something we really loved. It allowed my husband and I to start working together in a way that used both of our skill sets. It also gave us more opportunities to spend time with our kids which was a big motivating factor for owning our own business.

Yes. While I am a perfectionist in my work, I am very much a laid-back mom. I didn’t like how the two were merging into what felt like trying to perfect scenes of a messy real life. It can be a benefit to push yourself hard when you are designing a room for someone else, but not if you are documenting your own life.

I also think it can be harmful to other moms to present only the beautiful sides. Beauty and order have their place and desiring that in our homes is not wrong. However, there is also so much good in knowing you

we wouldn’t be able to take risks in other areas. We took the leap once we had other streams of revenue coming in and have made it work since.

You’ve since turned down a number of lucrative Instagram partnerships because they’re not the best for your family.

Being happy with our job, being loyal to our community and staying healthy and whole is what we consider success. God has always blessed what we feel has been the little time that we have to offer in between raising a big family. When we do have a partnership come our way in the home renovation and design space, we make it count!

Were some of those deals hard to decline?

aren’t alone in the very hard parts of the journey where nothing is pretty. I started to crave that for myself, and I knew other moms must be experiencing it too.

How did you and Gabe decide to pivot? You had to develop other sources of revenue, right?

I started to shift the content we shared, but also took a step back from the amount we shared online. We no longer work with an agency, and we use Instagram part time as compared to full time. We focused more on quality over quantity and continued to connect with our audience in a way that feels genuine to who we are.

We started to focus on growing other means of income that have more longevity opportunity. For instance, we decided to take the leap and start our own online shop, Maris Home. We also hope to start offering design services for other people. We’re hopeful we can continue to shift towards streams of revenue that don’t rely on us being online all of the time.

Was it scary to make this shift? Was the biggest fear financial?

Absolutely. When we first walked away from being fulltime content creators, it felt really scary. There were many unknowns. We knew if we couldn’t get out of the time-consuming, mind-consuming rut,

For me, there is always peace when you are following an order of priorities in your life. When a partnership felt like a stretch in any way, I trusted the “no.” Many times, a better opportunity and fit would soon follow.

Is it working out?

Yes! I thank God daily for keeping us in a place of dependency on him. We have had so many unexpected medical, car and life expenses—and somehow we are always able to cover the expenses. I have learned that if I offer God our time and talents, He will provide the fruits. Granted, this has come after years of hard work to grow In Honor Of Design, but I know the opportunities to work and grow our family are fruits of His providence.

There is so much good in knowing you aren’t alone in the very hard parts of the journey where nothing is pretty.

Is there a carry-over here, a broader reminder that you should trust in yourself and what’s best for you and not worry too much about what others think?

I would be lying if I said I didn’t care about what others think. I am a former people pleaser who has had to do a lot of inner work to quiet the voices in my head questioning what others will think about what we do

Scholarships for unplugging

Franciscan University of Steubenville launched a pilot scholarship this school year called the “Unplugged Scholarship,” which awards financial assistance to students who give up using a smartphone for the duration of their undergraduate studies.

“This scholarship will help free our students to focus on the heart of formation: relationship with the Lord and each other,” said Franciscan University Vice President of Advancement Bob Hickey. “As our scriptural theme this year reminds us, we are called to freedom to ‘serve one another through love.’”

A small group of alumni initiated the Unplugged Scholarship, which has raised over $3 million, to foster a community of academic excellence, friendship and spiritual growth.

“We need to find ways to reclaim what it means to be human, to live out the adventure of life to the full and to more fully embrace our God-made world, rather than this manmade, artificial one,” said Hope Schneir, who married an FUS alum. “We hope these brave students pioneer an unplugged lifestyle that carries into their vocations as businesspersons, educators, religious leaders, medical professionals, mothers and fathers, and that they might be free and more capable to make their lives ‘something beautiful for God.’”

and share. We chose an unconventional career and parenthood path in some ways by sharing the yoke in all areas of life. We didn’t have many people to look to who have walked a similar path. We started reading the letters from Saints Louis and Zelie Martin and were shocked by similarities in our lives. It gave us so much encouragement to keep our eyes on God and each other to discern what was best for our family.

Does this feel like one of the harder tests you’ve faced in your career in the past five years?

I think the hardest part has always been to stay present to my most important vocation: being a mother. When we decided to cut back on our

Coordinators of the scholarship were surprised by the student response. Nearly 170 students applied for the $150,000 pilot phase of the Unplugged Scholarship. Thirty students each received $5,000 in tuition assistance for the 2022–23 academic year. Nearly 50 additional student applicants chose to give up their smartphones and participate even without receiving financial assistance.

All 80 participants meet as a group called “Humans Engaging Reality” to reflect on their smartphone-free experiences.

“There have been some funny stories shared, like getting lost in an airport and needing to ask a real person for directions,” said Tim Delaney, Franciscan University executive director of Alumni and Constituent Relations. “Other stories were more heartfelt. One shared about how giving up his smartphone is helping in the struggle with pornography. Another student shared about being diagnosed with depression and anxiety, only to have both disappear soon after she gave up her smartphone!”

“When I first heard about this Unplugged Scholarship my immediate reaction was, ‘Awesome!’” said scholarship recipient Mary Saarinen, a senior theology major from Laurel, Md. “This scholarship challenge would push me to be present to the person in front of me, to look up and take in my surroundings as I walk across campus and to detach from the need to entertain myself whenever I feel like it.”

work time, I noticed an immediate improvement in being able to be present to the emotional needs of my children.

I feel loyal to our online community and hate letting people down if I cannot respond to messages or share consistently. However, I want our children to know deep within them that they always come first. We put our work away as soon as they get home from school.

Off limits

In her latest book, I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet, the bestselling Christian author Shauna Niequist explores the tolls of extended social-media use.

“As the number of people connecting with my social media grew, things began to feel very loud. I’m not at all sure we’re meant to be interacting with and handling the feelings of so many people,” she writes. “The sheer volume of voices is too much for most of us, if we’re honest. It’s like standing in the center of a packed stadium every single day and expecting the constant noise and jostling not to take their toll on your spirit.”

Establishing boundaries on social media use has helped, Niequist writes. Some weeks she checks in only on the weekend. “Put down your phone. Delete your apps. Or even just move your social media a few screens back on your phone. I make sure I can text and read a book on the front screen of my phone and that I have to swipe several times to get to social apps,” she writes. “Admit when your most tender or vulnerable times are, and discipline yourself not to open yourself up to social media in those moments. For me, that’s when I’m in bed. On the one hand, I’m sleepy and cozy and I want to scroll through and see what my friends’ cute kids are up to. On the other hand, why on earth would I allow thousands of strangers’ opinions to visit me while I’m in my pajamas? It’s insane what we’re allowing into our lives.”

What you’re fighting against is disintegration—when social-media posts don’t match reality. That’s what the theology of the body teaches: that the body, mind and soul are interconnected, that we are meant to be integrated. How has your understanding of the theology of the body influenced your thinking on this?

My mom and dad introduced these truths of being a beloved daughter of God at a young age, with continued conversations on TOB as teens. It helped give me the confidence to walk against the grain knowing that I would be much happier following the path God had designed for me. I have to still practice this walk of faith knowing that how and what I share will be very different than the majority of the culture.

It would be easier some days to stay in the nice escape of designing spaces. However, I know the ordinary is where God dwells. He finds us in the repetition when no one else is watching. He meets us in both the joys and sorrows of nurturing our children. He lives in our children and in our spouses. These are the relationships that require the most energy and effort but reap an indescribable amount of love.

Do you share TOB tidbits with your kids?

Yes. I try to pass along the same truths my parents gave me so that their identity is formed in Christ rather than what the world thinks.

What advice would you give a well-intentioned Catholic who has suddenly found herself in the thick of social media, trying to feed the monster and produce new content often and feeling the toll it’s taking?

It can help so much to physically write out your boundaries. How much time do you want to spend on the app? What hours? What are your goals of sharing?

It also helps reviewing who you are following. I love to follow accounts that are inspiring but also funny or real about life. It encourages me. I actually don’t scroll or watch stories much anymore because I know after a certain amount of time, no matter what I consume, I start to feel drained. Recognizing my limits and setting boundaries accordingly helped me tremendously! It is possible to have a more balanced use of social media if we are honest with ourselves about how we use it.

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Catch the Liesemeyers behind the scenes on Instagram stories, @inhonorofdesign , and read their blog on inhonorofdesign.com , where they share their newest venture, Maris Home, curated art collections and prints.

Recognizing my limits and setting boundaries accordingly helped me tremendously!

The awe of the ‘Special 15’

by Lindsay Caron

When Catholics receive Holy Communion at Mass, we believe that Jesus is really, truly and substantially present (body, blood, soul and divinity) in the Eucharist and that the Real Presence of Jesus remains in our bodies for about 15 minutes (until fully digested). I call those minutes the “Special 15” and have found that a little focus on this time can help your child to make connections between the holiness of Jesus’ body and his or her own body.

Many children who are old enough receive Holy Communion once a week. How can we make those 15 minutes more intentional since Jesus is physically present and alive within them in a very special way?

Here are a few suggestions to maximize this time:

Suggestion 1—Instead of rushing out right after Mass ends, stay in your pew for a few quiet moments of prayer, explaining to your children that this is a very special time to talk to Jesus in their hearts because He is physically present within them. This is a wonderful way to develop a habit of expressing gratitude for what you have just experienced together as a family and helping your little ones to grow comfortable in sharing their thoughts with Jesus while He is still physically within them.

Suggestion 2—Visit with parishioners about the Special 15 after Mass.

Be intentional about your conversations with fellow parishioners after Mass. Let your child tell them about the Special 15 and maybe even share about how Jesus moved in their body and soul after receiving Holy Communion. Your daughter might share something simple such as, “Jesus asked me to be helpful to my brothers today.” You can ask her later to think more about a concrete action that would correspond well to this prompt from Jesus. Remind your kids that Jesus has no hands and feet

on Earth anymore and that we are his hands and feet now. Consuming Jesus in the Eucharist gives him direct access to guide our hands and feet if we only let him.

Suggestion 3—Stopping for donuts? Pray over your donut first!

If you have a normal post-Mass stop at the donut shop, grab your coffee and donuts and find a table. But instead of digging in immediately, pause to say a quick prayer, such as, “Jesus, thank you for letting us consume you, the most perfect food for our body and soul. And thank you for the blessing of treats after Mass. We love you. Amen.” The point is to develop awareness of his special presence, not perfection in prayer. Remind your kids that Jesus remains alive in our souls even after the Special 15. What a gift!

Suggestion 4—Encourage your children to draw or journal about how they can be Jesus’ hands and feet today.

Later in the day, ask your child if Jesus revealed anything about how he or she could love or serve today. If your child didn’t sense anything, that’s okay. But you might hear something like, “I feel like I’m supposed to help my sister with her math facts so you don’t always have to.” Let him or her journal about this act of service quickly—a line or two is enough. Or your child could draw what this looks like and hang the drawing up at home for the day (or week).

Connecting the presence of Jesus in their bodies will gradually help them see their own bodies as holy when they act as the hands and feet of Jesus, whether during the Special 15 or anytime.

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

FEMININE FIERCE

How Samantha Kelley brings theology of the body to female athletes

Samantha Kelley first made a name for herself by playing Division I Soccer at UConn. She has since spent 12 years working for Catholic nonprofits and reaching out to female athletes. Her discovery of the theology of the body changed everything, illuminating what it means to be both feminine and athletic. Kelley founded FIERCE Athlete Inc. in 2016 to share those truths with female athletes and women across the world. It has since served thousands of female athletes—leading clinics and retreats, engaging podcast listeners and mentoring girls and young women. Kelley is now 33, living in Conshohocken, Pa., and serving as FIERCE’s president.

There was a sadness that came with ending that chapter in my life because it was something that made me the person I am today, although I struggled with my identity as an athlete. That said, I am now very rooted in my identity as a daughter of God. My passion for sport shifted into a passion for my faith, and especially a passion for sharing my faith through the context of sport.

What would’ve helped you as an athlete that didn’t exist then?

There are so many good things about sport, but sport can also be wounding in a lot of ways. In the Catholic Church we do a great job talking about spiritual health, but we are a body-soul unity as human persons. What I do with my body affects my soul and what I do with my soul affects my body. There weren’t really any resources about body health and maintaining a good life balance, a good active healthy lifestyle and how that could then aid my spiritual life. This is why I am thrilled to be releasing a FIERCE Forever course to help female athletes transition out of college or professional sports and to root them in their identity as daughters of God.

How do you define femininity?

This is one of my favorite questions to answer and really part of the kerygma [a Greek word meaning proclamation] of FIERCE athletes. I had always believed a lie that I wasn’t feminine because I was 6 feet tall, muscular and athletic. I didn’t necessarily fit the mold of what a lot of people would define as a feminine woman. This was definitely the influence of the culture, and it’s even more exacerbated since the introduction of social media.

What the Church teaches and what I came to realize was that the body reveals the soul. So when we look at masculinity and femininity, it is revealed through the body. We look at the sexual difference and the sexual act, we see men are external, they are the one who gives, and they lay down their lives for their bride. They sacrifice themselves for their bride. So the highest expression of masculinity is sacrifice. The perfect model of this is Christ. This is why young boys often love superheroes and war movies.

Femininity, revealed through the female body in the sexual act, involves receptivity and an ability to bear forth life. Our perfect model of this is the Blessed Mother. We see her receptivity in the annunciation to God and that she bears forth the life of Christ. We also see, in the height of her suffering, her receptivity beautifully expressed at the foot of the cross. In the height of her suffering, the Lord asked her one more thing: to receive us all as her children, to become our mother.

In the context of sport, I came to realize that every time I play my sport, every time I work out, I am being receptive. I am being receptive to pain and suffering, and I am able to offer that as a gift and a prayer. If I am playing a team sport, I’m being receptive to my teammates on a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual level.

Then in my own unique way I am able to bear forth life in how I play and how I honor the Lord. This truth of femininity helps us realize that every woman is unique and has her own expression of that receptivity and femininity. So the lie that I wasn’t feminine was just that—a lie. The fact that I was created as a woman makes me feminine. I am feminine in my whole being. I can reject that, but I cannot deny that truth and that existence.

Was it tough to transition out of sports after being a D-1 soccer player for UConn?

What are the toughest issues facing female athletes today?

Many issues female athletes face come down to a lack of knowing who they are as daughters of God. So at FIERCE Athlete we start there. You are more than your performance, your coaches’ opinions of you, your parents’ opinion of you, how you look, your wins and losses. At the end of the day, the Lord just loves you for you—not for what you do or what you look like.

The lack of understanding of who I am leads to a whole slew of issues within female athletics. We see mental-health struggles, anxiety which can come from the pressures of a performance-based mentality. We see a lot of body dissociation and body shame. Sixty-four percent of female athletes have some level of disordered eating. In today’s play-hard-party-hard sports culture, we see high levels of promiscuity and drinking. Within female athletics specifically, we see a high level of samesex attraction.

How do you explain that?

There are a lot of reasons behind this, whether it be abuse, confusion or cultural pressure. Women athletes spend a lot of time together, and when we connect emotionally with other people, sometimes our sexuality is ignited and we don’t know what to do with that in a culture that says attraction equals sexual attraction. Our current culture also pushes us to sexually experiment.

What inspired you to found FIERCE?

FIERCE Athlete was God’s call. He asked me to start this. The three things that were on my heart were female athletics, femininity and the theology of the body. Especially while learning about TOB, I recognized all of the issues that I was facing while mentoring women in sport. So much of the confusion these women were struggling with and the lies they were believing could be answered with the antidote of TOB—understanding the human person, the goodness of the body, what is true femininity, what is true sexuality. FIERCE was formed in order to promote true identity and femininity within the realm of female athletics, so that we could change the toxic culture of confusion that exists.

Can you share a specific impetus or moment when you knew you had to do it?

I was at the Given Women’s Forum in 2016. We had to come up with an action plan. I thought I was going to write a Bible study based on the theology of the body for female athletes. While in prayer during that week, the Lord began to ask more and more of me. He revealed to

me that while there were many great organizations out there for athletes, none of them were female-specific and admittedly none of them were willing to talk about the hard issues. I saw a need, and I looked at how the Lord had equipped me, as a former Division 1 athlete, but also a missionary who had received a master’s in psychology as well as a certification in strength and conditioning. I saw the Lord brought those pieces together and humbly He asked, and I naively said yes. But He has been here every step of the way.

What have you learned from founding and running this org?

Whenever the Lord asks us to do something, it is first and foremost for our own sanctification, secondarily it is for those we serve. During the first two years of forming this non-profit, I worked for the Theology of the Body Institute, and the Lord really took that time to form me in the depths of this teaching. I am a doer, but He took those two years to teach me how to receive. If the height of my femininity is my receptivity and that is what I am going to be preaching, He had to break my productivity mentality even in regard to mission. He had to teach me

BIG PLANS

Kelley just released a book titled “Be Fierce: The Athlete’s Guide to Growing Physically, Spiritually and Mentally.” She’s launching a FIERCE parent program and a new branch called FIERCE Coach course. “In terms of long-term vision,” Kelley said, “I envision a FIERCE sports complex. And we’re going to have a presence at the 2026 Olympics as well as the 2028 Olympics in LA. We have a lot coming down the road!”

how to be receptive to Him first and foremost for my own heart, but also for this mission and what it would become. He taught me this lesson of femininity and I have learned to trust his providence. I see my own weakness on a daily basis and am humbled that He knew those things and He still chose me to run this organization.

What happens when an athlete places her identity in being a daughter of God?

Freedom. The freedom to love herself. The freedom to know that her identity is not based on her performance, or others’ opinion of her, or how she looks. The freedom to play her sport to the fullest of her potential. When you realize your daughterhood in God, then you realize everything that the Lord has done for you in giving you salvation through his incarnation, his death, and his Resurrection. The response then is one of gratitude. You begin using your athletic abilities to thank the Lord for giving them to you. You focus on being the hardest working, the most virtuous, the most kind. I always tell my athletes, “People should look at you and without you ever talking to them they should know that you are a Christian. They should see that there’s something different about you, because they see the passion and the hard work in which you play your sport and in which you compose yourself is not rooted in pride. There’s nothing like playing free.”

When were you introduced to St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body?

I had a spiritual director when I was a missionary with FOCUS who encouraged me to go to a Theology of the Body Institute Level 1 course. I did that back in 2015. That week was the second stage of my reversion. The first stage started when I was in college and had a radical encounter with Christ in the Eucharist. I felt like my eyes were opened to Jesus and He spoke to everything I was facing in my own heart, which led to me becoming a FOCUS missionary.

My return to the faith changed my life. It led to a true understanding of my femininity. It led to a love of my body. It led to a love and freedom in my sexuality. It led to a lifting of much shame I had felt surrounding those areas of my life. Ultimately, it led to a deeper encounter with our Lord, and I began to view the world in a new way, as a sacramental gift.

How do young female athletes tend to respond to TOB when introduced to it?

Very positively. You see them receive it, almost as a relief. You see a deeper self-acceptance and a deeper self-love. It allows women to combat the lies being taught to them by this culture and accept themselves as a holy, Catholic yet FIERCE women. Because you can be both. I like to think of the Blessed Mother as our fierce model: She crushes the head of Satan with her bare foot and yet she’s also the most tender woman to have ever lived.

I love that you provide physical and spiritual coaching—from food recommendations to fatigue management tips to spiritual inspiration. Can you speak to this?

When I work with women, we make sure that they are growing in all three of those ways. We make sure they know their bodies are something to honor. The No. 1 stress reliever is sleep, and I believe that is of utmost importance to maintain a healthy life balance.

Let’s

talk about comparison. Do women seem more prone to this?

Women do seem more prone to comparison, especially in the world of social media and the need to always display your best self. You see women compare themselves to other women’s “perfect life’’ when they themselves are struggling. Within the context of sport there’s also the sense of comparison—athletes naturally do this with others who play their position or if there is an athlete they wish they could be or could beat.

But we are unique and unrepeatable. It would be a disservice to the world if we became somebody else because we are all made in God’s image and likeness, and we all uniquely reveal something about God that nobody else does—how we look, our hopes, our dreams, our desires, our mission and how we play our sport.

Even if you have two people who play the same position, they have their own nuances. While it’s good to have role models who inspire us to embody qualities that others possess, we never want to lose who we are. We want to be the person that God created us to be.

Comparison can lead to a false competition. The world says that competition is beating those around you to get ahead. But true competition is hoping that those around you show up and play the best that they can because that is going to make you a better person. This has a parallel to the spiritual life. A lot of women compare themselves on a spiritual level—for example, that woman is holier than I am. It’s not about that comparison. It’s about inspiring each other to walk in holiness, inspiring each other to grow.

Scrutiny of a female athlete’s body is so tough. How do you encourage young women feeling pressured to lose weight?

This is a big issue. I’ve heard very wounding comments made by coaches to athletes about body fat percentage, about weight, about this false notion that lighter means faster. I would argue that stronger means faster. We have to come back to the truth that we are beautiful and created very good as we are.

If losing a little bit of weight is going to help take care of our bodies as a temple and live a healthier lifestyle,

then OK. If we are just trying to cut weight in order to cut time, or because we think there’s something to fix about ourselves, or we believe that we’re too fat or ugly, there’s disorder there.

Proper fueling is important. Our bodies need to be nourished, they need to be upheld and unfortunately, too often we see women struggling with this. They stop eating, and as a result, their performance actually dips rather than if they took a more balanced approach. If you are in a sport like long-distance running or lightweight rowing and your menstrual periods stop or become infrequent or irregular, you need to talk to someone about that because that points to unhealthiness in the body that can sometimes cause long-term health complications.

gratification, in order to present yourself as cool or beautiful, that’s vain. If you’re posting to inspire or motivate or bring people joy, then there’s something different there. If I’m working with high-school aged women, then I strongly encourage them not to be on social media.

As you get older, I believe some of it can be used for good, but it has to be in moderation.

You get amazing feedback from athletes. Some have said you articulated things they didn’t realize they were struggling with. What does that tell you?

The Holy Spirit is real, and what we’re doing is needed. The goal at FIERCE is to put language to some of the struggles that athletes are dealing with, to help athletes heal, to help them realize what they are going through. Then we give them the tools to become more integrated and encounter Christ deeper, to live more freely. We seek things that are true to the human soul. It’s just about revealing the truth of who they are and how God created them. We give women permission to be themselves. We give them tools to fight the culture, and we journey with them toward healing and integration.

Tell me about your offerings—clinics, speaking, coaching and retreats. What’s your most popular one?

How does

prayer

sustain a young woman facing so many pressures?

Prayer has to be the life blood. Having a daily prayer time to intimately encounter the living God changes everything. This helps women to stay rooted in their identity but also to stay strong.

Does FIERCE address social media use?

We do. I think this is one of the biggest factors contributing to mental-health issues, self-hate and body shaming. I was looking at one of the top athletes in the country’s Instagram and you would think it would be pictures of her playing her sport, but instead it was mostly pictures of her posing in a bikini. What is happening within that woman’s heart that she feels she has to pose in that way or present herself in that way when she is already so beautifully known for her gift?

It’s a very sad reality.

I encourage social media fasts and also a limit of 15 minutes a day on social media. I challenge women on why they are posting. If you’re posting a picture to seek

Our clinics are one of my favorite things to do, whether it be at a school or hosting them independently in different regions. Part is conditioning—we’re teaching women how to incorporate their faith into their work-out. We’re also giving talks and we have small groups, time for confession, Mass and healing prayer.

Another one of my favorite things is one-on-one mentorships. I get to journey with women on a deep level and help them grow.

What has surprised you about this whole endeavor?

Most surprising to me is both how hard it has been and how rewarding. I said yes to starting this without having any concept of what launching a non-profit was or would take. I quit my job at 29 without any stable income. But the conviction I had—in order to first start this and then go full-time into this ministry two years later—vastly outweighed any fear or hesitancy because God asked.

God has asked me to share his love with the world and a particular population that I know so well and that I have a heart for. I have been humbled by the people I’ve met across the world, to journey alongside them and through the power of Christ to help them heal. There’s nothing more rewarding and nothing more humbling than that.

Finding Monica

The behind-the-scenes experience that led to a powerful new book

by Roxane B. Salonen

Initially, St. Monica wasn’t journeying closely with us. Oh, she was probably there all along, waiting quietly for us to notice her, but we were focused on other things.

Eventually, we began to notice her presence along the path of our friendship. It was a sublime reckoning among two North Dakota Catholic mothers of a comrade in heaven who understood—and offered a way through—our shared pain.

The earthly “we” here includes Patti Armstrong and me, co-authors of a new book that resulted from this divine disruption: What Would Monica Do?; a project that depended on the palpable presence of one mother saint whose own sorrow, and hope, met with ours.

WHY ST. MONICA?

Most Catholics know at least a little about St. Monica, the 4th century mother who cried for 17 years after her son, Augustine, left the Catholic faith, joined a New Agelike religion, and came home with a girlfriend and child born out of wedlock. And who hasn’t heard of that son, and his famous conversion, along with his well-known utterance, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee”?

At the point at which we began to reveal to one another— hesitantly at first—that we also had children who’d strayed, we, too, only had a rudimentary knowledge of St. Monica. But as we started to swap prayer request for our families, we began yearning to know more about her and how she’d navigated through her sorrow day to day.

Of our 10 combined children, not all are away from the faith, just as St. Monica’s other two children

Roxane B. Salonen Patti Armstrong

remained faithful. But as this mother persisted in her prayers that Augustine would awaken from his worldly stupor, we learned we could not let this topic go, nor our prayers. And as Monica’s insertion into our friendship began to bring hope, we yearned for others to experience the same.

SURPRISED BY GOD

With most projects, the writer begins with a thought that develops into more than could have been known at the beginning. Part of the discovery of what the work means in God’s economy becomes apparent only in the doing.

This project, too, began in our minds as a book about our children leaving the faith. But in time, we realized it was more about our own increased need for God. In this suffering, we were humbled in ways we hadn’t imagined. And there, we found God calling us more deeply into his Sacred Heart.

Waiting and praying with Mary

It reminded me of the theology of the body, which asserts our central identity: who I am and whose I am— a beloved daughter of God. Secure in that knowledge, it was easier to move forward.

We discovered, too, that not everything about this cross is heavy, even naming a chapter, “It’s Not All Bad.” There were treasures awaiting us as we recalled our own great need for a savior in hoping our children would rediscover him. Learning this sorrow required greater trust and surrender—and relinquishing of control of our children—as we claimed a new mindset, focused solely on the eternal view.

SURPRISED BY OTHERS

We finished writing on the Feast of St. Monica, Aug. 27, 2021—not realizing it until later in the day. Just as providentially, perhaps, after many production delays, our book was put off from its original release date until her feast day a year later.

And so it was that What Would Monica Do? made its debut on Aug. 27, 2022—the same day my son Adam and his

As our children grow into adulthood, our instructive words to them become fewer and our prayers deeper than when they were smaller and nearer. In our increasing surrender, and in our soul’s quieting to make room for God’s plan, we see a parallel in our movements to that of Mary, who “kept all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51). Monica fled to the churches, in the places where she wept to bring her cares before the Lord, and in doing so, undoubtedly passed by statues of Our Blessed Mother. Weeping before God in the sanctuary, she likely rested at the foot of Our Lady, seeking solace in this feminine soul, one that Josef Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, described as “the holy soil of the Church.”

In the book he wrote with Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mary: The Church at the Source, Ratzinger says that “Mary makes herself entirely available as soil; she lets herself be used [brauchen] and used up, in order to be transformed into the One who needs [braucht] us in order to become the fruit of the earth.”

We, too, offer ourselves for our children, allowing ourselves to be used by God, and “used up,” in a sense, in order that our children would seek heaven with us. Even as Monica’s tears were watering the soil beneath her, so was the earth being refreshed by her tears to bring new life, just as Mary’s sorrows made way for the Resurrection. In a similar way, our grief at feeling the distance between our children and the Church can become an offering to God that, in time, can bear fruit.

This excerpt from chapter 38 of What Would Monica Do? is reprinted with permission.

This project began in our minds as a book about our children leaving the faith. But in time, we realized it was more about our own increased need for God.

bride, Victoria, were married at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Fargo, N.D., just days before my 54th birthday.

But that’s just a glimpse of the blessings that have poured forth. Months before the book’s release, we decided to start a Facebook group for parents going through this same heartache: “Catholic Parents: What Would Monica Do?” We’d been praying for our future readers throughout the writing and didn’t want to wait to meet them. Theology of the Body asks us to make a gift of ourselves. This felt like an opportunity to do that.

As people began finding our group, we discovered how wide and deep the wound we’d helped reveal truly is. It quickly became about more than a book but also sharing our hearts with, and praying for, others. We weren’t experts telling people what to do but simply fellow parents who can’t be at rest until our hearts’ desires have been fulfilled, just like St. Monica.

The day one of the mothers posted to our group about her son’s suicide, crying out for prayers, I wept. “You are doing more here than I could have realized, Lord,” I said through my tears. I realized what we’d begun was becoming a ministry. Perhaps the greatest gift is to realize that God has allowed us to bring our suffering into a place where it can be a salve to others. And through communion with them, they are inevitably helping us.

We’ve also discovered our book isn’t just for parents, but also grandparents, godparents, siblings, aunts and uncles. Though our target readership is parents with wayward children, we’ve also heard from younger parents who’ve been inspired. One grandmother shared

that in confession, her priest gave her the penance of “Say two Hail Marys, then go buy the book What Would St. Monica Do? ” She did and reported that it was one of the most meaningful books she’d ever read, giving her profound consolation.

STORIES, NOT A CHECKLIST

What Would Monica Do? isn’t a biography about St. Monica nor a checklist of things guaranteeing your child a spot in heaven. Rather, it’s written in the spirit of St. Monica, with whom we check in throughout. In between those taps are real-life stories of others enduring similar hardship, inspiring words from spiritual guides, reasons for today’s tsunami of faith abandonment, Scripture to bolster our hope and a steadfast promise that we’re not alone, that God is drawing us closer through our suffering.

Neither of us could have written this book singularly. Its inception began with a relationship, a conversation between two mothers yearning for a soft ear over something hard, and how St. Monica joined our quest to seek God’s will in that hardship. It had to happen through walking together, with St. Monica, with many other saints in heaven joining in.

Primary among them, and most beautifully, is Our Lady of Sorrows, who knows intimately what pierces our hearts, she who carried the ultimate antidote of our grief in the depths of her womb.

St. Monica, pray for us!

To buy a copy of “What Would Monica Do?” visit www.ascensionpress. com/monica or your local Catholic bookstore.

The Potter knows what He has made

by Katie Lovett

Becoming a big sister was a major deal for my younger sister. For her, the day the new baby came would be a momentous occasion. She even had a list of demands.

“It has to be a girl,” she said.

“You don’t get to choose,” my mother replied. “It is what it is, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“You can,” my sister insisted. “If it’s a boy, just put it back in until it turns into a girl!”

My mother threw her head back and laughed. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“But why?”

Our culture struggles with the same “why.” And just like my sister, there are demands. Choice! they cry. Gender is too important to leave to nature or chance! They even have a solution: surgically removing their gendered body parts and reconstructing other parts to replace them. (And you thought shoving a boy back in until it becomes a girl was drastic!)

Biology tells us that no man-made procedure can change a person’s sex. But the culture’s transgender obsession seems here to stay, so it’s prudent to answer my sister’s question. Why can’t you remake a human person into the gender you please? Why can’t time and human hands wrangle nature into what we desire it to be?

The answer is simple, really. Processes devised by finite human minds cannot alter the Infinite’s wise and beautiful plan for human nature. Time, no matter how much passes, cannot turn boys into girls. We are not formed by the hands of time. We are formed by the hands of a Divine Potter shaping clay.

A potter knows what he has made. He has given it a purpose, fusing function and beauty out of what was once formless clay. It is no use for the apprentice to wish for a cup instead of a plate. The apprentice cannot put a

plate back in the kiln and wait until it becomes what he desires. The potter has a plan, and woe to any apprentice who believes himself wiser than the master!

And wouldn’t it be a tragic waste for the apprentice to smash that plate to smithereens and glue its pieces into a cup-like shape? No matter how hard he tries, that plate will never be a cup, but a misshapen dish—a plate re-constructed in a way the potter never intended.

Our God is a master Potter, and He knows what He has made. Yet our culture asks us to disbelieve Him and reject the Biblical revelation. We are asked to believe that when enough time passes, a boy can become a girl simply by desiring it. We are commanded to call “normal” these misshapen re-constructions of the Potter’s masterpieces.

Time and human intervention, the culture claims, will give us the perfection we seek. And somehow, we are willing to try it. But women do not shove their children back in the womb until they become the desired sex. Of course that sounds ridiculous. It sounds like what it is—a 21st-century attempt to be “like god,” determining the very nature and shape of the clay on our own.

But we cannot determine anything for we are not the potters.

We are dishes formed by a Master who hollows out in us a space into which He pours his grace. We are made to hold the love, life, and breath of God—to be signs of that love, life, and breath in our male and female bodies. It is not a choice...it is an honor.

(And just in case you were wondering, the new baby turned out to be a girl after 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.

Is there a masculine genius?

Insights into the complementarity of man and woman

When St. John Paul II wrote his Apostolic Letter On the Dignity and Vocation of Women in 1988, he introduced into Catholic tradition an entirely new category in the Church’s understanding of the human person: the socalled “feminine genius.” In that document, the pope declares that woman’s genius is expressed in her unique yet natural tendency to attend, above all, to persons. He argues that this genius is grounded in the fact that all women possess the capacity to be mothers in either a physical or spiritual sense. And it is a quality that is found most perfectly in Mary, the Mother of God.

This has led to new insights and a great deal of faithful reflection on the significance and place women occupy in both the Church and society. The genius of women, as well as John Paul’s teaching on the complementarity that characterizes the relationship of man and woman, have become an integral part of Catholic doctrine. Most recently, Pope Francis has called for a “theology of women,”

• By Deborah Savage, Ph.D.

reflecting the Church’s ongoing concern for these questions and her wish to affirm the contributions of women to community life.

This is all to the good. But it seems time to ask the obvious question: Is there not also a masculine “genius”? And if so, what might that be?

First, let’s be clear—there most definitely is a masculine genius. We witness it every day in the presence of fathers in family life and the contributions made by men of all ages to our communities. What is missing is a deeper understanding of what that genius really is and where it originates. A look at Genesis 2 can be helpful here.

Man attends to things

Initially, we note that man encounters God first and is alone with Him in the Garden for some time, something that has implications for man’s role as head of the family. But also notable is that man’s first contact with reality is

clearly of a horizon that otherwise contains only lower creatures, what we might call “things”; this is what leads God to conclude that the man is alone and ultimately leads to the building of woman.

But in the first instance, man is surrounded by the “things” God has made and then tasked with naming all the creatures God brings him as they search for a suitable partner for him. It is in naming them that he takes dominion over them. St. Thomas Aquinas went so far as to argue that Adam must have received a distinct preternatural gift—a special kind of infused knowledge—which made it possible for him to name the goods of creation. It is here that we find the source and proper context of man’s well documented (and often ridiculed) natural tendency to attend to things. It is found in the Scriptural account of the first man. And it is his special genius.

to her authentic good and in their joint mission to have dominion over all the earth.

A different focus

Now certainly St. John Paul II is right to declare that the feminine genius is grounded in the fact that woman is meant to be mother. I would argue that there is actually a prior point of departure for that reality, and it is found when we recognize that woman’s first contact with reality is of a horizon that, from the beginning, includes man; that is, it includes persons. Upon seeing Adam, Eve recognizes another like her, an equal, while the other creatures and things around her appear only on the periphery of her gaze.

Even more revealing, it is man who, at Genesis 2:15, is put in the garden to “till it,” well before the fall puts him at odds with creation. This is his work. And his knowledge of “things” serves him well as he goes about his work there.

Thus, to this genius we can credit the survival of the human species, the building up of civilizations and the preservation of families throughout the history of mankind. The radical feminist movement would have you believe otherwise, but the truth is, if it weren’t for men, we would still be living in grass huts. The men in our lives are usually tireless workers (like St. Joseph) who have an amazing gift for taking the gifts of creation and putting them at the service of their families, their communities, the world. They deserve our gratitude and our respect.

But this should not be taken to mean that man is oriented only toward things. When the woman is brought to him, though he also names her, he knows immediately that she is not an object; she is a person. For upon encountering her, he says, “This at last is bones of my bones, flesh of my flesh.” And it is not until this moment, not until his encounter with the woman, that the man knows who he is. It is here the Lord God reveals to both of them the nature of the reciprocal relationship of the gift of self. And man must realize as well that his own gift—that of caring for and using the goods of creation—is a gift to be exercised in service

Thus, in addition to her capacity to conceive and nurture human life, indeed prior to it, woman’s place in the order of creation reveals that, from the beginning, the horizon of all womankind includes persons, includes the other. The genius of woman is found here. While man’s first experience of his own existence is of loneliness, woman’s horizon is different, right from the start. From the first moment of her own reality, woman sees herself in relation to the other. Indeed, with the appearance of woman, human community enters into human history for the first time. Woman’s task is to keep constantly before us the fact that the existence of living persons, whether in the womb or walking around outside of it, cannot be forgotten, while we frantically engage in the tasks of human living. Woman is responsible for reminding us all that all human activity is to be ordered toward authentic human flourishing.

Man may be first in the order of creation—the Genesis text is very clear about that. Man does give woman her place. But without woman, he has no future. Men and women need each other if they are to fulfill their destiny to return all things to Christ.

Of course, we know that the fall changed everything, turning these distinct but essential charisms upside down. Now these two complementary gifts can only reach their fullest expression through the saving action of Christ and participation in the life of grace. But their task must be embraced and pursued. For it is this very complementarity that gives man and woman their mission—which is, as St. John Paul II declares in his Letter to Women, to create not only human families, but human history itself.

Deborah Savage, Ph.D., is a professor of theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville and a recognized scholar on the complementarity of man and woman and on the dignity and vocation of women.

It is man who, at Genesis 2:15, is put in the garden to “till it,” well before the fall puts him at odds with creation. This is his work.

RECLAIMING

MASCULINITY

by Phil Ervin Photos by Sarah Webb

Timeless answers to today’s pressing questions about what it means to be a man

Story

The joy and pain are somehow intertwined in Bill Donaghy’s voice.

When the Pennsylvania dad was 15, his parents filed for divorce. Less than a year later, his father took Bill and his 11-year-old brother on a pilgrimage to Fatima, Portugal, “to heal our family,” Bill said. There, in front of the statue of the Blessed Virgin that stands where she is believed to have appeared, and just about every day before and after that, Bill’s father—also named Bill—grasped his rosary and asked the mother of Jesus to help him save his marriage.

It’s been more than 30 years. Bill’s parents are still divorced.

“We didn’t get that prayer answered,” Bill said, “but I think we got something deeper.”

Not every man receives a happy ending— not on this side of the dirt, at least. But the story, Bill will assure you, isn’t about what happens to that man. It’s not necessarily even about what that man does.

It’s about what he gives.

“Lay down your life,” Bill said, “and you’ll be given it back again.”

Bill had a living model in his own father, a first-generation Scots-Irishman who survived a heart attack at the age of 36 and never wavered in his faith or prayer life following his divorce. The Fatima pilgrimage came in 1986— two years after Pope John Paul II finished delivering his teachings that came to be called the theology of the body.

None of this was a coincidence, said Bill, 53, who works as a senior lecturer and content specialist for the Theology of the Body Institute and lives in Drexel Hill, Pa., with his wife, Rebecca, and four adopted children.

“My dad had that ethic, you know? He embodied it with his Catholic faith—stability, faith, devotion. Throw in going to Fatima, JP2 as the Holy Father, picking up stories of this man who had been shot in 1981 and it was all sort of a double whammy—my father and then the Holy Father both giving me signs of ‘don’t give up, be strong, be stable,’” Bill explained.

As a teenage boy suffering through his parents’ divorce, Bill remembers seeing one of the assassin’s bullets that struck St. John Paul II, encased in the crown of the image of Our Lady of Fatima in the Sanctuary at Fatima. Providentially, not long after his sojourn to Fatima, Bill stood in a North Jersey Catholic bookstore thumbing through one of the initial booklets of the theology of the body entitled, “Original Unity of Man and Woman.”

Bill latched on to the pope’s teaching on how the human body reveals God. Personally, and professionally, he hasn’t let go.

“I picked up some themes and images that were just sort of hauntingly beautiful and positive about sexuality and man and woman and the call to unity,” Bill said. “So here’s my heart, seeing the disunity of my parents and

their divorce, and then I’m reading this beauty about the beginning, God’s plan for men and women and I’m saying to myself, that’s it.”

Bill spent three years discerning the priesthood at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, earning degrees in philosophy and systematic theology. He has gone on to work for the Theology of the Body Institute, Mission Moment and as an adjunct faculty member at Immaculata University in Pennsylvania. He and Chris Stefanick co-authored the popular program “RISE: 30 Day Challenge for Men.”

In a way, the entire journey has been centered on one central question: What does it mean to be a man?

Bill and his brother grew up in South Central New Jersey amid a sprawling wilderness of scrub pine trees, cranberry bogs and blueberry fields. He calls them “the unplugged days”—no smart phones, no internet, just a lot of bike rides, canoe trips and bird watching excursions. The solitude led him to deep prayer and provided a place to reflect upon deep questions.

“Let’s go,” Bill said with fervor when asked to define masculinity through a theology of the body lens. “I love this stuff. And I suck at it sometimes. But I love it.”

Bill breaks it down using the first book in the Bible. In Genesis, Adam—who, for the purposes of this interpretation, represents all males—is tasked with a two-fold mission regarding the Garden of Eden: to protect it and cultivate it.

“My dad had that ethic, you know? He embodied it with his Catholic faith—stability, faith, devotion.”

The Hebrew translation of the Bible uses the words shamar—“to keep, guard, observe, give heed”—and avoda—“to work, worship and service.” Thus, Adam’s mission was to both protect and cultivate the garden.

Every man—single, married or celibate—has a garden to protect and cultivate, Bill explains. An unmarried man has his own natural family and friends. A married man has his wife and children. A priest has his parish or other community of which he’s the spiritual father.

“I use my physiological strength and stature as a male to form a kind of wall to enclose the garden [of my wife and family] … I’m supposed to make sure everyone can feel safe,” Bill said. “Masculinity should exhibit and

exude safety. Guarding the garden, which can literally be your own plot of land, sure, but it’s also the garden of the woman, the garden of the children so that they can flourish and feel protected.”

“And then the cultivator part is really powerful, because physiologically we give a seed from ourselves that brings forth new life. So cultivating means I give myself as a man physiologically in marriage, but it’s also spiritual. It’s emotional. I’m not supposed to be a grasper, taker or appropriator. That’s what actually corrupts the garden rather than cultivates it. So for men, cultivating means we sincerely make a disinterested gift of self. We just give.”

Bill speaks on these topics in his everyday work. He also strives to live out their implications at home.

Bill and Rebecca—who was working at a soup kitchen in Philadelphia when she met her then-former-seminarian, now-husband—lost their only biological child, Gracie, a day after she was born. Complications during the pregnancy meant she wouldn’t survive long.

Every man—single, married or celibate—has a garden to protect and cultivate.

Gracie would have turned 14 this year.

The rest of the Bill’s children are adopted. Seth, Claire, Sheila and Kagan are all from the Philadelphia area. None of them are biologically related. All came from brutal situations and “narrowly escaped” abortion, Bill said.

“It’s amazing, because in my busy life, if I spend like two minutes thinking about each one of my children’s stories, I burst into tears,” Bill said. “Rebecca and I are constantly feeling called to this unconditional love as any parent would be—but like, heaps upon heaps of love and affirmation, because there are deep, deep wounds from their very beginnings.”

Pain. Joy. The mix. Seeing Seth mature into a teenager or 7-year-old Kagan learn to ride a bike has a profound impact against the backdrop of their journey to the Donaghy family.

And there are the usual joys and challenges of child rearing, to boot.

“We rely heavily on strong, dark roast coffee and holy water,” Bill said with a chuckle.

But whether a family has a story as profound and unique as the Donaghys, the fact remains—there are many threats lurking outside a man’s garden in 2023.

violent, unemotional, sexually aggressive, and so forth. Also suggests that men who act too emotional or maybe aren’t violent enough or don’t do all of the things that ‘real men’ do, can get their ‘man card’ taken away.”

Marriage advice from Bill

Bill Donaghy, senior lecturer and content specialist at the Theology of the Body Institute, shares five practical ways a man can tend the garden of his marriage.

1

Keep the flowers fresh. Buy her flowers. A lot. Don’t forget to cut the stems at a 45-degree angle before you put them in the vase. They last longer that way.

2

3

Ask “How was your day?” But don’t just ask. Stand still. Listen. Receive the response. Leadership is listening. So is love.

Keep a fresh gaze. Take a step back and look at your wife every once in a while. Allow yourself to be struck by her beauty the way you were on your wedding day.

4

5

Date night! Make it happen. Monthly is a good starting point.

Regular check-ins. Text. Call. Video chat. Not just about what’s for dinner that night or what’s on the calendar next week. Step away from what you’re doing for 10–15 minutes, look each other in the eye and just be together for a moment. It’s like a mini date night every day.

A WORKING DEFINITION

Urban Dictionary, a crowdsourced online dictionary for slang words and phrases, defines “toxic masculinity” as: “A social science term that describes narrow repressive type of ideas about the male gender role, that defines masculinity as exaggerated masculine traits like being

Guidelines from the American Psychological Association warn against “traditional masculine ideology” and that “masculinities are constructed based on social, cultural and contextual norms.” A 2017 Pew Research study found that 53 percent of Americans “say most people in our society these days look up to men who are manly or masculine,” but that the country’s views are divided along party, gender and racial lines.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary is more straightforward—sort of. Its top definition for “masculine” is “considered to be characteristic of men.”

But even that’s ambiguous. What does it mean to be a man?

In the #MeToo era, it’s a nuanced conversation. It’s possible to agree that the actions of abusive men—sexually or otherwise—should be condemned and perpetrators should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, while also recognizing the natural, observable traits that differentiate men from women. But that’s become dangerous ground in an era of self-definition that prioritizes individual identity over all else.

In any case, you likely won’t hear phrases like “total gift of self” and “protect and cultivate the garden” in any mainstream definition of masculinity.

Taylor Kemp certainly didn’t.

Growing up, the former Major League Soccer player and current director of the Catholic video platform “Formed” wasn’t religious. If he had any belief system, it was centered on the sport to which he had dedicated his life.

“So much of who I was and who I wanted to be depended upon what other people thought of me and said about me,” said Kemp, who made 101 appearances for

D.C. United over six years in MLS. “It was just a tortured way of living. My value was wrapped up in the opinions of others. What are people saying about me on Twitter? How did the film review go on Monday? It was terrible. It created a ton of anxiety, and it was very difficult. I was very selfish and very individualistic.”

He was also addicted to porn.

In college, he was unfaithful to his girlfriend. He didn’t tell her. The couple stayed together while Taylor’s pro career took off. When the idea of marriage started to enter the picture, he knew he couldn’t keep the secret any longer.

“It was absolutely horrible,” Kemp said. “We went through six months of hell putting the pieces back together.”

They almost didn’t make it. Most relationships with this kind of trauma don’t.

But Brittany Kemp was born and raised Catholic. She thought if her now-husband joined the Church, the Holy Spirit could redeem their relationship.

So she signed him up for RCIA and told him when his first class would be.

“I walked in begrudgingly the first night and figured I’d suffer through this, tell her I did my best and then drop out after a month,” said Taylor, 32. “But they started saying some pretty interesting stuff. I’d never heard anyone talk like this about the Gospel or Christ.”

Taylor formally entered the Catholic Church at Easter Vigil Mass in 2016. He and Brittany married not long after. Taylor then spent the final two years of his soccer career soaking in as much theology as he could once his training obligations were fulfilled by 2:30 p.m. every day. That included online studies at the Augustine Institute.

“Adam’s first task in the Garden of Eden in Genesis is to create a hedge around the garden. Eve is the garden. Adam is supposed to protect and provide a place with her where she can flourish. My role as a husband and father is to love and labor in such a way that my wife and girls can flourish.”

Sound familiar?

Addiction to porn, which Taylor overcame after a years-long struggle, is just one tangible attack on authentic masculinity. Another, Bill points out, is contraception.

“The greatest thing I can give, the gift of my seed, the microcosm of me, gets the door slammed in its face [with contraception],” Bill said. And yet virility—the opposite of sterility—comes from the Latin term for “manly character, quality or nature.”

Several key things then happened. In 2017, Kemp had one of the best seasons of his life, earning a call-up to the United States national team. A year later, after injuries officially ended his playing career and he retired from soccer, he and Brittany made the six-week, 500-mile pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in France and Spain. Then, they moved back to their hometown of Denver to help run “Formed,” which is operated by the Augustine Institute.

Taylor’s view of manhood and his own masculinity shifted dramatically during this time.

“I was coming to understand a man’s role is truly to defend all that is good and beautiful in this world,” said Kemp, who now has two daughters—Agnes, 2, and Leonie, 7 months. “That was the biggest shift. I had carried around this assumption that Brittany—and by extension, this world—existed for me, for my well-being so I might feel strong and good and affirmed. It was a paradigm shift of, ‘No, my life needs to be about others.’

A hammer can be used to build or to destroy. But take away its head and it ceases to be a hammer at all.

“We need masculinity, we need virility,” Bill said. “It just has to be self-mastered and given over to the Lord, purified and humanized … but neutralizing it … that is the worst thing we can do.”

Bill offers the idea of a “tonic of masculinity” as opposed to today’s notion of “toxic masculinity.” He believes there could be healing between the sexes if more men opened themselves up to the roles of guardian and defender.

“That’s what a man’s supposed to do: lay down his life,” Bill said. “And when he does, that’s what everybody wants, including women. They want to see a man who’s not a narcissist or an egomaniac, but he’s ready to sacrifice himself for her greater good.”

PROTECTING AND CULTIVATING

Realistically, there’s probably never a good time for a married member of the military to be deployed.

Retired Air Force JAG officer Frank Roberts found this out the hard way, leaving behind his wife, Kaitlyn, who was pregnant with their second of three children, and 2-year-old daughter.

“Change was happening and my priorities needed to shift with the duties I was being called to perform,” said Frank, 33.

Bill offers the idea of a “tonic of masculinity” as opposed to today’s notion of “toxic masculinity.”

Today, Frank lives in Naples, Fla., and works at a private law firm. In his spare time, he chops wood for bonfires from the palm and cypress trees in the back of his property.

But using St. John Paul II’s theology of the body as a guide, the military background and lumberjack tendencies aren’t what make a guy like Frank Roberts masculine. It’s his sense of duty and sacrifice.

The Vatican II document Gaudium et spes proclaims man “cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (GS 24).

loved one or a fellow soldier—to the mundane—sucking up what little energy you have and playing with your kids after a stressful day at the office.

Leadership takes many forms, too. Men don’t have to be in the C-suite or commanding a platoon to lead.

A wise corporate CEO once said, “I never accomplished much as a leader by anything I did or said, but by asking the right questions then listening.”

Bill agrees.

“Otherwise, you become the bulldozer of the family or the workplace,” he said. “And that’s not attractive to anyone.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean passivity. Providing clear direction that delivers results at work—whether you have direct reports or not—is a masculine habit. So is doing the same at home.

Prayer is a great place to fulfill this role, Bill said. Men leading regular prayer in their families can create a spiritual “hedge” around the garden of a man’s wife and kids while also modeling what a relationship with the Loving Trinity looks and sounds like.

There will always be tests. But a true mark of a man’s masculinity is how he responds when the chips are down.

In his military career, Frank sought to make a gift of himself for his country. Now, he seeks to make a gift of himself at home and in the workplace, whether it’s protecting his home and keeping his girls calm during Hurricane Ian—he and his family live several miles inland and were spared from serious damage—or answering their questions about the liturgy.

“I am the only man in a household with a wife and three daughters,” said Roberts, who played football at Benedictine College and earned his law degree from Ave Maria University. “I will be an enduring image of what it means to be a man to my daughters.”

That’s the tonic. Men have strength in both body and soul, which allows them to lead and protect. They are meant to be both warriors—in the physical and spiritual protection of their “garden”—and initiators in love. Even the sex act itself is predicated upon the man giving and the woman receiving.

According to St. John Paul II, true masculinity involves faith, service and leadership. Service can take on forms from the extreme—perhaps literally dying for a

Bill uses the ultimate test in perhaps the most famous garden to illustrate this point. Left vs.right. Us vs. them. Toxic masculinity vs. overly conservative heel-digging. The straight and narrow vs. the easier path down the middle leads to the cross, where Jesus’ outstretched arms offer the fullest gift of self ever made.

“At the moment Jesus hands over his life, there are two different masculine responses,” Bill said. “St. Peter grabs the sword and cuts off the servant’s ear in the Garden of Gethsemane. He’s just like, ‘Let’s fight.’ That’s one response, and I wouldn’t recommend that one. Jesus says to him, ‘put down your sword.’ We see what happens in a hot flash of anger, then Peter ends up denying him. So it’s a train wreck.”

“The second response, which I think is what we’re supposed to do…comes from St. John the Beloved. He’s like, ‘I’m going with you.’ John’s the only man who goes all the way to the cross, all the way to Calvary, he’s the only dude standing at the foot of the cross with Mary.”

That’s the tonic of masculinity—standing at the foot of the cross, guarding the garden, praying for the family. The joy and the pain still intermingle. Bill knows they always will. But living out the theology of the body has brought Bill unwavering peace. It has helped heal the wounds of his adolescence and cultivated something beautiful in his own family.

THE EUCHARIST

The life-giving heart of the Lord

by Maria Cossell

Years ago when researching Eucharistic miracles to share with my students, I was stunned to read that a consecrated Host that had bled in Argentina in the 1990s was sent to the United States to be tested in a lab. The lab report stated that what they were given was, in fact, living tissue. Upon further examination, a scientist stated that it was heart tissue. I was dumbfounded as I processed the fact that every time I open my mouth to receive our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, I am receiving his heart. God could have chosen to give us any part of his body, such as his hands or feet, but He did not. He gives us the part of the human body that gives life to the rest of the body.

Even more astounding about the lab results was that the living heart tissue displayed signs of distress. Not only did Jesus’ body go through agony while dying for us, but his heart is still in distress for us. It aches for us and He longs to shed his mercy on us. This realization pierced me when I discovered that the word “mercy” comes from the Latin word “misericordia” which means a heart that gives itself to those in misery.

The Lord sees us—his children—in misery and longs to redeem us with his divine love. He has watched us turn

away from him and diminish people to objects that we use on our quest for personal happiness. He is aware of the times we have been the victim of someone’s selfishness. He knows deep down inside how we each long to be seen and loved authentically. When the Lord gazes on us, He sees our wounds and uses them as channels for his love and mercy. He places his perfect heart in the most embarrassing and weakest parts of our hearts.

The beauty of his mercy is that all He asks from us is an openness to receive Him. The Lord takes care of the rest. He meets us in our brokenness every time we receive the Eucharist. He is the divine surgeon who turns the most mangled heart into a glorious masterpiece. This never ending and unfailing mercy of the Lord sustains us on our earthly journey so that we may become one with Him in heaven. His beating heart truly is the source of life for all mankind.

My own devotion to the Eucharist has grown tremendously since discovering stories of Eucharis-

tic miracles and the meaning of the word mercy. Who am I that the creator of the universe should come to me, should want to enter my tattered heart? And where else would I go since I have encountered the wellspring of eternal mercy?

The beauty of the Lord’s mercy is that all he asks from us is an openness to receive Him. He takes care of the rest.

Maria Cossell teaches at a Catholic high school in Indianapolis, and has helped to write theology of the body curriculum for Ruah Woods and Sophia Institute Press.

‘We should have done this a long time ago’

by Roxane B. Salonen

To grasp the depth of the turnaround of George and Robin’s marriage, one need only look at their family photo from last Easter and imagine two fewer smiling faces. For, if not for their eventual embrace of God’s plan for marital love, their youngest two children would not exist.

“We’ve been married over 28 years,” said Robin, 48, noting, “We have four living children and two in heaven.” The 13-year gap in between their younger and older children points to a big part of their story.

The couple came together at a youth event in high school when Robin was 15, and George, 17. Both cradle Catholics, they married at 19 and 21. “As far as we were concerned, we knew everything we needed to know,” Robin said, “but we quickly learned that marriage is not as easy as we thought.”

With George in the military, they spent their first three years far from home. While that meant no nearby family to interfere in the marriage, Robin says, it also meant a lack of support when hard times hit.

And hit they did. Not long into year four they ran into their first trial and almost divorced. “But we worked things out and went another 10 years without major issues,” Robin said.

At that juncture, the earlier issues— which they came to realize had not been fully resolved—resurfaced. “Honestly, at that point we didn’t even know that there was a plan that God had for marriage, and that if we would live ours out in that way, we would experience something better than what we had been.”

Instead, divorce loomed large on the near horizon.

At this time, Robin began to see ways she had been behaving that contributed to their marital tension and she worked on changing them, but it wasn’t enough to convince George. He was adamant about separating. With no other recourse, she found herself turning fully to God.

“I feel like the Holy Spirit helped me take a step back and look at myself,” she said. “I learned that sometimes you have to let God work on your spouse and just keep praying.”

A PIVOTAL CHOICE

“Not giving up on me,” said George, now 50. “That was the biggest thing that happened. She remained faithful to our marriage,” even as he was ready to bolt.

One weekend things reached a flash point, and Robin was ready to let go and let God. She told George to leave and spend time away from the family and think about what he wanted, then let her know.

“I went away, to a different city, and, I guess, was getting a feel of what it would be like being by myself,” George said, but he quickly realized he didn’t like it. “I didn’t know what my kids were doing, or what was going on, and that started to weigh on me.”

It was then that the Holy Spirit swooped in. “Literally, it was like a light went on,” he said. “I realized I had the winning lottery ticket, and I wasn’t about to throw it away.”

Checking out of the hotel, George headed home,

Sexual honesty

Because we are made in God’s image and likeness, our bodies not only reveal ourselves but they reveal God when we act as God acts, which we do in and through our bodies. In marriage, when our acts of intercourse are in line with God’s free, total, faithful and fruitful love, our bodies speak the honesty of the vows we pledged at the altar.

Think about it: How healthy would a marriage be if a couple were continually unfaithful to their wedding vows? On the other hand, how healthy would a marriage be if a couple regularly renewed their marriage vows, and every time they did were more committed to them that day than they were the day before?

All questions of sexual morality come down to one basic question: Is this an authentic sign of God’s free, total, faithful, fruitful love or is it not? Or, is this a faithful expression of the wedding vows or is it not?

The contradiction of contraception

To contradict means to “speak against.” Contra -ception is a contra-diction of the very language of marital love. It turns the “I do” of wedding vows into an “I do.... not.” Not only does contraception speak against the commitment to remain open to children, it prevents a total self-gift as fertility is withheld.

Responsible parenthood

It’s a myth that the Church teaches couples are obliged to have as many children as physically possible. Couples are called to a responsible exercise of parenthood.

So what could couples do if they had a “serious reason” avoid a child that wouldn’t violate the meaning of intercourse as a sign of God’s love?

• Abstaining from intercourse is in no way contraceptive.

• Contraception is the choice to engage in an act of intercourse but render it sterile.

• Abstinence is the choice not to “speak” rather than to “speak-against.”

Natural family planning is acceptable not because it is “natural” as opposed to “artificial,” but because it is in keeping with the nature of sexual intercourse as a renewal of the couple’s wedding vows.

Never does a couple using NFP do anything to sterilize their acts of intercourse. If pregnancy does not result from their acts of intercourse, it is God’s doing, not theirs. Every time they come together their act is free, faithful, total, fruitful.

Adapted from “Good News About Sex & Marriage” by Christopher West. To learn more about modern, effective methods of natural family planning visit www.naturalwomanhood.org or www.myparishnfp.org.

Those “are considered to ‘exercise responsible parenthood who prudently and generously decide to have a large family, or who, for serious reasons and with due respect to the moral law, choose to have no more children for the time being or even for an indeterminate period.’”

—“The

Theology of the Body, John Paul II’s Addresses on Human Love in the Divine Plan,” 394

arriving at a dark, empty house. Robin had gone to her sister’s house with the kids for the weekend. When they finally reunited, Robin noticed “a light in his eyes that I hadn’t seen in a really long time.” Though she knew it would take time, she said, they decided they were finally both ready to make the marriage work, “but vowed to do it in the right way.”

“It wasn’t until I realized how selfish I was in our marriage that things began to turn around,” George said. “I had to change that, to become more of a servant spouse.”

PLACING GOD AT THE CENTER

Immediately, they started putting some things in place to strengthen their marriage, Robin said, including placing God at the center. “We’d always gone to church on Sundays, but it was more out of obligation, not so much because we understood or had a deep relationship with God.”

It was after a talk at their parish by Greg and Julie Alexander of The Alexander House, a ministry to help hurting marriages, that their relationship began moving forward more steadfastly. Eventually, they connected with the Alexanders, and later joined them in the ministry. Currently, Robin serves as director of marriage for the apostolate, while George works as a postal distribution clerk.

A key part of their transformation included reexamining their use of contraception—something the couple had been doing for the first 14 years of their marriage,

to George, he was, to her surprise, open to it. He said, “By this time I had come to have the same feeling that I wanted to do everything God’s way, in his plan,” even though he had earlier made peace with relinquishing his desires to welcome more children.

NFP: A NEWFOUND FREEDOM

That same week, Robin learned of a new natural family planning class at their parish. Calling to get information and thinking of stopping the pill, she welled up with fearful emotion. “It felt like I was about to jump off a cliff. It was scary,” she said. But together, they jumped. “I finally said, ‘Either God’s going to catch me, or he’ll give me wings to fly.’”

A few years later, the Zamoras conceived a child but lost the baby in miscarriage. A second miscarriage followed. After that, they were blessed with their two youngest children.

Robins said that incorporating NFP into their lives has had its challenges but overall has been “a very beautiful experience.”

“There’s so much to it that has enriched our lives,” she said, including the disappearance of the guilt. “That was huge for me. I feel like we opened ourselves up more to the grace that God was wanting to give our marriage, just by choosing to leave contraception behind.”

Additionally, they discovered how they could “work with God” to bring their two other children into the world. “I can’t see our lives without them, so again, it shows me that God knew better than we did, and by just trusting him, we’ve experienced more than we could have imagined.”

Along with helping them space their pregnancies, she said, NFP “brought us closer by learning together how my body worked, and by encouraging us to build intimacy outside of the bedroom.”

and which had always left Robin feeling guilty. “I knew that it went against Church teaching; I just didn’t understand why.”

At times during those years, she even recalls wishing George would have a vasectomy, “so I didn’t have to be the guilty one.” Robin experienced complications connected to the birth of her second child, and lived with the fear this could happen again, should they be open to more children.

However, Robin’s heart was changing. “I started thinking, ‘If I can trust God with my marriage, and something as scary as my husband leaving, how can I not put my trust in God with my fertility?’”

When she mentioned possibly going off contraception

“Before, my thing was, ‘That’s your business; you handle it,’” George said, but learning NFP brought a new closeness that has left him thinking, “We should have done this a long time ago!”

Choosing to trust God with their fertility, Robin said, was a path that reinforced their relationship with God, and each other. “Learning how very good our fertility is, opened us up to appreciate the beauty of God’s overall design in creating humans as male and female. It all points to relationship, to communion, to love.”

“We now realize, even if we go through a challenging time, if we keep our focus on being a gift to each other God can use it for a purpose, to help us become the people He created us to be.”

“I started thinking, ‘If I can trust God with my marriage, and something as scary as my husband leaving, how can I not put my trust in God with my fertility?’”

A hymn of praise

Text by St. John Paul II Pictures by Kelsey Green Instagram @kelseygreen.photography

NONE CAN SENSE MORE DEEPLY THAN YOU ARTISTS, ingenious creators of beauty that you are, something of the pathos with which God at the dawn of creation looked upon the work of his hands. A glimmer of that feeling has shone so often in your eyes when—like the artists of every age—captivated by the hidden power of sounds and words, colors and shapes, you have admired the work of your inspiration, sensing in it some echo of the mystery of creation with which God, the sole creator of all things, has wished in some way to associate you …

Through his “artistic creativity” man appears more than ever “in the image of God,” and he accomplishes this task above all in shaping the wondrous “material” of his own humanity and then exercising creative dominion over the universe which surrounds him.

With loving regard, the divine Artist passes on to the human artist a spark of his own surpassing wisdom, calling him to share in his creative power. Obviously, this is a sharing which leaves intact the infinite distance between the Creator and the creature…That is why artists, the more conscious they are of their “gift,” are led all the more to see themselves and the whole of creation with eyes able to contemplate and give thanks, and to raise to God a hymn of praise. This is the only way for them to come to a full understanding of themselves, their vocation and their mission.

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