My read on Detroit

All smiles at Assumption Grotto Parish, Detroit, Michigan, May 20, 2012

Thanks to the dedicated efforts of my friend Michael J. New as well as a wonderful core of volunteers from Assumption Grotto Parish, I had a beautiful time in Detroit earlier this month promoting My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints with eight personal appearances in five days.

Things that stand out in my memory of the tour include:

• Finding my voice. This was my first tour speaking on healing from the wounds of childhood sexual abuse. Before, speaking about chastity at college campuses, I always felt the pressure of having to work into my talks some practical instructions on how to live chastely. Speaking prescriptively added a layer of distance between me and my audience. By contrast, in speaking about My Peace I Give You, I'm speaking descriptively, telling stories about myself and saints who experienced healing through discovering their identity in Christ. My message is still, in a sense, about morality, but here morality becomes one with Catholic spirituality; the saints show us what a fully integrated human person looks like. As a result, I'm finding it much easier to connect with audiences.
• Being surrounded by saints. Every day I met joyful, humble, and genuinely charitable people who took their faith very seriously. The parish life at Assumption Grotto is particularly rich, including daily Mass in both English and Latin (Extraordinary Form). With many of the parishioners, as well as people I met from other parishes, it seemed that even when they were not at the liturgy, it remained within them; they were eager to find God in all things.
• Becoming more sensitive to the action of the Holy Spirit as it brings isolated individuals into communion. At every appearance I gave, someone came up to me to tell me his or her own story of surviving childhood sexual abuse, or of trying to help a close friend or family member who had suffered such abuse. At some parish talks, ten or more such people approached me after my talk, one by one.
  

  As I listened to these audience members' stories, I was reminded of the many times John Paul II wrote about God's love for those who endure pain:

  "In this Body [the Church as the Body of Christ], Christ wishes to be united with every individual, and in a special way he is united with those who suffer" (Salvifici Doloris 24).
  

  "I consider particularly close to the Heart of Christ ... people who unfortunately cannot in any sense claim membership of what could be called in the proper sense a family" (Familiaris Consortio 85.

  It was deeply humbling to be entrusted with those audience members' stories and to know that they saw in me a kindred soul. They may have thought that I was blessing them with words of comfort, but they were really blessing me. Christ is with them.
  
  I thought of the closing lines of Dorothy Day's autobiography: "We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community."

A patron saint of friendship

I want very much to write a bit about the wonderful five days I spent in Detroit and Ann Arbor speaking about My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints, but I'm still getting back into the swing of things upon returning home, so that blog post (including a photo or two) will have to wait 'til tonight. In the meantime, enjoy this feast day of a wonderful saint, Philip Neri.

The Patron Saints Index lists St. Philip Neri as a patron of Rome and a couple of other Italian locales, and as a patron of the U.S. Army Special Forces. (I'd be interested to know the reason for that last one.) To me, however, he is a patron saint of friendship.

I discovered Neri a few years ago when William Newton generously passed on to me his copy of Paul Turks' biography Philip Neri: The Fire of Joy after I admired it on his shelf. The saint's name was familiar to me from hearing an anecdote of his life read at Dominican House of Studies' Vigil of All Saints; the story was about how Neri used to make people laugh by walking around with his coat inside-out or with half his beard shaved
off.

Reading the biography, I was struck by how, although Neri had an intense intimacy with the Lord, he was always reaching out to connect with others, drawing them through his own friendship to the love of Christ. I had recently moved to Washington and longed to make close friends in my new home. What was more, I needed help learning how to be better devoted to the friends I had. So, when I went to Mass—which is the time when we are nearest to the saints, being united with them in the Eucharist—I began to ask Neri's help, telling him my needs and asking for a share of his gift of friendship.

My prayers were answered, more quickly than I expected. I still ask St. Philip Neri's help for becoming a better friend, but no longer feel the loneliness I felt upon coming to D.C. Good people have found me, no doubt with the saint's help—friends who love the Lord, and who help me draw closer to him.

There is a misconception among non-Catholics (and even, I think, among some Catholics) that saints' intercession is limited to one-time blessings, like a miraculous healing, or a parking space in Georgetown. Although I do believe that God often chooses to work such miracles in answer to the saints' prayers, the greatest intercession I have experienced from saints has taken place over time, as they have walked with me and helped me through everyday struggles. Heavenly friendship is much like earthly friendship in that way.

Brave women on the Web

Just got home from my Michigan tour promoting  My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints, (details to follow after I get some sleep) and would like to highlight a couple of brave admissions that were made during the past couple of days by women on the Web:

• Katrina Fernandez, whose blog is The Crescat, announces that she is "silent no more."
  

  Among the saints, or, rather, saints-in-waiting, Katrina is in good company. As I note in My Peace I Give You, Dorothy Day also lived with profound regret over having had an abortion and, like Katrina, struggled over whether to communicate her experience to other women.

• Jennifer Fulwiler reveals that, in the aftermath of recent traumatic events, she has seen a therapist for the first time.
  

  The kind of therapy that Jennifer is receiving appears to be a type of exposure therapy, which is helpful for victims of certain kinds of post-traumatic stress. (That particular type of therapy, in which traumatic events are relived, should be done only under the direction of a trained professional, as I stressed to Jennifer when she interviewed me about My Peace I Give You for the National Catholic Register.) Although the therapeutic technique is itself helpful, she writes that she is getting more out of it because she is taking her faith into it:

  Before I started therapy, I had slammed the door on those troubling memories. They festered in darkness, where nobody was allowed to access them—not me, not even God. For me, the process of therapy has been the process of cracking that door open, little by little. It may take a while, but it has begun to open, and finally those bad moments can be bathed in the healing light of Christ.

Please join me in praying for both of these courageous women as they seek to deepen their Christian witness.

Unexpected blessing

Had a wonderful surprise yesterday while addressing the staff and therapists of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Lansing during my Michigan tour promoting My Peace I Give You: a visit from Lansing Bishop Earl Boyea.

As it happened, I had some medals of Pope St. Pius X that I had bought a couple of days earlier, during my signing at G.A. Fuchs Church Supply in Madison Heights. The photo above captures the moment when His Excellency graciously acceded to my request that he bless them.

St. Pius X has become a special intercessor for me in spreading the word about my book on healing sexual wounds with the help of the saints, because of his great protective love for children, which is exemplified in his decree lowering the age of First Communion. He deplored the fact that, in being made to wait until age twelve or later before receiving the Eucharist, "children in their innocence were forced away from the embrace of Christ and deprived of the food of their interior life."

"The encouragement we are looking for"Father Angelo Mary Geiger F.I. reviews My Peace I Give You

Father Angelo Mary Geiger, a Franciscan of the Immaculate, a friend whose writings on Our Lady have been a deep source of inspiration for me, has written a beautiful review of my new book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints:

With her new book, Dawn has taken these ideas to the next step, as a kind of bridge between our own brokenness and the immaculate integrity of the Blessed Virgin. The saints underwent the transformation from the brokenness of original sin, the history of sin within their families and their own lives, to healing and re-creation in Christ Jesus. As Dawn points out, some of them experienced even the wound of sexual abuse, and subsequently had to struggle against great odds to live authentic spiritual lives. The stories of the saints, thus offers us who are broken the encouragement we are looking for and the powerful presence upon which we can rely.

Read the full review on MaryVictrix.com.

The sound of the Spirit

The first leg of the My Peace I Give You world tour [see the itinerary here] currently has me deep in the heart of Detroit, Michigan, staying with the Sisters of the Holy Cross in their convent on the grounds of Assumption Grotto Parish. As I write, I am in my room waiting for my old friend Michael J. New to drive me to my next talk, for the Frassati Society of Detroit.

A friend warned me that, from my room facing busy Gratiot Avenue, I might hear automatic gunfire outside (though only in the middle of the night). However, since arriving, the only noticeable sounds have been the odd ambulance and, right now, the joyful noise of a gospel choir across the street, singing "Holy Ghost Power." The sound is so inviting; I can't imagine that anyone passing by wouldn't want to join in. And the song even mentions the saints!



Many thanks to those who are praying for me as I share the message of My Peace. I'm having a wonderful time, and it is a real blessing to be able to speak about healing sexual wounds with the help of the saints.

Saints for healing: Sebastian and Photini

Koinonia, the blog of Orthodox priest Father Gregory Jensen, today became the latest stop on my My Peace I Give You blog tour, hosting a guest post by me on St. Sebastian and St. Photini (the Samaritan Woman).

James Kushiner of Touchstone magazine responds to my post with some lovely observations:

[At] 60 as I see new light arriving from time to time, as it should if one is to grow in Christ, that light not only heals, but encourages, as it also illumines the past. The scattered fragments and threads of one’s life come together, bit by bit and strand by strand, into a whole life redeemed. We still don’t see clearly. Even some of our own choices remain a mystery to us, let alone things that happened to us. The Samaritan Woman and residents of that town all had stories to tell, but the Greatest Story Ever Told had just arrived, and even years later he would shake things up when fire from heaven fell in the pentecostal tongues of the healing Spirit of God.

Read my guest post here and Kushiner's response here





Image: Mimmo Rotella, "St. Sebastian"

"This was not the book I expected it to be"My Peace on the blogs & in Library Journal

My new book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints got some nice nods on blogs yesterday, plus I had the exciting news that Library Journal's reviewer gave it a thumbs-up.

On the blogs, first there's Lindsay Wilcox, Catholic campus minister at the University of Texas, who writes on the Austin Catholic New Media site:

This was not the book I expected it to be. It was better. I was worried that Eden would let me too much into her life, that I would feel uncomfortable as an observer on her road to healing. She approaches this highly difficult subject with grace, however, presenting a valuable resource for victims of sexual abuse and those who care for them.

Read Lindsay's full review here. (Note: The review, titled "Jesus Had Battle Scars, Too," includes a photograph of a person's scarred wrist. I do not find it too graphic, but I mention this in case you are sensitive to such images.)

On First Things' blog First Thoughts, in a post titled "Healing the Mind and Soul," Mark Misulia links to my Fox News Live interview. He says of My Peace I Give You, "The book explores the effectiveness of grace and prayer to heal deep emotional wounds caused by sexual abuse, reminding that 'the kingdom of God is not a matter of words but of power.'"

Last, there is the Library Journal review by University of Hartford writing instructor Graham Christian, which I'll quote in its entirety, since it isn't available online:

This new volume is one of those hybrids of spiritual writing--at once a memoir, a study in spirituality, and a guide for the lost and perplexed. Eden (The Thrill of the Chaste), a convert from Judaism to Roman Catholicism, recalls her past sexual abuse with candor and shows how the lives and spiritualities of Sebastian, Aquinas, Gemma Galgani, and others shed light on her journey. VERDICT: A touching self-help memoir, with interesting insights into the lessons of the saints; best for Catholic readers and parishes.

Photo: Father Scott Hurd, author of Forgiveness: A Catholic Approach, and I each hold up the other's book at Guadalupe Radio Network last month.

TODAY: I'm on "The Catholics Next Door"

The My Peace I Give You radio tour continues today as I discuss my book with Greg and Jennifer Willits, a k a "The Catholics Next Door" on The Catholic Channel (Sirius XM 129) at 2:20 p.m. Eastern Time. I'm looking forward to getting to know the Willits, whose "That Catholic Show" introduced me to musical humorist Nick Alexander's classic Clash parody, "Should I Sit or Should I Kneel."

My Peace they give you!An online book giveaway, and a new review

Blogger Margaret Mary Myers today is holding a contest to give away a copy of my new book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. Just leave a comment on any of her blog posts this week to be entered in the drawing.

I'm very touched to read what Margaret Mary has to say about how My Peace has helped her in her own journey of healing:

[This] book is about the wounds we may have from past abuse, and how we can find healing for them through Christ and through the saints. For decades, I have meditated on the passion of Christ and admired the lives of the saints. And yet, in one book, Dawn Eden brings new insights, helping me better understand how all this can apply to my own life. Her book has also helped me to understand something which, for me, was very consoling. In becoming a Catholic, I thought I should be healed ("presto, chango", as we used to say as kids)...and yet there are problems in my heart, in some of my friendships, that I can trace back to my childhood sexual abuse. Dawn enlightened me with this statement in her book, "Now that I know my identity is to be found in Christ, I realize the importance of avoiding acting from my pathology. But there remains the challenge of learning how to act from my wellness, for my wellness co-exists with my wounds."

Also this week, Jeff Miller of The Curt Jester, who is one of the Catholic bloggers who helped me find my way into the Church, has a review of My Peace. He too writes sensitively about how the book's message resonated with him.

VIDEO: Talking about My Peace on Fox News Live

What a joy to be able to spread the word about My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints on Fox News Live today. You can watch the video above, or, if it's not displaying, click here to watch me answer questions from religion correspondent Lauren Green. Many thanks to Lauren for having me on the show and asking thoughtful questions, and thanks to all who were praying for me in advance of the interview.

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Bring My Peace to your place: Would you like to have me share the healing message of My Peace I Give You with your parish, Theology on Tap, social group, or bookshop?

As it stands, besides upcoming events in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, D.C., and Wisconsin, I have tentative plans to speak in California, Illinois, and New York (please e-mail me if you are in those regions and want me to speak at your venue). But that's not enough. I want to spend the entire summer speaking about My Peace I Give You.

So, write if you would like to host me (click here to see my e-mail address), and don't let a lack of funds stop you. I will volunteer my services to speak about My Peace I Give You anywhere as long as my transportation, meals, and accommodations (at a convent or private home) are provided by the sponsor. The message is that important to me; this is my apostolate.

Also, if you would like to support my plans to spend the summer speaking about healing sexual wounds with the help of the saints, please consider making a donation towards my support, using the donation button below. Being that I am a full-time student at a graduate school of theology (the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception), the help is needed and appreciated. In any event, I am very grateful for your prayers, and am praying daily for all who read my writings or hear me speak.

BOOK EXCERPT: "St. Ignatius and Memory"

The Ignatian spirituality blog dotMagis today features "St. Ignatius and Memory,"an excerpt from my new book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. Many thanks to the blog's editors for giving me the opportunity to share my book with their audience of spiritual directors, pastoral caregivers, and others who seek, like St. Ignatius Loyola, to find God in all things.

No Peace at Feministe

The self-identified feminist blogger who goes by the name Zuzu today published a lengthy essay excoriating me for seeking to bring Catholic spirituality to victims of childhood sexual abuse in my book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints.

Zuzu, who blogs at Feministe, is particularly dismissive of my publicly stating that I regret times in the past when I have been uncharitable to fellow bloggers.

I knew when writing My Peace that reactions to a book by a Catholic woman on healing from childhood sexual abuse would be all over the map, so this does not surprise me. Please pray for me, for Zuzu and her readers, and for all those I hope to reach with My Peace I Give You.

VIDEO: LifeSite News interviews me"Through our wounds, God enables us to draw closer to the wounded Christ"

Help—I've got a giant arrow stuck on my mouth! Just kidding—this is a video of me being interviewed by Peter Baklinski for LifeSiteNews about my new book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. There is also has an accompanying article with more information about the book. Many thanks to Peter and LifeSiteNews for giving me the opportunity to spread the word about My Peace and my hopes to spend the summer giving talks on it.

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Bring My Peace to your place: Would you like to invite me to speak to an audience at your parish, recovery group, or bookshop about healing sexual wounds with the help of the saints?

As it stands, besides upcoming events in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, D.C., and Wisconsin, I have tentative plans to speak in California, Illinois, and New York (please e-mail me if you are in those regions and want me to speak at your venue). But that's not enough. I want to spend the entire summer speaking about My Peace I Give You.

So, write if you would like to host me (click here to see my e-mail address), and don't let a lack of funds stop you. I will volunteer my services to speak about My Peace I Give You anywhere as long as my transportation, meals, and accommodations (at a convent or private home) are provided by the sponsor. The message is that important to me; I see this as an apostolate.

Also, if you would like to support my plans to spend the summer volunteering to speak about My Peace I Give You, please consider making a donation towards my support, using the donation button below. Being that I am a full-time student at a graduate school of theology (the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception) that does not offer scholarships to lay students, the help is needed and appreciated. In any event, I am very grateful for your prayers, and am praying daily for all who read my writings or hear me speak.

My Peace he gives you!Blogger offers free books

Blogger Brandon Vogt today begins a contest to give away two copies of my new book My Peace I Give You. Just go to his Thin Veil blog and leave a comment saying why you would like to read the book. Brandon will randomly select two winners next Friday, May 11.

NEXT WEEK: Coming to Fox News Live

If you were planning to watch me discuss My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints on FoxNews.com's streaming video channel Fox News Live, the date's been changed from today to next week. I'll be interviewed by the network's religion correspondent Lauren Green for her weekly show "Spirited Debate" one week from today—Friday, May 11, at 2 p.m.

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Is the My Peace speaking tour coming to your town? Click here to find out. If I'm not yet scheduled to be in your area and you would like to engage me to speak about My Peace, please write to me; click here to see my e-mail address.

Also, if you are in Chicago and would like me to speak at your parish, please e-mail me ASAP. I will be passing through your area in June for a friend's ordination and would love to give talks on My Peace while there.

VIDEO: Brandon Vogt interviews me on finding joy in the midst of suffering

Brandon Vogt, blogger at The Thin Veil and author of The Church and New Media: Blogging Converts, Online Activists, and Bishops Who Tweet, interviews me about my new book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. Click the image above to watch the video, or go to The Thin Veil to stream or download the interview as an MP3 file.

It was a great pleasure doing the interview, my first via Skype. Next time, I'll have to close the closet door and clean the mail off the kitchen counter!

There is a funny moment for Dawn Patrol insiders at about six minutes into the video, when I am talking about Christopher Hitchens and experience a brief moment of panic when I fear I named the wrong "Christopher." It's because I had talked so much about another gent by that name a couple of years ago, when interviewed about my master's thesis. Happy to have moved on to fresh horizons!

I think the best part of the interview starts at 10:23, when Brandon asks me about the difference between pleasure and joy. After that, I answer his question about what I would say to people who, like me, have suffered abuse. Please join me in praying that My Peace I Give You becomes an instrument of healing, and that God may use me as a living instrument for that same purpose in my talks and interviews.

"The Love that Transforms"My Peace excerpt featured on The Thin Veil

Catholic new-media maven Brandon Vogt has kindly given me a platform for an excerpt of My Peace I Give You on his blog, The Thin Veil. You'll find there a section from chapter 4: "The Love that Transforms: Learning the true meaning of spiritual childhood with St. Thérèse of Lisieux."

Other My Peace sightings this week in the blog world include:

• Father George David Byers' Holy Souls Hermitage, where I was invited to write a new essay, drawing from the spirituality of My Peace I Give You, with the aim of inspiring Catholic prison inmates: "St. Maximilian Kolbe: 'Only Love Is Creative."
• Daily Caller, where Mark Judge opines about "The Difference Between Dan Savage and Dawn Eden."

'Understanding more clearly" brings "hope and joy"My Peace reader shares her thoughts in Amazon review

I've been extremely gratified to see the Amazon reader reviews of My Peace I Give You, my new book of Catholic spirituality for adult victims of childhood sexual abuse, but none has made me so happy as the latest one, posted today.

The author, Margaret Mary, is the first My Peace reader to write about it from the perspective of having personally suffered abuse. In doing so, she shows the kind of bravery that is, I believe, exactly what the Holy Spirit is calling victims to display, so that we may help others heal. We are called to be saints, and saints are, above all, witnesses to the reality of the Resurrection—"we are all witnesses," said St. Peter. In witnessing to the share in the Resurrection that we ourselves have received that we give others hope that God, through His grace, can draw good out of even the greatest evil, comforting others with the comfort we ourselves have received, as St. Paul says (2 Cor 1:3-7).

Margaret Mary writes:

"As a Catholic adult who was sexually abused as a child, I pre-ordered My Peace I Give You, waiting eagerly to receive it. To say I was NOT disappointed would be an understatement. If you are a Catholic who was sexually abused as a child, this book is for you. Even if you were not, if you have suffered from other abuse or neglect ... indeed, whatever you suffer, there is much that you, too, can learn from this book. And if you are close to someone who was sexually abused as a child, it will give you a greater understanding. ..."

Read the full review on Amazon.com.

What makes me happiest is Margaret's closing line: "My emotions in reading this book were relief in understanding more clearly, and overall, a sense of hope and joy."