Color my world

A graphic-designer friend e-mailed recently to say he was sending a book by a friend whose art he admired.

"I do have some pencil-sketch skills, but color absolutely escapes me, so it's nice to know that someone got that gift," he wrote.

It wasn't until Kellie's Book: The Art of the Possible arrived that I understood what he meant by "gift."

The artistry of Kellie Greenwald is a gift in the truest sense of the word, in that it is not just a literal gift, but a spiritual one as well. It is an instrument of grace.




Kellie, whose father is a legendary (now-retired) announcer for the San Francisco Giants, was born in 1978 with Down Syndrome. Her book, which she created entirely by herself, draws the reader into her world—family, friends, trials, and triumphs.

Although she writes expressively about her feelings and experiences, the text of Kellie's Book is effectively a sideline to the stunningly vibrant drawings. Using an electric palette of oranges, purples, and reds that calls to mind early Rothko, she draws the reader into a world of broad horizons, ablaze with wonder and joy.

View a gallery of images and text from Kellie's Book.

In a world where liberal pundits darkly opine that Gov. Sarah Palin's son would be better off dead, Kellie's Book celebrates an utterly vibrant life—bathed in the full spectrum of light, infused with lightness of being.

Kellie makes no political statements. She doesn't have to. Just by communicating her being, she cuts through the lies of the culture of death more powerfully than the most articulate pro-life commentator. A picture really is worth a thousand words.

The book reminds me of the rhetorical answer a friend of mine, the father of several children, gave when asked why he believed the 50 million legal abortions in the United States since Roe v. Wade represented a genuine loss. Why, the questioner asked, did it matter that those babies were not allowed to see the light of day? After all, had not the world continued spinning without them?

My friend responded, "I don't know; why is being better than nonbeing?"

That is, if you have to ask wh, you are missing out on the essence of what it means to be human.

From my teenage years until I received faith at the age of 31, I suffered from cyclical suicidal depression, the result of childhood trauma. Some of the most frustrating experiences I had during that time were when I would see therapists, who were nearly always liberal New York City atheists, blasé agnostics, or fuzzy New Agers.

I would tell the therapists that I wanted to kill myself and essentially dare them to talk me out of it. They would respond by noting that there remained the possibility of my experiencing happiness if I held out. But their advice rang hollow, because they didn't believe in an afterlife, and their postmodern philosophy excluded the hope of finding ultimate truth in this life. Ultimately, they could give me no argument as to why, if living seemed unbearable, it was better to be alive than dead.

My conversion gave me the hope of heaven for myself and others, a reason to keep going during painful times. But there is something precious about life itself, in the here and now, the understanding of which is yet unfolding for me.

It's something that should have been obvious to my therapists. Even an atheist could glimpse it. However, it requires a certain commitment to truth that they, in the relativist mindset that characterizes their profession's leadership, could not uphold.

Kellie's Book, simply and profoundly, provides a powerful argument as to why being is truly better than nonbeing. It is an argument I will contemplate in hope that, given time and thought, it will help me better articulate to others why life is never a "punishment," but is always a precious gift from God.

Thankfully, even those who have not seen Kellie's Book have gained a similar message through the wordless witness of another individual with Down Syndrome—Trig Palin. Father Thomas Berg expresses it beautifully:

Trig will be an advocate for all of us who -- like himself -- suffer from life's mishaps in ways that impact our entire being, rendering us broken in many ways, and highly imperfect as we labor to make the long trek toward that degree of perfection we can achieve in this life.

Trig is already forcing us to look at our humanity square in the eye, helping us to recognize -- if we are honest -- that in a very profound sense, none of us is "better" than he is, none of us more (or less) "desirable" than he is, that his, your or my worth as human beings is not predicated on someone else's calculation of his, your or my "quality of life."

RELATED: Kellie's parents write in a newspaper article, "Kellie’s progress should not be viewed as an isolated case. Instead, she should serve as an example of, as her book suggests, what is possible for those with disabilities if given the love, encouragement and opportunity to reach their potential. It’s no crime if one fails to reach that potential. The crime is in not providing the opportunity."

Also, read the reader response to the Greenwalds' article and the drawings of Kellie's the newspaper published, which is very touching.

And if you recognize the title of this post, you'll enjoy this clip of Petula Clark singing her hit in 1968—backed (adorably) by a children's orchestra, appropriately enough.

Former Obama speechwriter endorses McCain, gets death threats

Wendy Button is not a pro-lifer and she wants you to know that. She was a Democratic speechwriter who worked for the Edwards, Clinton, and Obama 2008 campaigns—and is now an outcast from that party after calling it on its vicious attacks on Joe the Plumber, Hillary, and Sarah Palin.

It started when she published an article a few days ago about why she's voting for McCain:

The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.” ...

The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations. ...

Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things, mostly social issues. But I have grown to appreciate the Governor. I was one of those initial skeptics and would laugh at the pictures. Not anymore. When someone takes on a corrupt political machine and a sitting governor, that is not done by someone with a low I.Q. or a moral core made of tissue paper. When someone fights her way to get scholarships and work her way through college even in a jagged line, that shows determination and humility you can’t learn from reading Reinhold Niebuhr. When a mother brings her son with special needs onto the national stage with love, honesty, and pride, that gives hope to families like mine as my older brother lives with a mental disability. And when someone can sit on a stage during the Sarah Palin rap on Saturday Night Live, put her hands in the air and watch someone in a moose costume get shot—that’s a sign of both humor and humanity.

The reactions Button's article elicited from Democrats, from death threats on down, convinced her she made the right decision, as she writes in a follow-up piece:

I expected anger from the far-left, but the extreme caught me off-guard. ... These extreme opinions are in no way reflective of most Democrats—most people—but the fringe element is with us now. And I am a nobody who spoke out. I pity the first big leader or press person who does and hope that the next time a lesson is learned and the pendulum doesn’t swing so far. These dogs are fierce and don’t seem to hear the call of “We can disagree without being disagreeable.” ...

The treatment of women is something that saddens me. The recent ad with Governor Sarah Palin winking at the end was another link in the chain. Sexism is okay right now and we have to fix that. Simply saying that our policies help working people and women doesn’t excuse this behavior. That’s what I believe and I would never threaten someone’s life for disagreeing or call the other person stupid, evil, or useless.

Pro-life legislation, not welfare, reduces abortions

My friend Michael J. New, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama who is currently a visiting fellow at Princeton's Witherspoon Institute, writes:

This fall a study on state abortion rates that was released by Catholic Alliance for the Common Good has received plenty of attention from Democrats and supporters of Barack Obama. They have used this study to claim that 1) pro-life laws do not work and 2) the best way to reduce abortion is to spend more money on welfare programs.

I went ahead and did my own analysis with the exact same data as these researchers used. My full report appears on the Witherspoon Institute's Public Discourse and an article summarizing my findings is currently available on National Review Online.

If you do not have time to read the article, here is a summary of my findings.

1) I'm right
2) They're wrong
3) Pro-life laws work!

(and in case you were wondering, welfare does not make much of a difference)

'Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet'

The source of our hope.



The version of the tune in the above YouTube selection is the 1990s remake, in which Tom Waits echoes the original singer. Here is the backstory, from composer Gavin Bryars' Web site:

In 1971, when I lived in London, I was working with a friend, Alan Power, on a film about people living rough in the area around Elephant and Castle and Waterloo Station. In the course of being filmed, some people broke into drunken song - sometimes bits of opera, sometimes sentimental ballads - and one, who in fact did not drink, sang a religious song "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet". This was not ultimately used in the film and I was given all the unused sections of tape, including this one.

When I played it at home, I found that his singing was in tune with my piano, and I improvised a simple accompaniment. I noticed, too, that the first section of the song - 13 bars in length - formed an effective loop which repeated in a slightly unpredictable way. I took the tape loop to Leicester, where I was working in the Fine Art Department, and copied the loop onto a continuous reel of tape, thinking about perhaps adding an orchestrated accompaniment to this. The door of the recording room opened on to one of the large painting studios and I left the tape copying, with the door open, while I went to have a cup of coffee. When I came back I found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping.

I was puzzled until I realised that the tape was still playing and that they had been overcome by the old man's singing. This convinced me of the emotional power of the music and of the possibilities offered by adding a simple, though gradually evolving, orchestral accompaniment that respected the tramp's nobility and simple faith. Although he died before he could hear what I had done with his singing, the piece remains as an eloquent, but understated testimony to his spirit and optimism.

RELATED: Read more about hope from my friend Drusilla.

AND ANOTHER THING: I remember as a Protestant I was really put off by crucifixes; the only cross I wanted to see was the kind above, without a corpus. How naked it looks now.

O brother, where art thou?

Mark Shea is a friend, a brother in Christ, and also, in a very real sense, one of my spiritual fathers. His support of my pro-life writings when I was a Protestant, combined with his making himself available to answer my questions about Catholicism with patience and humility, helped lead me to the truth of the Catholic faith.

So, it is with sadness that I observe his tireless and emphatic efforts to convince Catholics to follow him in supporting a "quixotic," unelectable third-party presidential candidate. The talents of one of the foremost Catholic apologists are currently directed towards warning Catholic McCain backers that they are committing "an objective evil" and "supporting intrinsic moral evil." He casts these judgments because McCain, who is unequivocally opposed to abortion, has expressed support for embryonic stem-cell research (though with limitations, unlike Sen. Barack Obama's anything-goes stance).

Such condemnations are, to my mind, beyond the pale, particularly given what is at stake in this election. As Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, whom I know and admire, writes in "Voting with a Clear Conscience," when neither major candidate is completely pro-life, the Church teaches it is a moral good to use one's vote to limit evil:
_____________________

In this case, it is morally acceptable to vote for the candidate who will do less harm. This is not "choosing the lesser of two evils." We may never choose evil. But in the case described above, you would not be choosing evil. Why? Because in choosing to limit an evil, you are choosing a good.

... [B]y your vote, you can keep the worse person out. And trying to do that is not only legitimate, but good. Some may think it's not the best strategy. But if your question is whether it is morally permissible to vote for the better of two bad candidates, the answer -- in the case described above -- is yes.

Cardinal John O’Connor, in a special booklet on abortion, once wrote about this problem, “Suppose all candidates support ‘abortion rights’? … One could try to determine whether the position of one candidate is less supportive of abortion than that of another. Other things being equal, one might then morally vote for a less supportive position. If all candidates support "abortion rights" equally, one might vote for the candidate who seems best in regard to other issues” (1990, “Abortion: Questions and Answers”).

In this context, the question also arises as to whether one is required to vote for a third candidate who does not have a strong base of support but does have the right position. The answer is, no, you are not required to vote for this candidate. The reason is that your vote is not a canonization of a candidate. It is a transfer of power. You have to look concretely at where the power is really going to be transferred, and use your vote not to make a statement but to help bring about the most acceptable results under the circumstances.

_________________________

Catholics of good will can disagree over whether voting for a third-party candidate is a higher moral good than voting for McCain. But the United States Council of Catholic Bishops' pro-life chair Cardinal Justin Rigali and domestic justice chair Bishop William Murphy remind us that reversing Roe v. Wade is "a moral imperative for Catholics and others who respect human life." It seems clear enough to me, based on the candidates' statements, that the only way we have a snowball's chance in heck of keeping the gains we've made on the Supreme Court is by electing McCain.

Mark's concern is that he's "tired of being played" after voting for candidates who fails to live up to their party's platforms. So, he's effectively using his vote and his online voice towards enabling the election of a candidate who, say what you will, has every intention of living up to his party's platform: unlimited abortion on demand at taxpayer expense. And worse will come if Obama has the opportunity to make good on the vow he made to Planned Parenthood, signing the Freedom of Choice Act.



Read background on the Freedom of Choice Act here.

Mark writes about not wanting to look at himself in the bathroom mirror for the next four years and "feel guilty for voting." I don't think of it that way.

I think of it as being able to look at the preborn child who is 20 weeks old right now and being able to say, "I helped save your life. With my vote."

Because that is what we are doing by voting for McCain. We are saving the lives of children who are in the womb now.

If Obama makes good on his vow to sign the Freedom of Choice Act as his first act in office, all the parental-notification laws passed by voters and legislators, as well as the partial-birth abortion ban, will be null and void. That means an underage teen girl now 20 weeks pregnant, living in a state where there is currently a parental-notification law, could walk into an abortion clinic at the end of January without telling her parents and have a legal partial-birth abortion at 30-plus weeks.

A vote for McCain is a vote to preserve the pro-life laws that have significantly reduced abortions, saving the lives of children who are growing in their mother's womb now.

I'm all for working to elect a candidate who will be 100% pro-life. We have four years to do that. But an Obama win would set back decades of work towards passing pro-life laws and building a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe v. Wade. That would not merely "punish" the Republican Party, as some have suggested. That would punish children who are right now waiting to be born, as well as their mothers, who are currently protected by laws intended to help steer them towards choosing life.

Mark, in pushing readers to vote for a third-party candidate, envisions "walking out of the [voting] booth feeling clean," almost as though exercising a political right could make one ritually pure.

There is a Gospel precedent for that, to be sure. But, with due respect to Mark and other readers who wistfully imagine washing their hands of the dirty business of two-party politics, it is not one that we are called to emulate.

I hope and pray that Mark and other Catholics considering a vote for a third-party candidate, or not voting at all, will ponder his own 2002 article on that episode in Roman politics, which is coincidentally one of the writings of his that helped lead me to the Church. It asks not how we will feel about ourselves after making decisions, but, rather, what I believe is the more important question:: "How Will We Be Remembered?"


UPDATE: Thanks to Mark for his thoughtful response, and for showing his readers the above post in its entirety.

Regarding some of the other reader reactions he notes, please pray for God to bestow the grace of charity on all who are concerned about this election, pro-life bloggers and commenters very much included.

During the past couple of weeks, I was anxiously obsessing on the divisions between pro-life Catholics with regard to the election. The post above is my attempt to get it all out of my head so I can stop worrying and focus instead on asking God's blessing and His will for our country, and on praising Him for having put the dragon under the feet of Our Lady.

Friends such as Drusilla and Fallen Sparrow have helped me see that this is not about being right, but about seeing Mark and other Catholic brethren in love and communicating with them in love. It's a simple point, but one that I need to be reminded of. Some things really are more important than this or any election.

'Believe in' this

"Change" really does mean "redistributive change" after all.

Please pray ...

... for Catholics who do not understand that we not only have a moral duty to oppose evil, but we also have a moral imperative to impede evil.

In this presidential election, that means not only that we have a moral duty to oppose the candidate who has vowed, as his first act as President, to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would eliminate all restrictions on abortions through all nine months of pregnancy.

It means we have a moral imperative to vote for the only candidate who can prevent Barack Obama from becoming President. That candidate is John McCain.

"Roe v. Wade is a clear case of an 'intrinsically unjust law' we are morally obliged to oppose (see Evangelium vitae, nos. 71-73). Reversing it is not a mere political tactic, but a moral imperative for Catholics and others who respect human life."

— Joint Statement by Cardinal Justin Rigali, Chairman, Committee on Pro-Life Activities and Bishop William Murphy, Chairman, Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, October 21, 2008

The only way that America has a chance of seeing Roe vs. Wade reversed is by electing McCain, who "believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned."

Planned Parenthood knows McCain is America's only chance to overturn Roe, or at least to retain current state limitations on abortion as well as the partial-birth abortion ban, which have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. NARAL knows it. The only people who don't seem to know it are Catholics who think that simply not voting, or voting for an unelectable third-party candidate, is the highest moral choice they can make as a voter in this election. It is not. The highest moral choice a Catholic can make as a voter in this election is insuring that Obama does not fulfill his vow to sign the Freedom of Choice Act. The only way to do that is to vote for McCain.

We as Catholics are called not only to avoid personally taking part in evil. We are called to combat evil. In this election, that means defeating the candidate who has vowed to eliminate all legal limitations upon abortion, force taxpayer funding of abortion, and remove all rights of conscience for health-care practitioners and providers.

Again, Catholics who do not understand this need our prayers, that they understand what Cardinal Rigali and other courageous bishops have rightly called our moral imperative. Anything less will permit evil.

"Consider this: the finest health and education systems, the fairest immigration laws, and the soundest economy do nothing for the child who never sees the light of day. It is a tragic irony that 'pro-choice' candidates have come to support homicide – the gravest injustice a society can tolerate – in the name of 'social justice.'"

— Scranton Diocese Bishop Joseph F. Martino, Pastoral Letter for Respect Life Sunday, October 5, 2008.

AND ANOTHER THING Besides vowing to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, Obama has also vowed to use the presidency as a "bully pulpit" to force states to permit same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption. An Obama presidency would mean severe persecution for Catholics and Catholic social agencies, who would be deprived of their freedom of conscience.

RELATED:

• Research shows that pro-life laws work—but they can only be passed if we elect politicians who support them.
• Rev. William Saunders and Rev. Bryan Belli of Our Lady of Hope tell what is at stake for Catholics and the world in their recent homilies. Please pray for them and all priests and bishops who are sounding the alarm in an atmosphere of increasing intimidation from Obama supporters.

Quote of the day

"Before Pope Benedict came to America to celebrate Mass in New York and Washington, it was revealed that as a young boy in Germany he had a cousin with Down Syndrome. One day a Nazi doctor came and claimed his cousin for the Third Reich. [As the boy was] taken to be 'cared for' at the 'hospital,' young Joseph Ratzinger never saw his cousin again: one of the host of 'useless eaters' marked for extermination by that brutal regime.

"My wife and I operate St. Joseph's House, a daycare and respite care home for handicapped children. As it happened one of the children we care for, a wheelchair bound young lady, was chosen along with three other handicapped folks to carry the gifts up to the altar before the consecration at the Mass at Nationals Stadium in Washington D.C. on April 17, 2008. One of these was James, a 30ish man who works in the Officer’s Club at Andrews AFB. James has Down Syndrome. He was chosen to carry the large host which would become the Body of Christ lifted up before the assembled. As James with great ceremony advanced toward the Pope, his native enthusi­asm overcame his reserve and he started to run. Simultaneously the Holy Father leapt from his chair and walked towards James with his arms out­stretched. We have a picture of this moment which I cannot look at without tearing up. What did he see as he gazed so lovingly at James? I believe he saw his cousin. I believe he saw the face of Jesus. And I believe that his great prayer as he elevated that host on that impossibly beautiful day was 'As long as you did these to the least of my brethren, you did it to Me.'

"The next day April 18th, a boy was born to of all people, the Gover­nor of Alaska. They named him Trig."

— Dan LaHood. Adapted from a comment to this post.

Building a chaste counterculture in D.C.

I had a beautiful time speaking to the Catholic University of America's Students for Life last night and chatting with the group's members afterwards. Many thanks to the group's president, Lauren Roselli, for inviting me, and to CUA philosophy instructor Paraic Maher for recommending me to them.

Following my talk, I mentioned to Lauren that, when I spoke at Georgetown last year, the students were interested in starting up a coffeehouse-type social event or discussion group for those wishing to hang out with others who practice chastity. It would provide an opportunity to build friendships relieved of the pressures of the hook-up culture.

Lauren and others there were warm to the idea, particularly if it could encompass other local colleges. At CUA, they said, the pro-chastity contingent is already strong. What appealed most to them was the opportunity to meet and encourage like-minded students from outside schools, who are in greater need of social reinforcement and fellowship.

If anyone from a D.C.-area college would like to help form or take part in such an event, drop me a line and I will be happy to put you in touch with CUA SFL, You can also write them directly via their Web site.

Prayer requests

My friend William Newton was hit by a car Monday. Thank God he is going to be OK—only his suit was permanently damaged—but he is in pain. Please pray for his comfort and healing.

Also, please pray for my friend Father Phil Bloom's niece Tonya Lindenau, whose husband, a decorated military hero, was killed by a terrorist's rocket-propelled grenade in Afghanistan.

An urban legend in my own mind

The "Palin SAT" forgery makes Snopes. Good for them for calling attention to the hoax that was touted as fact by pro-Obama Web sites.

Come hear me speak at Catholic University tomorrow [note room change]

I am delighted to be speaking in my hometown of Washington, D.C., tomorrow—Wednesday, October 22—where I will address CUA Students for Life about the role that chaste love plays in building a culture of life. The talk has been moved to Hannan Auditorium at Hannan Hall (where the Physics Library is on this map). It starts at 7 p.m., admission is free, and all are welcome.

RELATED: In "The Significance of Sexual Intimacy," an excerpt from my book The Thrill of the Chaste, I talk about how "our culture rebels against the idea that the body has a higher purpose."

Quote of the day

"Right now, a typesetter is laying down the words Dewey Wins! Right now, Hillary Clinton is the presumptive Democrat nominee. Right now, George Washington is refusing a crown. Right now, Barack Obama is training ACORN workers. Right now, Margaret Sanger is preaching eugenics. Right now, a Pole is made Pope. Right now, Nero is watching Rome burn. Right now, Peter, that city’s first Bishop, is being crucified and turned upside down.

"Right now, in prayer and in fasting, one may penetrate the illusions of the world and, touching eternity, impact them."

— The Anchoress, who recommends fasting and praying for discernment for the nation and for one's own vote.

Thanks to Fallen Sparrow for the tip.

RELATED: If you are in Washington, D.C., come to the Dominican Friars' open vigil service on Monday, October 27, to pray for a pro-life, pro-family U.S. Presidency.

'I saw some things I can’t get out of my head'Med student 'incredibly freaked out' after a day at Planned Parenthood

I asked the doctor about why he does what he does and he said "I have a great job–no one else can have a patient walk in the door with a huge problem and completely fix that for them in five minutes."

The one with the "great job" is "a 66 y/o male doctor who has performed 200,000 abortions in the past almost-40 years."

The one writing about him is a first-year medical student who loves baby animals—she named her blog Pudu Overload as a tribute to the world's smallest deer. She is also a supporter of legalized abortion. [The blog is now offline—see update below. It was here.]

Yesterday afternoon, the young student came home after spending the day witnessing what goes on inside a Planned Parenthood, and wrote a blog post attempting to process the experience. Beneath the cognitive dissonance, one can see a conscience struggling to assert itself. She is proud of her "pro-choice" bonafides and wants to be on the side that she truly believes is the one that is right—yet she knows she saw death and dismemberment.

Can you imagine, the first time an abortion supporter sees the "procedure" for what it is, how much mental effort it must take to try to reconcile—or just block out—the horrific reality of legalized butchery?

Since Pudu Overload may remove or alter her post after it is highlighted here, I am reprinting it in full, adding paragraph breaks:

today I watched 10 girls younger than me have abortions at the downtown planned parenthood.

I was more nervous than I've been in a very long time taking the train down this morning and walking past the protesters and wondering what I was going to see and who I was going to talk to.

The morning was awkward–shadowing the ultrasound technician who didn't want me there and then hovering in the hallway for hours trying to get counselors to invite me into their counseling sessions. Finally I was assigned to a 66 y/o male doctor who has performed 200,000 abortions in the past almost-40 years. He had me sit behind his right shoulder and talked me through what he was doing and nothing seemed so horrible.

I went with the nurse after the first procedure to see the tissue that was evacuated and although that was the thing I was most scared to do, it was fine and just looked like blood and white fluff.

I asked the doctor about why he does what he does and he said "I have a great job–no one else can have a patient walk in the door with a huge problem and completely fix that for them in five minutes." I stayed in his operating room for most of the afternoon and was surprised by how okay things felt–he was friendly and respectful of his patients and very matter of fact about the whole thing.

The part that made me really uncomfortable came later on when I moved into the OR next door. The doctor there was a middle-aged woman with incredibly understanding, calm bedside manner. The first two cases I saw her perform were gentle and careful and not upsetting.

The third patient was a girl my little sister's age whose pregnancy was much farther along than the others I saw. Coming into the room, she was shaking and scared and the doctor took ten minutes (twice as long as the actual procedure) to make sure she was ready and sure about her decision. Once the patient calmed down and was anesthetized, the nurse hooked up ultrasound to help with the more difficult case. This time I could clearly make out a head and arms on the screen, and I sat down and had to look away during most of the procedure.

Afterwards, the nurse brought me to the back room again and I saw some things I can't get out of my head. Leaving the clinic through a waiting room full of upset pregnant teenagers, I felt respectful of and impressed by the doctors I met, both of whom have been stalked and threatened many times because of what they do. At the same time, I'm incredibly freaked out by the whole thing and don’t know how to think about it. It simultaneously seems like a small and an enormous thing.

Please pray that this young medical student and others like her who witness legalized slaughter will receive the grace to see the truth of what is going on— and flee from it.

RELATED: Jill Stanek observes that Sen. Barack Obama, with plenty of help from the media, is counting on voters to believe that accusations he voted to permit infanticide are too crazy to be true. In fact, Obama's stance, which is even more extreme than that of NARAL Pro-Choice America, is a matter of public record. Robert P. George and Yuval Levin lay it out in their article "Obama and Infanticide."

UPDATE, 11:39 a.m.: Pudu Overload did remove her post and in its place complains of receiving "hate-spam" from "the whole antiabortion crew." If she sends me any hate comments she received via readers of this blog, I will ban those readers from commenting here. However, the only comment she received that I know of is the one that reader Terry claims to have left, which is not hateful. [As of 5:23 p.m., the blog is now completely offline.]

Because I believe it is important to demonstrate what goes on in Planned Parenthood—butchery that will "[freak] out" even a pro-choicer who has not yet become inured to it—I took screenshots to preserve Pudu Overload's entry. Click on them for a larger image. And again, please pray for her, other medical students who witness abortions, and also, as for pro-lifers who fail in their charity.





TRACKBACK: Jeff Miller aka Curt Jester, Mark Shea, Jill Stanek, Rod Dreher weigh in and join the call for prayers.

Quote of the day

"Getting past the straw man of conscience as a religious artifact, the argument against medical conscientious objection is premised on the belief that the moral judgments of the individual must necessarily fall by the wayside in order to preserve the 'greater good' in the form of 'access to reproductive health services.'

"The moral problem with this position is neither a new one, nor a sectarian one. It is an argument that has been regarded as unsound going back to classical antiquity, and what Cicero called 'the first mandate of justice': that one not harm another person unless wounded by injury, and then that one use common things for the common good. Justice requires that a person is first obliged to do what is right himself, and then look to the common good. Just like any other moral agent, doctors should be allowed to adhere to this same moral standard in the application of their consciences."

— Michael Fragoso, from his excellent article on how attacks on doctors' conscientious objection are part of an international campaign to make abortion a basic human right. Read the whole thing.

Ora pro me!

Habito midtermus! Yes, my Latin midterm is today. Prayers, please! Gratias.

Also, check out a news item my old friend Ron Hogan, who kindly invited me to share why I am in graduate school.

REMINDER: Come hear me speak on chaste love and the culture of life on October 22 at Catholic University of America.

Sloppy Gawker maligns me, backtracks

First Gawker touted the forged "Palin SAT scoresheet" as the real thing; last night, it claimed the bad "Palin grades" were mine.

As you can see from my own SAT scoresheet published on NewsBusters, that was a lie. (For those coming in late, read the backstory.)

Here is a screenshot of the original version of Gawker's post; click on it to see it full-size:



The post includes the line, "So Eden's the one with the bad scores? How bizarre."

As I write this, Gawker weekend editor Ian Spiegelman has corrected the falsehoods in the post's text, but it still has the lying headline, "Sarah Palin's SAT Scores Actually Belong to Born-Again Virgin Dawn Eden." (That last link will take you to the current version of the article on Gawker.)

I have been told by Spiegelman that he does not have the power to change headlines. Only publisher Nick Denton and writer Sheila McCleary may do so, and they have not responded to my requests as of this writing. So, the lie remains, although the story contradicts the headline.

Given its previous reportage on me, I have a hard time believing that Gawker is displaying an "absence of malice."

UPDATE, 8:12 a.m.: McCleary writes, "Hi Dawn, I changed the copy at 6:30 pm and I changed the hed at 2: 30 am because I just got HOME FROM THE BAR, yes it's fixed!"

The new headline reads, "Sarah Palin's Fake SAT Scores Actually Belong to Born-Again Virgin Dawn Eden." I wouldn't call that a retraction, but then, as commenter Shaun G. notes, "Not many people consider Gawker a reputable publication."

'Liberal Outrage: A Pro-McCain March in Manhattan'

I don't see any plants in this crowd.



From the video's commentary:

"A bumpkin from flyover country might think that New Yorkers were booing al-Qaeda that's bent on destroying their city. FACT: Islamic radicals would be more welcome on the Upper West Side than American patriots."

Given the welcome Columbia University gave to Ahmadinejad, I would correct that "would be" to "are."

The video was made by The People's Cube, whose members I knew during the 2004 election, when they went by the satirical name Communists for Kerry. Their founding members are emigrés from the Soviet Union who remember what it was like to live under Communism.

Jot and titter

"The sign read 'That Love Your Neighbor Thing. I mean't it. Signed, God.' Now, look closely at the sentence. You'll notice a misplaced apostrophe. I don't have an Oxford English Dictionary so I don't know if such a contraction could be formed. As I drove, I had to turn off the radio because I became fascinated with the error. After all, in standard English (there it is again), a contraction formed that way means 'include not.' Did the author mean to write, 'That Love Your Neighbor Thing. I mean not it'?"

— Father Shane Tharp, "The Grammar of Assent." Following a long absence, Father Tharp is once again gracing the blogosphere via Catholic Ragemonkey.

'At the Altar of My Desk' (1961)Poem and postcard by LEONA M. LENNEMANN

A thoughtful soul at my church's office last week placed in the church's front hall a number of copies of this 1961 postcard created by longtime parishioner Leona M. Lennemann, a secretary in the State Department's office of the legal adviser. (Click on the picture to see it larger.)

The analogy of an office desk as an altar upon which one offers oneself is quite striking. Although I have never seen it made anywhere else, it calls to mind some of the sayings of St. Josemaria Escriva, who wrote, "God waits for us every day in all the immense panorama of work. Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations and it is up to each one of you to discover it…Either we learn to find our Lord in ordinary, everyday life, or else we shall never find him" (Conversations, 114).

The reverse side of the postcard includes this legend:

AN ALTAR FOR SERVICE

Each sphere of life provides a symbolic altar for us to show love for God by serving mankind. Symbols and tools inspire the service. Here the flag and Capitol symbolize democracy; the three pencils - the Three Persons in One God; plants represent nature; pen and books - knowledge and wisdom.

It takes a saintly mind to look at three pencils and be reminded of the Trinity. I believe St. Francis de Sales, in his Introduction to the Devout Life, also advised using everyday objects to bring to mind God's qualities and His gifts.

Judging by the Washington Post's obituary of Lennemann, who died in 2005 at the age of 95, she was a remarkable woman; I wish I could have met her:

In 1944, she was present at the Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire that made plans for international economic recovery after World War II. The following year, she attended the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco that resulted in the signing of the United Nations charter. She was named secretary of the year in her office in 1971.

Miss Lennemann was a poet in her spare time and in 1969 was designated poet laureate of the State Department's office of the legal adviser. She was a member of the International Society of Poets, which gave her the International Poet of Merit award in 1994 and 1995. She won a number of other honors for her poetry over more than 40 years, including the Golden Poet award in 1988 and 1989.

She was a member of the National Society of Inventors and had three patents, for food containers, clothing and a typewriter-centering device. ...

She was [a] member of the lay Carmelite order, a Catholic service organization.

Quote of the day

"But again, what about consensual sex between 'responsible' adults? Consent, frankly, has little to do with it. Let me illustrate with an example from economic development, a class I teach in which I often address the issue of sweatshops:

"Does the fact that an impoverished woman in Indonesia is willing to assemble Nike shoes for 25 cents an hour, 12 hours a day, imply that it is a socially just arrangement? The woman has given her consent in the exchange, but does that make it right? Of course not—consensuality is an insufficient condition for social justice. But many male college students today will sleep out on the steps of the Capitol protesting sweatshop labor and then sleep with their girlfriends, completely unaware of the inherent contradictions of their beliefs and lifestyle. ...

"Contrary to what some might suggest, birth control does not render all of these arguments pointless, because the sexual psychology of women and men is shaped partly by their biology. In other words, even if a woman is using birth control, she still desires love and commitment from her partner more than just sex alone. Thus at a psychological level, women still desire the emotional closeness and intimacy that comes with commitment, and birth control (to the extent that it works) does nothing to address this issue. For this reason, women will typically have feelings of extreme psychological emptiness, depression, and anxiety when sex is given without emotional closeness or commitment given in return."

— Bruce Wydick, from his highly recommended article for Prism magazine, "Sex and Social Justice"

'The Cruise of a Soul' (1944)British Indian Jesuit's compelling memoir of conversion from High Anglicanism

It is my joy to share this moving testimony from the golden age of Catholic apologetics. Click on the front and back cover below to download it as a PDF file (requires Flash).


Many thanks again to reader Therese Z. for sending me her cache of vintage Catholic apologetics pamphlets. I hope to share more of them in the weeks to come. Thanks also to reader TeeEll for converting Cruise of a Soul to PDF.

Quote of the day

“'My god,' wrote an atheist to me, 'is humanity.'

"Out of my heart I felt sorry for him. Atheist though he was, he admitted he had a god. But imagine any man serving and reverencing and adoring the human race, the best-known member of which is, as far as he personally is concerned, himself. ... Imagine bowing down to the race which is represented by the man whose face rather revolted me this morning as I looked at it in the shaving mirror. Fancy having as one’s god this mankind which, for all its genius and achievements, is capable of murder and lust and brutal cruelty and filthy speech and obscene thinking. ...

"The most unsatisfactory god in all of the modern pantheon is undoubtedly the god called humanity. I might be able to adore the smooth, gleaming statue of the Greek Zeus. I might conceivably worship a golden calf. I am certain I cannot find anything innately divine about the person I know and live with and find as inadequate and as thoroughly, humanly unsatisfactory as I find myself.

"Yet, scratch the most arrant atheist and you’ll find a believer in some absurd god whom he worships tirelessly, hopelessly. The more vehemently a man denies he has a god, the surer I am that he is serving, with the sacrifices and labours of a lifetime, some god of his own crude fashioning."

—Daniel A. Lord S.J., "Atheism Doesn't Make Sense" (1936)

Age of devotion

Click on pictures to see them larger.

Many thanks to reader Therese Z., who sent me an awesome cache of Catholic paper memorabilia from the 1930s and 1940s, including numerous pamphlets—most of them penned by Jesuits—defending Church teachings on such topics as contraception and the importance of purity.

I plan to scan every one of the pamphlets and put it up here, as long as reader interest holds up. In the meantime, be blessed by the Sacred Heart prayer card above and the news article below (actually about an Anglican church's statue—but lovingly preserved for 60 years by a Catholic family). If anyone else has pre-Vatican II Catholic paper memorabilia that they would like to part with so that it might be shared here, write me at dawneden(at)gmail.com (replacing the "at" with an atsign).

Planned Parenthood promotes debunked Palin rape-kit smearA guest post by HENRIETTA G. TAVISH

To support the infanticide-favoring Barack Obama and protect its receipt of hundreds of millions of your taxpayer dollars, Planned Parenthood is running a television ad to promote the thoroughly discredited myth that as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin charged rape victims for their own rape kits. Refutations are available here, here, here, here and here and here, and most significantly, in the contemporaneous legislative history of a 2000 Alaska bill.

Notably, the only evidence presented to the committee considering the Alaska bill, which was aimed at protecting victims from incurring such charges, was a letter from one woman in Juneau who discovered that her hospital had billed her insurance for the kit along with the other costs of her treatment -- the problem common throughout the nation, at which the bill was aimed, caused by "crossover between medical care and forensic care." For various reasons intended to help the victims (and supported by victim advocacy groups) Alaska still permits insurance coverage of the kits where minors are involved.

But there's certainly no evidence that any woman in Wasilla (1) ever paid for a rape kit (2) was ever asked to pay for a rape kit, or (3) was ever charged for one through her insurance. None whatsoever! That's why, in the lying Planned Parenthood ad, the featured victim can only assert, without substantiation, that women "like me" were charged. She herself was not a Wasilla resident; she was not raped during the relevant period; and she was not charged for a kit. Indeed, no actual Wasilla resident has ever made such a claim.

UPDATED: I'm in the Army now

Army Specialist Dustin Chalker is a brave man. In the military since 2002, he was deployed to Iraq, where he was awarded the Combat Medic Badge and the Purple Heart.

Spc. Chalker is also an atheist. Upon returning to the States last year, he was required to attend a barbecue and a couple ceremonies at which Christian prayers were read. He's now suing the Department of Defense, alleging that his treatment was part of a larger pattern and practice of imposing religion upon unwilling unbelievers. One of the examples set forth in the complaint is Strong Bonds, a pre-deployment and post-deployment family wellness and marriage training program. Paragraph 13(j)(3) alleges that among the offending materials distributed by the program during a retreat earlier this year was the following:

"The Thrill of the Chaste," by Dawn Eden. The author is described on the back cover as "Jewish-born" and throughout the book as a "former agnostic Jew." The book describes in detail how she led a highly promiscuous and drug abusing lifestyle until she had a "born again experience" and "realized for the first time . . . that [Jesus] as truly God's son." The book is filled (almost every page) with Bible verses and with the author proselytizing Christianity. [A Chaplain] recommended the book multiple times during the training.

Although I am not an actual defendant in the lawsuit, I do hereby plead guilty to most of the charges. However, I never engaged in drug abuse and thus my book does not allude to, much less "detail" such behavior. I pray that Spc. Chalker, as a conscientious member of the reality-based community, will bring this error to the attention of his lawyers and absolve me of that particular sin.

And may God bless him for his service to this country.

UPDATE, 7:23 p.m.: My prayer has been answered. Spc. Chalker wrote to me this afternoon apologizing for the error and assuring me that it will be corrected.

A representative from the organization that is co-plaintiff in his lawsuit has also apologized in the comments section of this post. He notes that Spc. Chalker did not personally complain about my book; the complaint was made by another soldier and was tacked onto his class-actions suit. However, he does not promise a correction, writing only that he will "find out why" the complainant cited drug abuse in my book.

Quote of the day

"Sexuality, then, as part of our human nature only dignifies and liberates us when we begin to love in harmony with God’s love and God’s wisdom for us. Chastity as a virtue is the path that brings us to that harmony with God’s wisdom and love. Chastity moves us beyond one’s desire to what God wills for each one of us. Chastity is love’s journey on the path of 'ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.' Chastity is the understanding that it is not all about me or about us. We act always under God’s gaze. Desire tempered and tested by 'renunciation, purification, and healing' can lead us to God’s design.

"This is true for all of us. It is also true for men and women who are homosexual. We are called to live and love in a manner that brings us into respectful, chaste relationships with one another and an intimate relationship with God. We should be an instrument of God’s love for one another. Let me be clear here. Sexual intercourse, outside of the marriage covenant between a man and a woman, can be alluring and intoxicating but it will not lead to that liberating journey of true self-discovery and an authentic discovery of God. For that reason, it is sinful. ...

"Marriage is also not the sole domain of love as some of the politics would seem to imply. Love is lived and celebrated in so many ways that can lead to a wholesome, earnest, and religious life: the deep and chaste love of committed friends, the untiring love of committed religious and clergy, the profound and charitable bonds among the members of a Christian community, enduring, forgiving, and supportive love among family members. Should we dismiss or demean the human and spiritual significance of these lives given in love?"

— Coadjutor Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, from his stunning (and, for many attendees, shocking) keynote speech to the conference of National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries. Read the full text of his speech and California Catholic's account of how it was received. (Via LifeSiteNews.)

RELATED: Courage is an apostolate loyal to the Magisterium that ministers to Catholics who experience same-sex attraction.

Quote of the day

"After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- 'I refute it thus.'"

— James Boswell, Life of Johnson (via the Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page)

Luminous mystery

From author David Hewson, a lovely visual treat for your Sunday. I do hope to peer through Rome's most famous keyhole in person one day.

Quote of the day

"When parents achieve a mastery of themselves and not just their physical environments, this lesson too is not lost on their children. Self-mastery, like endurance, is a behavior which is incontrovertibly personal. It cannot be done to someone from the outside. But, when there are examples of it around us, we tend to pick up on it and make it our own. Thus, there is a generational impact. The children of self-mastering parents -- who become self-mastering adults themselves -- are then more likely to possess healthy attitudes for confronting problems and dilemmas, and are less likely to resort to ... socially harmful conduct."

— Rev. Msgr. Robert Batule on why parents who wish their children to learn chastity ought to demonstrate it in their own marriage, from his essay "Humanae Vitae the Nexus of Personal and Social Morality." Read the whole piece.

Giddy 'uns' bibleTalking about The Thrill with Jillian Bandes

In which Washington wit Jillian Bandes of Culture11 sits me down for a chat at a Georgetown coffee shop and a splendid time is had by all. Make sure you stay tuned for the outtakes at the end.



The half-hour interview also covered more sober ground, but was ultimately edited to show Jillian's and my lighter side. Even so, it would be honest to say that, after a day of studying among seminarians, the opportunity for girl talk had me in estrogen-fueled high spirits.

There is one spot early on in the interview that could use some context—it's the part when I refer to some popular books on Christian courtship. I was speaking about how some authors, in trying to warn against certain behaviors, go to great lengths to describe them. I tried consciously to avoid that when referring to my past life in The Thrill of the Chaste, aiming to be stark but not graphic.

As a result of having avoided detailing a Technicolor list of "don'ts," the top question I get when I speak on campuses is one I never broached in the book—"How far is too far?" (Answer: Go for affection, not arousal. And, of course, look to The Thrill's subtitle.)

Many thanks to Jillian and director John Scanlon (a noted documentary filmmaker) for profiling me for Culture11, a thought-provoking new site edited by Evangelical Outpost blogger Joe Carter.

The inclusion of the outtakes remind of the similar device used in this oldie but goodie, "Chastity Rome-Chick Blues," shot in a photographer's studio at the New York Daily News.



Buy my book, The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On, from Amazon.com.

For all the saintsA guest post by JUNE ARCHER

An interesting thing happened in a 9th grade Confirmation class I taught recently.

In the second class of a ten-week curriculum, I handed out a book about the saints to each student. I asked them look through it and to choose a saint whom they admired—perhaps taking that saint’s name as their own on Confirmation day. What happened next was the interesting part. The following week, ninety percent of the class had read the book from cover to cover, had chosen a saint, and wanted to know more. In fact, some their friends from other Confirmation classes down the hall came in and asked if they too could have a book of saints to read.

In short, they ate it up.

Here was something they had never heard of—real people who lived ordinary lives, had done extraordinary things for God and neighbor, and had gained heaven. Some were older people, some were priests and nuns, and some were even their own age! It was as though a light bulb had been turned on, and I would venture to say that the saints and their stories struck a chord with those teenagers more than any other point I made in that ten-week period.

Whatever happened to the saints? As a child, they were a basic part of my Catholic education, and they fascinated me. As an adult, they fascinate me still. During the past 20 years or so of religious education, however, it seem the saints and their stories have either been relegated to the background or eliminated altogether as irrelevant in the course of our daily lives.

But in our world where heroes are absent or only too human, we need the example of these very human saints to show us how to gain heaven in spite of our own faults and failings. Thomas Merton once wrote, “The saints quickly become stereotyped in the mind of the average Christian … essentially an image without the slightest moral flaw" (Life and Holiness, 1963). And while the legendary status of some saints finds us hard pressed to find a flaw, nevertheless it is the humanity of all the saints in their struggle for sanctity that draws us to them.

Consider some the better-known saints. Joan of Arc lived the life of a simple shepherdess until the age of 17 when her heavenly Voices commanded that she save her beloved France from the hands of the English. Unable to read or write, with no knowledge of warfare or even how to ride a horse, Joan led an army against England and defeated them in every battle. Convinced of the divinity of her mission, she boldly faced kings, bishops and judges to carry out her commands—finally paying for her loyalty with her life at the stake. Should I mention that she was only 19 at the time of her death and still could not read or write?

In contrast, consider gentle Joseph, earthly father and protector of God made Man and of the Blessed Mother. While not called to shine on the world stage, he faced agonizing questions about the will of God in his lifetime. Despite his doubts about the propriety of an impending marriage to an expectant fiancée, he obeyed without question God’s loving direction to take Mary into his home as his wife. He obeyed again when instructed by an angelic messenger to flee with his wife and Child to safety in Egypt. What must have been the reaction of friends and family in these instances to the decisions Joseph made as head of the Holy Family? Despite his upright reputation in the community, he must have faced questions and even ridicule. Joseph’s life as a carpenter in Nazareth was one of skill and service, but more and more he became aware of the marvelous gift bestowed on him by God. He died in obscurity but found glory in heaven where he would await the death and rising of Our Lord and the Assumption of his equally obedient spouse.

In order to truly appreciate the importance of the saints in our lives, we must believe in our own worth as children of God. We must believe that heaven is our ultimate goal and that attaining it is a full-time pursuit—not something we do in our spare time.

Is it possible, as sinners all, to even hope for success in our pursuit? We need only to look to the saints to realize that you and I are not the first to struggle, fall, and stand up again. We take heart in the story of Peter, that very real, very human, very boisterous fisherman. Who was it that swore he would stand by Our Lord always, failed miserably to do so in Our Lord’s ultimate hour of need, and wept bitterly at his failure? Yet to whom did Our Lord entrust the keys to the kingdom of heaven; whom did he proclaim as the rock on which his Church would be built? Our hope stems from the humanity of Peter with which we readily identify. Our Lord did not choose that stereotypical saint of folded hands and eyes heavenward that Thomas Merton describes. Instead, He chose someone who, despite his best intentions for the Lord, just couldn’t get it right time and time again. Yet Peter’s sanctity came out of his very real love of the Lord that made him try again and again.

Why is it that certain saints appeal to our hearts more than others? The simple answer is that our favorites reveal a struggle similar to our own. Each saint presents a different pathway to heaven. God provides us with the ultimate “road map” to heaven in the life Our Lord, but he provides road maps in the lives of each of the saints as well. By virtue of their uniquely individual struggles, the saints also serve us by way of their intercession before God. Often misunderstood, the intercession of the saints can provide relief from the daunting task of appealing directly to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. While Our Lord was the ultimate saint in His human nature, He was like us in all things but sin—a very big “but.” If sin is the stumbling stone, we can look to the saints and their stumbling stones to guide us along the way. (In some cases, they even provide us with their example of appealing to a saint who has gone before them.) In the saints, God takes the opportunity to spread the wealth, as it were—to pass His loving kindness through those who are “specialists” in our particular needs and to present those needs to Him.

Consider Maximilian Kolbe who gave his life in a concentration camp in order to save a fellow prisoner. Consider Mary Magdalene, who sought Our Lord in her sinfulness, who followed Him to the Cross, and who became the Apostle to the Apostles—the first to see the risen Lord on Easter morning. Consider Paul, once known as Saul, who persecuted the Church of Christ with all the strength he possessed, only to become the possession of its Holy Founder. Consider Martha, that wonderful domestic saint who couldn’t reconcile her sister’s contemplative lifestyle with her own overly busy list of chores. Consider Stephen, whose martyrdom celebrated on the heels of Christmas stands in violent contrast to the peace of the Lord’s birth. Consider Clare, who ran away from home and an impending marriage to follow Francis in a life of poverty and humility. For that matter, consider Francis, who preceded her, giving up wealth and comfort to serve God as a humble peasant.

While we may not be called upon to leave our families, face an army, or give up our lives in martyrdom, we are called to show the world how to strive for holiness in our earthly life with an eye toward heaven. What a powerful example the saints provide!

There are saints we read about in books and hold in our hearts – and there are saints we simply hold in our hearts. The saints who have gone before us in the persons of our fathers, our mothers, brothers and sisters, grandparents and friends—while not canonized by the Church—stand before the throne of God as well, interceding for us in our needs. In order to find heroes in our lifetime, we need only to look to those people who have passed through our own lives. They were, in most cases, ordinary people who spent their lives doing the best they could for God, even if they didn’t realize it themselves. They struggled, they fell, they got up again. Relegated to the background? Irrelevant? Hardly. When they left us, God gave them the ultimate reward. As His lesser-known saints, they also merited the chance to help us in our daily struggle to do the best for God—and to hope in joining their ranks one day as well.

Not too long after my students discovered the saints, one of my fellow teachers approached me and said she didn’t think she was going to teach her students about them. She admitted she’d never been sure why the saints were important, and told me she felt uncomfortable even telling her students about them. How sad. In the course of her own religious education, someone had failed to convey to this woman one of the most captivating and inspirational aspects of the faith. In depriving her students of the lives of the saints, she missed a golden opportunity to demonstrate the promptings of the Holy Spirit in the lives of these holy men and women—the very same Holy Spirit who would be prompting her students in the near future on Confirmation day.

The fortitude of Elizabeth Seton and Frances Xavier Cabrini; the modesty and courage of Maria Goretti; the piety of Isidore the farmer and Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows; the generosity of Martin of Tours; the kindness of Elizabeth of Hungary and John Vianney; the gentleness of Therese of Lisieux; the faithfulness of John the Evangelist. In the saints, my Confirmation students were able to recognize in concrete ways the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit they were preparing to receive.

Taking the example of the saints, they could look at their surroundings and find instances of those gifts and fruits (or lack thereof) in their daily lives. They could begin to recognize the unique talents and virtues that God had bestowed on them and how He was calling them to put those talents to work. They could also see the difficulties they might face in bringing the Lord’s message to a world that often does not want to hear it. My students now knew that they could strive to make a difference in the world—it was the saints who helped them to realize that.

What a shame it would have been if they’d never heard of them.

The above article by June Archer first appeared in Homiletic and Pastoral Review in June 1999. Reprinted with the author's permission.

Sainted love

Someone recently asked me who I thought should be upheld as the patron saint of purity.

My answer was, "All of them."

I think the need some people feel to isolate certain saints as icons of chastity reveals the mistake, encouraged by our culture, of seeing such purity only in terms of resisting sexual temptation. But, rightly understood, chastity, as G.K. Chesterton wrote, "does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc."

Living—or, rather, loving—chastely means loving fully according to the manner that is appropriate to each individual relationship. The "yes" to loving chastely does include a "no" to engaging in sex outside of the marriage bond. But to believe that only through sex could one love and be loved fully—that would be terribly limiting and sad. The saints' lives, by contrast, were and are infused with joy.

So, I find it odd when people suggest we need to point to a particular saint as a model of pure living. Certainly, I can gain inspiration from the stories of saints who struggled with and overcame the temptation to use or be used sexually, such as Augustine, Mary of Egypt, and Mary Magdalene. To single out a patron saint of purity, however, implies the saint was an "expert" in loving chastely, the way that Paul was an expert in tent-making or Cecelia an expert in music.

The beauty of chastity is that it is not an ability, but a grace. It does not get us into heaven. It is the leading edge of heaven.

Abortion survivor: 'If Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn’t be here'

Gianna Jessen, who survived an attempted saline abortion, made a compelling appearance on "Hannity and Colmes" last night to discuss Sen. Barack Obama's votes against the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act.



The interview comes in the wake of Jessen's appearance in the debut TV ad by BornAliveTruth.org.



In a straightforward and truthful manner, this ad hits Obama in his most vulnerable spot. Most Americans would be shocked if they knew the lengths to which he went to protect the livelihood of abortionists over the lives of babies outside the womb. Visit Jill Stanek's blog for updates on BornAliveTruth.org and the media's reaction to it. My friend Thomas Peters at American Papist is also tracking this topic and has a post with commentary on the Jessen ad.

RELATED: If you know Christians who are wrestling with their conscience over the issue of how to cast their vote, Priests for Life have an excellent guide called "Voting with a Clear Conscience," available in a Catholic version as well as an interdenominational version.

* * *
Following this post, I am returning my focus to my graduate studies and do not plan to blog again until at least this coming weekend. Thanks to all those readers whose prayers have helped me to reach this joyful time of my life.

September songs

One sunny Saturday afternoon in August 1981, my Grandma Jessie drove me to the Livingston Mall to buy me a dress and shoes for my bat mitzvah the following month.

Of course, they had to be blue—my favorite color.

I chose an ankle-length, short-sleeved dress of patterned Indian cotton that was primarily a muted, cadet-blue shade, and Famolare-style sandals to match. It was a daringly hippie look for a temple service, even for a liberal Reform congregation such as mine, but my very understanding grandmother (a Cornell drama grad who was quite the bohemian in her time) was happy to buy me something that made me feel pretty. And it was a pretty look, the dress flowing and feminine; today I would call it Marian.

Grandma's gift came to mind Sunday as I prayed the Sanctus at Mass yesterday. Time telescoped for a moment and I thought of the moment at my bat mitzvah, twenty-seven years ago this Thursday, as the congregation prayed the Kedushah, the central prayer of the Shabbat service—"Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh... Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord of Hosts, the whole world is filled with His glory."

At that same moment, I remembered that a year after my bat mitzvah, to the day, my grandmother passed away. Around this time would be her yahrzeit, the lunar anniversary of her death. Jews are obligated to pray on loved ones' yarhzeits. Although I felt my grandmother to be in heaven, I prayed for her at that moment of the Mass, knowing that, if she were already enjoying the presence of the Lord, she would pass the graces on to those in need of them.

My bat mitzvah was a sort of last hurrah for the Jewish spirituality that had played a role in my childhood. It shouldn't have been, but, for many reasons, it was.

What I am experiencing today, as a first-semester, full-time M.A. theology student at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies, given back the years the locust has eaten. Like time stopped and restarted with me put where I was supposed to be all along.

Twenty-seven years ago this week, I chanted in Hebrew the words of Isaiah 54: " Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear, break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail; for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD. ... "

Today, I can say that anyone who has been helped by my book is one of my "children." Better still, I now have the opportunity to become a better "mom" through the inspiration of studying under and with others practicing spiritual parenthood, including, among my classmates, many future priests—men who, with God's help, will be spiritual fathers to thousands.

As Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was fond of saying, God can write straight with crooked lines. I thank Him for doing so with me, and pray that this pen will realize that His grace is sufficient to prevent its ever again rebelling against its Author. In praying this, it gives me strength to remember how St. Maximilian, faced with trials immeasurably harder than anything I have experienced, asked Our Lady for aid, and so could say with confidence, "the Immaculata is helping me."



"My heart is inditing"—Handel, performed by the Holland Boys Choir

Thank you for your prayers as I continue to focus on my studies. I hope to resist blogging again until at least the weekend after next.

Commenters: I would like the comments section to be for comments, not a depository for unrelated links. If you would like to get a piece of news to me, please use e-mail (see address at left). Thank you.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

UPDATE, 7/27/12: Problem solved. Read what I learned about the Church's true teachings on virgin martyrs.

Jill at Feministe discovers St. Maria Goretti via an item I posted, and asserts the Church's motivation in canonizing her was to tell the women of the world, "Better to die than to survive rape."

Granted, Jill's other writings make it clear she is prone to view Church teachings in an unsympathetic light. But, in the case of St. Maria, I believe the opinion she expresses is shared by many reasonable people, including some Catholics. As I have written, that is why I am uncomfortable with the promotion of St. Maria as a role model for teens—because the message of her martyrdom may be so easily misinterpreted. And it doesn't help when well-meaning defenders of her cult infer, as did one of my commenters, that failure to resist a violent rapist is "a mortal sin."

As a Catholic, I believe St. Maria Goretti is a saint—end of story. But, as an apologist, I have too much on my plate with grad school to do the research and contemplation I would need in order to go to the mat for her as a patron saint of purity. (That she is a model of forgiveness is unquestionable and a far easier point to defend.) So, I hope to learn from what you have to say about why the Church and, by extension, Catholic organizations, specifically cite her as a model of chastity—one whose witness, like that of all the saints, is intended to teach us how to grow in holiness. If you would like to join the discussion, leave a comment at Feministe or my previous blog entry.

Comments closed; leave a comment at the above-linked entries.

Many thanks to those who have wished me a happy birthday and who have celebrated my birthday with me this week. I hope to publish some photos tomorrow from my birthday celebrations (both of them!) and to write an update on my studies, which continue to be a joy.

Here is what I wrote on yesterday's quiz on the past and future tenses of "sum." Don't ask why I got "estis" wrong (if you must know, I was confusing it with the French—one really shouldn't think too hard about these things):

sum, es, est, sumus, estes*, sunt
erō, eris, erit, erimus, eritis, erunt

We were told to study the imperfect as well, but it turned out not to be on the quiz. I would have written:

eram, erās, erat, erāmus, erātis, erant

*Should have written "estis."

Quote of the day

"[T]he single most important narrative holding the left together in today's politics and culture is the one offered--often with little or no dissent--by adversarial feminism. The premise of this narrative is that for women to achieve dignity and self-fulfillment in modern society, they must distance themselves, not necessarily from men or marriage or childbearing, but from the kind of marriage in which a mother's temptation to be with and enjoy several children becomes a synonym for holding women back and cheating them out of professional success.

"... The simple fact of [Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's] being a pro-life married mother of five with a thriving political career was--before anything else about her was known--enough for the left and its outliers to target her for destruction. She could not be allowed to contradict symbolically one of the central narratives of the left."

— Jeffrey Bell in the Weekly Standard, "Why They Hate Her"

Thanks to Kevin Walsh for the tip.

Horne on Hanna

The lovely Lena has the forecast for my Washington neighborhood this weekend.

I'm off

I am celebrating Labor Day (and my upcoming 40th birthday) by taking a week off blogging. Grad school is absolutely wonderful and requires quite a bit more effort than the "real world," especially as I work to get my health back to 100%. While I reserve the right to break my own embargo, I hope to refrain from posting again until next weekend.

Many thanks again, as always, to those of you who have prayed for me. The experience I had the day I began this new stage of my life, with its sense of certainty that I was where I was supposed to be at that moment, gave me great joy. As a commenter wrote, it truly is the best feeling.

I am also beginning to feel inspired to do in-depth writing (as opposed to blogging or simple news reporting) for the first time since composing "Eve of Deconstruction: Feminism and John Paul II" some months ago. If the inspiration continues, I may extend the blogging hiatus to see how far it takes me—whether it leads to another magazine article, a book, or a paper for school. And if it only does lead to a school paper and nothing "saleable," something inside me feels that—as much as this newly full-time student could use some extra writing income—it will be more than worth it.

* * *
The most fascinating piece of writing I have read during the past month, other than assigned reading (Father Aidan Nichols O.P. rocks my world), is the "Freedom from Adam's Sin" chapter of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's Daughter Zion. It made me revisit a piece I had previously read, St. Maximilian Kolbe's final essay, "The Immaculate Conception—Who Are You?" (available in The Kolbe Reader), and find it alive with new meaning.

Together, those works, as well as the Pius X encyclical I read earlier (and now need to reread) answered many questions I had about the Immaculate Conception, opening up exciting vistas. One day, I hope to have the theological grounding to explore those vistas in my own writings. But first, I need to buy the Blackfriars Summa ...

* * *
Commenters, your civility during my absence is greatly appreciated, as always. While I will try to resist commenting myself, I will spy in from time to time to keep the peace.

Prayer request

Please pray for a dear friend of mine who just contracted Lyme disease while on an out-of-town trip to attend his father's funeral.

The disease was diagnosed early, thankfully, and he is receiving antibiotics, but he does have symptoms. I know he would appreciate your prayers. Thank you.