REGINA Inspiring. Intelligent. Catholic.
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First Quarter 2013
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ur first cover pays tribute to one Empress, two Queens, one Princess, one First Lady, two religious founders and one remarkable scientist* – each and every one an historic Catholic lady.
As the papacy of Benedict XVI draws to a close, REGINA draws together extraordinary Catholic writers with a vibrant faith, and wide-ranging interests. We cover Catholic stories and review Catholic films and books that most publications seem to be unaware of. And we’re interested in everything under the Catholic sun -- from work and family to religious and eternal life.
* From top, left: Jacqueline Kennedy, Blessed Mother Teresa, Princess Grace of Monaco, Mary Queen of Scots, Empress Zita of Austria, Queen Isabella of Spain, Marie Curie and St. Francesca Cabrini, the first American saint.
Table of Articles A Dedication Pope Benedict XVI……………………….………………page 3
We seek the Good, the Beautiful and the True – in our Tradition and with our God-given Reason. We really do believe in one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church. We are joyfully loyal to the Magisterium. We proudly celebrate our literary and artistic heritage and seek to live and teach the authentic Faith.
The Catholic Wedding of the Year
For the simple truth is that there is a new era dawning for the Church. The first green shoots of a Catholic renewal are already underway–beginning in the present generations, promising the “springtime” that the late Pope John Paul foresaw and which his successor Benedict XVI has labored in the vineyard for.
The (American) Monks of Norcia…………….….pages 6&7
Catholic ladies’ rightful place is in the heart of the family -- and at the head of businesses and states. And this is nothing new. We have always accepted the challenge to govern ourselves, our families and our responsibilities, through the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We are grateful for this treasure laid up for us for two thousand years by the Church -- in her liturgy, her clergy, her great gift of Christendom and the Catholic culture that we are the primary bearers of. Today we place REGINA under the patronage of Our Lady, Mary Most Holy. We pray that she lays our humble work at the feet of her Son, and that His Will be done. And we pray that she guides the Cardinals as they choose a new pope for Holy Mother Church. Beverly De Soto Editor, REGINA Rome, February 2013
A New American Archduchess……………………pages 4&5
Traditional Liturgy An Interview with Colleen Carroll Campbell Radical Women Saints and Me……….................pages 8&9
A Christ-Centered Approach to Fitness Our Bodies, Our Souls…………….…………....pages 10 & 11
Ball Gowns British Glamour Since 1950……….................pages 12 to 15
Porn: The Growing Epidemic ‘Empty and Guilty, yet Searching for More’……..…page 16
Dear Dorothy The Catholic Homeschooling Goddess……………...page 17
Take a Stand for Your Family Letter to a Young Mother……….……………………...page 18
Running Around Europe A Young, Catholic, Army Doctor………………pages 19&20
Bucking the System ‘Ladies, We Are What We Eat’………………………. page 21
Simple. Seasonal. Catholic. Lasagna Al Forno Con Verdure Arrostite……….… page 22 Catholic Baby Boomers The Prodigal Daughters …..……………………pages 23-24 REGINA is a quarterly Catholic review published in English and German and distributed solely through the Internet. There is no charge. Inquiries should be directed to Facebook/Regina Magazine or to Editor.REGINA@gmail.com 2|Page
A Dedication
Dear Pope Benedict XVI
The news is still painfully fresh. We are still digesting the idea that you are resigning from the papacy, a step that has not been taken, we understand, since the 1400s. We understand that your health and strength are failing you. Certainly we all watched, transfixed, as your predecessor almost literally died in our arms, his suffering and death broadcast far and wide for all the world to see. And while we admired his unswerving courage, some of us couldn’t help but worry about what was transpiring in Holy Mother Church as our pontiff lay dying for so long. _____________________________________________________________
We must pray with renewed fervor, hope, and trust in God's goodness. Peter's boat will never sink. God has a plan. _____________________________________________________________
So that is why we understand your courageous decision now. You are telling us that the bark of Saint Peter requires the strength and focus of a vigorous man in these stormy seas. And we know that you are right. Gone are the days when an aged and ailing pope could retire to the papal apartments and fade away. The media requires an active pope who's constantly in touch with the world. Your doctors have been honest with you, and you are honest with the world. Yours is a selfless gesture from a selfless and holy man. And we thank God for your many decades of selfless service, your patience and your bravery. But we will miss you -- your intelligence, your gentleness and your great love for the Church. We must pray with renewed fervor, hope, and trust in God's goodness. Peter's boat will never sink. God has a plan.
This Lent, we pray for you, Holy Father and for the cardinals who are choosing your successor. May Mary, Seat of Wisdom, guide you and the Church in the difficult days ahead. _____________________________________________________________
It is with deep gratitude that we dedicate REGINA to you, Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI. May God bless you always! _____________________________________________________________
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A New American Archduchess
The Catholic Wedding of the Year By Lucy Mc Vicker
It was both a sentimental and significant choice. Kathleen and Imre had met here at the Latin Mass they attended months before. The church had recently been dedicated as a shrine to Blessed Karl of Austria – the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Imre’s great-grandfather. A private ball in the new couple’s honor the night before was a thing out of a fairytale. Truly, the evening was everything I dreamt a royal ball could be. As we entered, a string quartet could be heard playing a waltz. I found myself seated alongside several dukes, archdukes, and a soon-to-be archduchess. (Never in a million years could this Pacific Northwest girl, who grew up playing kick-the-can with the neighborhood kids in the summer, have imagined such a scene!) At the first notes of Strauss's Kaiser-Waltz, they walked to the dance floor, swinging their clasped hands and gazing shyly at each other. As the movement in the waltz changed, so did their dance and likewise, their reenactment of their courtship – walking a bit closer to one another, he spinning her a few times until finally, a twirl found her in his arms and they set off waltzing effortlessly around and around.
Archduchess Kathleen of Austria is everything a princess should be – poised, graceful, elegant, articulate, God-fearing, humble, and virtuous. She is also an American with a passion to defend the poor, the lonely, the pre-born and their mothers. I know about this passion, because I was blessed with this inspiring friend when we worked together in the prolife movement in Washington, DC. Let’s just say that it was no surprise to any of her friends when Katie married Imre. A few of us knew from the beginning that she had met her match – they shared a common Faith, goals, and very importantly, a sense of humor, constantly challenging and supporting each other. One thing was clear: they loved each other. Katie, our 'Anne of Green Gables' fan, had met her "Gilbert Blythe." Imre is a Hapsburg – a descendent of the centuries-old family of the Holy Roman Emperors. Officially ‘His Imperial and Royal Highness of Austria,’ this young, serious man solemnly wed his American Kathleen on September 8, 2012. The couple chose this feast day of the Nativity of Our Lady to be wed at St. Mary, Mother of God Catholic Church in Washington, DC. 4|Page
Their dance was a reenactment of their courtship – walking a bit closer, he spinning her a few times until finally, a twirl found her in his arms and they set off waltzing effortlessly around and around. It was simply, breathtakingly beautiful. And I must say, the innocence of their love and their fulfillment of their call to chastity was evident to all who attended. (I might have pushed a tear aside at this point.) And what a party! Our DJ, who stepped in for the string quartet, rocked the American pop classics. Until the wee hours, we all -- Europeans, Americans, Canadians, Chileans – danced and sang in our varying accents. Yea, verily, it was Twist ‘n’ Shout almost to the next morning, which came all too quickly. Outside St Mary’s gray stone eminence, the procession of ladies’ hats and men in elegant day suits astonished passerby. It was clear that this was no ordinary event. For this reporter, the hats were a revelation. Never before,
save for TV coverage of England’s royal wedding, had I seen such luxury. Online fashion blogger The Sartorialist would have been delighted. As an avid Downton Abbey fan, I was thrilled by the European men in their dashing morning coats. (This might be a men’s fashion that needs to recross the Pond.)
I found myself seated alongside several dukes, archdukes, and a soonto-be archduchess. An avid Downton Abbey fan, I was thrilled by the European men in their dashing morning coats.
To be honest, I still cannot believe that I witnessed this deeply sacramental marriage. More than the obvious “commoner- meeting-her-Prince-Charming” storyline, it was the beautiful culmination of another, rarer story in our fallen world, where ‘holy and virtuous girl meets holy and virtuous boy’ and they fall madly in love – keeping Christ at all times at the center of their relationship.
Presided over by Monsignor Charles Pope, in the presence of Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde, their Latin Nuptial Mass was glorious. There was not a single moment where it was not evident that it really does take three to get married. While a beautiful bride and her handsome groom stood before the altar, the Mass itself centered on God; our attention was never drawn away from the sacred. An hour and a half flew by in minutes, and soon the new husband and wife walked to the shrine of Our Lady to consecrate their newly-created family. Finally, the church echoed to the strains of "On This Day, O Beautiful Mother" - the favorite Marian hymn of Kathleen's late grandmother.
The Latin Nuptial Mass was glorious. I still cannot believe that I witnessed this deeply sacramental marriage ceremony. Even in these ‘progressive’ times, theirs is the kind of fairytale that each and every Christian woman dreams of – whether they will admit it or not. May God bless Their Imperial and Royal Highnesses Imre and Kathleen of Austria and grant them a long and joyous life!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lucy McVicker worked for the pro-life movement in the Washington DC area and currently resides in her hometown of Portland, Oregon where she is active in her parish community. In her free time, she can be found sewing or knitting, kayaking, running, or hiking.
Truly, the day was everything that I dreamt a royal wedding could be.
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Traditional Liturgy
The (American) Monks of Norcia By Dan Flaherty “They’re blown away by the beauty of the Mass. It gives the monks a chance to change culture from the inside-out.”
It was October 6, 1995 and Father Cassian Folsom was riding the train between Rome and Naples when he felt the call of the Holy Spirit. In his seat, he found himself envisioning a new religious order, one that would focus on the integration of prayer, study and manual labor. Three years later, Father Cassian founded a new Benedictine order, the Monks of Norcia. Today, situated in the Sybilline Mountains, within the walled city of Norcia, the Monks’ monastery is directly above the 5th-century ruins of the birthplace of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica. Fr. Cassian began his order in 1998 in a small apartment. Today, the Monks have their own monastery, a visible presence in the local community, an online presence to the world and even their own brewery. While the order is still a small one—sixteen monks in all—the authenticity of Father Cassian’s original call has been validated by the growth of the last fourteen years. Norcia is a tourist city, thanks to its culinary delights and the uniqueness of its walls, which allow only seven points to enter the city. The Basilica is at the heart of the town, and visitors who might have come just to sample the boar and cheese instead end up being exposed to the bread that is eternal. “Visitors basically stumble across the monks,” said Bryan Gonzalez, the order’s Director of Development in the U.S. 6|Page
The food in Norcia might bring tourists, but few things could go better with boar and cheese than good beer, and that is something the Monks have been able to provide. “Brewing beer has long been a part of the monastic tradition,” said Father Mary Benedict Nivakoff, who lives at the monastery. “For years on Sunday nights we would sample the vast variety of Trappist beers and wonder if it was possible to do this ourselves.”
“Tourists wander into the Basilica. They’re blown away by the beauty of the Mass. It gives the monks a chance to change culture from the inside-out.” This past August, Father Nivakoff and his brother priests got an affirmative answer to that wish. After allowing one of the monks to renew his hobby of home brewing, they were happy with the results and realized they really could do this themselves. On the Feast of the Assumption—August 15—Birra Nursia—was open for business. In four short months, “Nursia” beer has taken off. The monks supply restaurants both in Norcia, and as far as Venice, Livorno, Perugia, Montefalco and Rome. Within their own gift shop, Father Nivakoff reports that the beer never stays on the shelf more than a week or two. The bigger challenge Birra Nursia faces is fulfilling the demand, as their American friends and benefactors are ready to import. “The exportation process is difficult,” said Gonzalez. “There are permits and distributors to be dealt with.” More importantly though, “the monks can’t just crank out beer,” Gonzalez added. “They can make 250 liters at a time and need a bigger beer kettle, about three times bigger.”
“A monk witnesses to the goodness of God and the beauty of creation.”
the Monks’ love for God need not travel to Norcia—they can go online and download the Vespers that are uploaded each morning. “The practice of having Vespers online isn’t new,” Gonzalez told REGINA. “But in other cases, it’s on live and that’s not practical for someone in the United States who wants to pray with the monks.” Gonzalez posts a recording each morning. Father Nivakoff added that he’s heard from both soldiers in Afghanistan and missionaries in Africa, telling him they listen in. Growth and success means challenges and the biggest one the monks face is that they’re running out of room. They own an old Capuchin monastery, unused for sixty years, presently “uninhabitable.” However, the permits and costs associated with renovation are prohibitive. Nor is an American-based sister house a likely solution, given that the monastery’s location at the birthplace of St. Benedict give it a uniqueness impossible to re-create. “If you built a house in Des Moines (the American home base) it would lack the uniqueness,” said Gonzalez.
More important than meeting market demand is the positive spiritual impact the brewery work has had on the monastery. “If monks do not have good work, their spiritual lives can suffer,” said Father Nivakoff. Each monk now participates in the brewery in some form. This contribution helps each monk to take responsibility both for the quality of the beer and for the monastery in general. St. Benedict taught that God is glorified in the physical and material aspects of the monastery, as surely as He is in prayer. “ The early success of Birra Nursia gives Father Nivakoff hope that their work will enable the Monks to achieve self-sufficiency. “As anyone who has started their own business knows, the material fruits of the brewery will take some time to appear, since most of what we earn has gone back into the plant.” However, according to Gonzalez, the generous donations the Monks receive at least enabled them to start their business debt-free. The Monks grow spiritually, as all Catholics do, through participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. While the celebration of various liturgical rites since Vatican II has led to a battleground in the Church, the Monks have countered by replacing the battleground with beauty— the reverent celebration of, and regard for, all the rites of the Church. Those who want to share in
The monks own an old Capuchin monastery, unused for sixty years, presently “uninhabitable.” However, the permits and costs associated with renovation are prohibitive. While the challenges of finding new space and expanding the brewery are significant and will require generous action from benefactors, the flourishing of God’s grace continues to abound in Norcia. The Monks bring the beauty of the Mass to pilgrims, the splendor of Vespers to their online audience and the simple pleasure of a good beer to people throughout Italy. It’s the true living out of Father Cassian’s original mission of integrating prayer, study and manual labor. “A monk witnesses to the goodness of God and the beauty of creation,” said Father Nivakoff. “It is his job to convert his life to one of total sacrifice to God in imitation of Christ. In so doing he reminds the world that God is not just worth dying for, He is worth living for; He is worth loving.” Indeed, He is. You can visit the Monks of Norcia’s website at osbnorcia.org ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dan Flaherty is a freelance writer and editor of TheSportsNotebook.com. When not covering sports, he’s written on a wide range of topics, including online dating, politics and real estate. He is the author of Fulcrum, an Irish Catholic novel set in the Boston of the late 1940s. Dan currently resides in southeastern Wisconsin.
The sixteen monks literally live above the ruins of the house of the great saints Benedict and Scholastica in Norcia, now a gastronomic tourist destination located in central Italy. 7|Page
An Interview with Colleen Carroll Campbell
Radical Women: The Saints and Me infertility. Mother Teresa did the same at a time in my life when I was feeling some of the same abandonment by God that she had described so eloquently in her recently revealed private writings. And Mary, the Mother of God, was with me all along, but in a special way in my quest for motherhood.
‘Faustina of Poland guided me as I struggled to choose between continuing my work as a presidential speechwriter in the White House and marrying a man who was smack in the middle of medical school 800 miles away.’ What do you think are the greatest challenges facing women of your generation today? What dangers are they facing? Many observers point to the impact of feminism and materialism on America women and therefore on the family. How would you characterize that impact on your generation?
Colleen Carroll Campbell – the author, journalist, television host and former presidential speechwriter – speaks candidly about her work , and her observations on American Catholic life in this exclusive REGINA interview.
It seems that your discovery of the saints was critical to helping you find your way forward. Is this true? How so? Yes, getting to know these six women saints was a crucial part of my spiritual journey, which is why I interwove their stories with my own in My Sisters the Saints. Although I did not initially expect to connect in such a profound way with these women – some of whom had lived centuries, even millennia, before me – I found that their lives and writings spoke to me in surprisingly relevant ways. They echoed my own deepest longings, helped me navigate my toughest trials and led me to rethink nearly everything I thought I knew about what it means to be a liberated woman. So there was really no way to separate their stories from my own, because their stories had so powerfully shaped my own.
I certainly wouldn’t presume to speak for an entire generation, and I think the answers to these questions largely depend on how and by whom one was raised. But I do think it’s true that young Americans today – regardless of what sort of families they come from – are growing up in a culture that does its best to distract them from asking life’s most important questions or finding satisfying answers to those questions. Even young Catholics raised by committed Catholic parents, as I was, face a barrage of messages from the wider culture that undermine the messages the Church is sending. For young women, the cultural messages are particularly pernicious: Life is all about how you look and who’s looking at you; the only success that matters is the kind that can be quantified and flaunted; heeding your inner longings for committed love or the chance to give of yourself generously in family life is a path to oppression.
The six saints whose stories I interweave with my own in My Sisters the Saints are Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux, Faustina of Poland, Edith Stein of Germany, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Mary of Nazareth. A quick summary: Teresa of Avila and her tale of a struggle to overcome worldliness and status-seeking spoke to me during my frenetic college years and jump-started my spiritual quest. Thérèse of Lisieux helped me grapple with my father’s journey through Alzheimer’s disease, a trial she knew from her own father’s descent into dementia. Faustina of Poland guided me as I struggled to choose between continuing my work as a presidential speechwriter in the White House and marrying a man who was smack in the middle of medical school 800 miles away. Edith Stein offered me insight and consolation in the midst of my battle with 8|Page
“The culture tells us that life is all about how you look and who’s looking at you; the only success that matters is the kind that can be quantified and flaunted – and heeding your inner longings for committed love or the chance to give of yourself generously in family life is a path to oppression.”
Such distortions often leave women ill-prepared to seek or find lasting happiness. Women in my generation enjoy more opportunities to participate in public life than ever before, and that’s something for which we should be grateful. But too often, our interior lives are not nurtured as they should be, and even women of faith find ourselves caught in the same traps of status-seeking, people-pleasing and me-first pleasure-chasing as everyone else.
‘The chaos and confusion of the past four decades – both in our increasingly secularized culture and even in corners of the Church that were overly influenced by that culture – have led many young adults on a spiritual search.’
‘Even women of faith find themselves caught in the same traps of statusseeking, people-pleasing and me-first pleasure-chasing as everyone else.’ The women saints and their stories offer a powerful antidote to this. The saints achieved their fulfillment by giving their lives away. They found themselves by seeking more than self. The way I see it, the women saints – not today’s pop culture heroines or secular feminist activists – are the real radicals. They are the role models we ought to be imitating. Your generation has also seen a rather startling rise in vocations to religious orders that are loyal to the Magisterium and traditional in their approach. Can you comment on what you think is driving this trend in the face of such overwhelming counter-trends? For my first book, The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy (Loyola 2002), I spent a year traveling across America interviewing hundreds of young adults. The reasons for their conversions – or, in many cases, their “reversions” to the Catholic faith of their childhood – are manifold and detailed in that book. But if I had to sum those up in a sentence, I might simply quote St. Paul: “Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.” (Romans 5:20) The chaos and confusion of the past four decades – both in our increasingly secularized culture and even in corners of the Church that were overly influenced by that culture – led many young adults to search for something more satisfying and substantial than the theological vapidity or secular materialism of their youth. Their natural human yearning for God, combined with their natural youthful idealism, led them on a genuine search for truth. And that search led them to embrace a robust, demanding and orthodox Christian faith that is, in its orthodoxy, decidedly countercultural.
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It seems that most people no longer have any personal relationship to the saints, as they weren't taught about them in the post Vatican II vacuum. Do you see any signs that others like you have discovered the saints? Yes, I see many signs of a revival of interest in the saints even among nonCatholics, and I think it makes a lot of sense. Christianity is an incarnational religion. We believe that God became man in a specific town, on a specific day, in the womb of a specific woman. So the personal and specific matters in Christianity, and the personal stories of Christ’s followers matter, too. Each life testifies to some unique aspect of God’s love; each human person bears God’s image in a unique way. Getting to know the saints allows us to get to know Jesus in a new way, to see his qualities magnified through a new lens or situated in a new historical context. When we’re striving for holiness and intimacy with God, it helps to look to the saints – to see men and women who ran the race and finished well. Colleen Carroll Campbell writes on religion, politics, culture and women’s issues for such national outlets as The New York Times, Washington Post, National Review Online and First Things, comments about them on such networks as FOX News, CNN, PBS and NPR, and discusses them as host of “Faith & Culture,” a weekly television and radio show that airs internationally on EWTN, the world’s largest religious network. A former speechwriter to President George W. Bush and the author of The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy, Campbell speaks to audiences across America. Her newest book, My Sisters the Saints: A Spiritual Memoir, was published by the Image imprint of Random House in October 2012. Her website is www.colleen-campbell.com.
A Christ-Centered Path to Fitness
Our Bodies, Our Souls By Losana Boyd
and martial arts. At first glance, yoga practice, especially given its ubiquity in America today, seems relatively harmless. Many people practicing yoga state that they are doing it just for exercise benefits; the more one studies yoga, however, the more questionable that possibility becomes. As a yoga teacher for nine years, before coming home to the Catholic faith, I understand yoga’s appeal. But these paths of self-discovery, and selfimprovement through the perfecting of postures, can distract us from our larger purpose. Fr. Robert Barron made this point recently when he said, "The Christian spiritual journey is never primarily a journey of selfdiscovery...it’s a journey toward mission." When we are converted to Christ, we now have got "the privilege of participating in God’s own life, God’s own purpose, which is to bring grace, joy, and life into the world."
Jesus makes clear that there are times to feast and times to fast. We take pleasure readily in the feast, but without a period of fasting, what is there to make the feast day special? In the modern era, it is rare to find the practice of religion suggested as part of a fitness plan. Holistic medicine offers tips on cultivating mindfulness, but mentions nothing directly about worship.
It is only in Christianity that we find the belief that each human person is a unique, unrepeatable, and eternal, body and soul. For Christians, being in the body takes on profound and counter-cultural significance. To be in the body is to share an experience that our Lord understood first-hand. The body of Jesus is our perfect guide to the Body of Christ. A subject this complex requires far more space than is possible in the context of an article. My goal here is to establish some basic considerations for further development regarding the health of body and soul, and the relationship between physical and spiritual fitness. “Glorify the Lord in your bodies,” St. Paul wrote in Corinthians. The way we treat the body, then, is a visible witness of discipleship. Of course, a healthy body alone does not encompass the fullness of St. Paul’s teaching. Many great saints have been afflicted with less than ideal health, and acceptance of illness can often be part of our spiritual journey. How do health and fitness relate to our lives as Christians? From its foundation in the Resurrection of Jesus, Christianity alone among religions has expressed the deep connection, and ultimately, the permanent unity of body and soul. New Age philosophies, which are modern variations on eastern spiritual traditions, attempt to link body, mind, and spirit, but it is only in Christianity that we find the belief that each human person is a unique, unrepeatable, and eternal body and soul. Despite this eschatological belief in the union of body and soul, finding specifically Christian-based programs for health and fitness can be a challenge. Many Christians have gone outside the Church for easily and widely available eastern-based body awareness techniques, such as yoga 10 | P a g e
And this is expressly not how our Lord conducted His earthly life. Jesus, who by any measure has to be one of the most fit persons in history, continuously prayed, and referred all His actions and efforts to the Father in Heaven. For Jesus, and for us, prayer is the most essential element of fitness. What about exercise? The Bible speaks of good stewardship; we honor our Creator by taking good care of his creation. And we can look to our Savior. He walked everywhere. Walking is great exercise, free, and available to almost everyone. Pilgrimage, a long and noble tradition in the Church, has the added benefit of directly combining prayer with physical effort. We know that physical exercise is valuable for bodily fitness; “fitness” relates to our mental and spiritual natures, as well. When we are physically fit, we have the strength and vitality to fight off pathogens more efficiently. Mental fitness might be described as clear-headed thinking, being able to turn down the volume on personal neuroses and cultivate empathy. To be spiritually fit is to come through the dark night of the soul with one’s belief intact or restored. In terms of diet, the foods mentioned directly in Scripture would be a good starting place. Even in biblical days, however, one would have to exercise the virtue of temperance. Saying no to excess food or wine at the table, for example. Myriad habits can creep up on us so gradually they can feel entirely normal, and deviations to more moderate consumption, by contrast, odd. Jesus makes clear that there are times to feast and times to fast. We take pleasure readily in the feast, but without a period of fasting, what is there to make the feast day special? The Church long ago established every Friday as a fast day, and every Sunday as a feast day, corresponding to the day of Christ’s death and the day of His Resurrection. Even keeping this simple arrangement will help us focus more on what is and is not important about the food and drink choices we make. And as Catholics, we know that the Bread of Heaven itself, shared during Holy Communion is our ultimate nourishment.
This, from Corinthians, is an important reminder: “we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.” We are not to become too satisfied or pre-occupied in our own flesh. When we are filled with worldly comforts or concerns, it is easy to overlook the Author of all our joys.
what Jesus accomplished in the Paschal Mystery: “Do this in memory of me.”
One of the great tools available to us as followers of Christ is to do what He did; that is, to fast. Fasting is powerful. It places our decisions and commitments above our impulses and habits. It humbles us, to realize how much of our time is spent chasing after transitory gratifications. It frees us from the grip of mindless repetitive behaviors. It corrects acedia, challenges our comfort zones. It awakens in us the deepest hunger, and takes us to a place of profound prayer. The great season of Lent is the Church’s time of fasting -- which isn’t simply “giving something up.” Fasting is a complete re-framing of our consumptions. What we choose to eat or not, drink or not, or take in via other sensory perceptions, all have a role in fasting.
As a yoga teacher for nine years, before coming home to the Catholic faith, I understand yoga’s appeal. The New Age enthusiasts have touched on something, though. The relationship of body to spirit is much more than incidental. Christians can honor the body through a program of health, fitness, and prayer, to increase physical and spiritual health, promote a deeper relationship with the Lord, and prepare our bodies and our souls for the life of the world to come. Our model is Christ himself. We should aim to make our earthly lives more like His: to pray, to fast, and to heal.
Fasting is a complete re-framing of our consumptions. What we choose to eat or not, drink or not, or take in via other sensory perceptions, all have a role in fasting. St. Paul also states in Ephesians the important role each of us has in building up the Body of Christ, which is to suggest that as we are healed, we are to become healers. Being fit means we will have the energy available to give to others, to serve the purpose of building God’s Church, to have the stamina for the work of witness. As human beings, we are the crown of creation. And it gives glory to God for the crown to stay well polished -- to shine the way He intends for us to shine. The relationship of body and soul takes on special significance in the context of Christian community. By comparison, eastern spiritual traditions describe the journey of the individual self toward enlightenment. The postures and meditation practices are all geared to help the practitioner reach this state. The goals are renunciation and nonattachment. There is no need for a savior because there is no one to save. And there is no particular need for community, either. Practitioners may find “community” in ashrams or yoga classes, but each person there is understood to be on a separate journey. For the Christian, community is understood differently, beginning with the creation of Adam and Eve, symbolizing among other things, the unity of the human race. The human journey continues through Abraham and his family, and through the new community founded at Sinai, Israel, and finally, more than a millennium later, through Jesus of Nazareth, who fulfilled Israel’s vocation to be the light to the nations, to gather all people into God’s House. The disciples of Jesus will bear this message through the Church until the end of history. Community, therefore, is intrinsic to the experience of Christian life. Christ gives explicit instruction on the importance of love of neighbor, especially taking care of the least among us; there are the graces present when three or more are gathered in His name, and most profoundly, we have been given the commandment to celebrate together
Our model is Christ himself. We should aim to make our earthly lives more like His: to pray, to fast, and to heal.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Losana Boyd is a writer and artist from New York, currently living in Florence, Italy, where she studies classical, realist painting. This article is excerpted from the prologue of her forthcoming book, “Our Bodies, Our Souls.”
MY DEAR, YOU WILL POSITIVELY SWOON
A
nd then you will fight your way through the crowds of reverent gown-gogglers. From sweet-faced English teen girls to dignified great-grandmas, we ladies are bewitched by “Ballgowns: British Glamour Since 1950,” the current runaway hit at London’s Victoria & Albert museum. From demure white creations for English debutantes at Queen Charlotte's Ball to racier red pieces designed for the red carpet, more than 60 dresses from across the past six decades are featured in all their sexy, glamorous glory. “Ah, Audrey Hepburn,” sighs one octogenarian in classic Givenchy, to her ginger-haired grand-daughter in a school uniform. “She looked lovely in that dress. Do you remember?” “Yes, mum,” the teenager responds absently. She doesn’t, actually remember the actress still dubbed “The Most Beautiful British Woman of all Time,” but the sheer drop-dead gorgeousness of the dresses they are inspecting together has taken the wind of adolescent cynicism out of her sails. Nearby, earnest design students sketch furiously, drawing pads resting on one skinny hip. Their studiously hipsterish garb notwithstanding, these students of fashion know they are in the presence of Great Genius. Everyone is entranced by the black-and-white fashion films from the early 1960s projected on the museum’s great white wall. We watch as a matronly young Queen Elizabeth and her jet-setting sister Princess Margaret admire a parade of fashion models pirouetting gracefully in the Earl of Somebody’s stately home. “If you want your daughter or grand-daughter to be civilized, I say, you’ve got to give them a good reason to respect the fine arts,” a Tory dowager stage whispers to her friend, who nods sagely. The place is teeming with young ladies, all delighted with the new Fashion Galleries, and the atmosphere of preparing for a ball in a grand country house.
That Fabulous Fifties Look
RAVISHING: There’s simply no other word for it. Debutantes on their way to be presented to the Queen (above). The ingénue Audrey Hepburn in a black-and-white fantasy (above right).
LADIES OF THE NIGHT: Balanchine’s immortal designs (left) and a velvet-and-silk taffeta cocktail version, in midnight black (above).
Princess Diana’s Lovely ‘Elvis Gown’
CROWD PLEASER: The late Princess Diana of Wales commissioned this floor-length, white, pearl-encrusted gown. Diana’s smashing dress was created by British designer Catherine Walker for an unofficial visit to Hong Kong in November 1989.
We are bewitched, entranced and delighted by Beauty. Indeed there is something mysterious, uncontrollable and other-worldly about it. That is why Beauty has long been considered an attribute of the Divine.
But it is the sheer beauty of the dresses that makes them sigh with desire. So, what is it that draws us to the Beautiful? Men love beautiful women. Women love beautiful things. We are bewitched, entranced and delighted by beauty –indeed there is something mysterious, uncontrollable and other-worldly about it. And no matter how ugly the world we live in becomes, somehow no power on Earth can quite stamp out our response to Beauty. Of course, Beauty has long been seen as an attribute of the Divine. For a Christian view of this phenomenon, see Saint Augustine, a 5th century libertine-turned-Doctor-of-the-Church who famously penned the lines, “Late Have I loved Thee, oh Beauty so ancient and so new!” The Popes of the Counter-Reformation understood our profound attraction to beauty, and turned Rome’s 450-odd churches into a symphony of the Baroque, extolling the beauty of the Faith. Today, millions of tourists crowd the Eternal City, gawking at these world-famous masterpieces by Michelangelo, Bramante and Da Vinci. Untaught, most sense the profound emotion of Man reaching towards the Eternal. But not all Christians have been so sanguine about Beauty. America’s stern Puritan ancestors were in fact part of long line of Christian iconoclasts who saw the Devil’s work in man-made Beauty. America’s Puritans were originally English, of course. Most hailed from the flat grazing fields of East Anglia, where they fomented a battle with the Crown that they eventually lost quite badly – but not before Cromwell’s soldiers had rampaged through England, smashing the medieval beauties of stained glass and sculpture that the Anglican Church had inherited from the Catholic culture it had unseated. In contrast, the Catholic cultures of southern Europe have always viewed earthly beauty as a reflection – albeit a poor one – of the Divine Beauty. Similarly, the urge in us to create beauty is a reflection of our Creator’s infinitely greater passion for it. Both are an intrinsic part of men and women, being as we are “made in the image” of our Creator. _____________________________________________________________
Our urge to create beauty is a reflection of our Creator’s infinitely greater passion for it.
_____________________________________________________________
Hence the issue of feminine modesty – and why Christendom as a culture has always sought to protect a woman’s beauty from being abused. This is NOT because Catholics are a bunch of prudes who hate sex. _____________________________________________________________ The late Pope John Paul II drew on that great body of thought – part of the treasure house of the Church – when he wrote extensively on the “nuptial meaning of the body.” Essentially he says that we are made for nuptial love, by our Creator, who loves us. The very fact that we are “fearsomely” made is another sign of God’s love for us. Our beauty – our comeliness, if you will – is a deliberate act of God because he wants us to discover love through self-giving in marriage. Therefore, our beauty –and the sexual desire it engenders -- is not to be taken lightly, or for granted. Both Mark and Matthew recount the story of what Jesus said regarding divorce: “And the Pharisees coming to him asked him: Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting Him. 3 But He answering, saith to them: What did Moses command you? 4 Who said: Moses permitted to write a bill of divorce, and to put her away. 5 To whom Jesus answering, said: Because of the hardness of your heart He wrote you that precept. 6 But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. 7 For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife. 8 And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh.9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Serious business, right? Hence the issue of feminine modesty – and why Christendom as a culture has always sought to protect a woman’s beauty from being abused. This is NOT because Catholics are a bunch of prudes that hate sex. It’s because the Church has always respected the great power of sexuality, and has ever been both the cradle and the school of true Beauty. ___________________________________________________________
‘Empty and Guilty, yet Searching For More’
Porn: The Growing Epidemic by Father Greg Markey Hail Marys in the morning and at night in honor of Our Lady’s purity as a proven practice to obtain this grace. Some suffer from unchastity precisely because they are too self-reliant and proud and the Lord therefore does not immediately bestow the gift. St. Alphonsus states that humility is as necessary as self-control in the fight for chastity: “It happens, not infrequently, that God chastises the proud by permitting them to fall into some sin against purity.” Grace Is Always There The great promise given to us by the Lord is that for those who humbly acknowledge their weakness, prudently avoid near occasions of sin, and ask the Lord for help, the grace is always there to overcome the temptation. “God is faithful, and he will not let you to be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you will be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). There is a growing epidemic rushing through our country unlike anything we have ever seen in history. Even though it has invaded our homes, our marriages, and even reached our children, leaving havoc in its wake, the media will not mention it. Today, pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry and it does not seem to be slowing down. Through the internet and our iPhones, pornography is overwhelming huge numbers of, particularly as I see it, Catholic men, and it is hard to underestimate the terrible effect it is having on husbands and their families today. Porn addiction is like any other addictive drug. It is a form of slavery, leaving one feeling empty and guilty, yet searching for more. In his heart man knows that with pornography he has lost his God-given dignity, his freedom, and become a slave to his passions. Thankfully, many regularly come to the Sacraments to receive healing and strength. Trusting in Divine Mercy is always the answer. Pornography is destructive for various reasons but perhaps most importantly because it strikes at the heart of our interior life and numbs our spiritual senses to the invisible realities that necessarily guide our life. “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Purity is the necessary condition to seeing the invisible world. One has only to think of the purity of innocent children and their amazing capacity to see God’s presence all around them. Yet the first effect of impurity is blindness of understanding: one can no longer see spiritual realities and the thought of eternity disappears. As St. Alphonsus Ligouri writes, “When a raven finds a dead body, its first act is to pluck out the eyes; and the first injury that incontinence inflicts on the soul is to take away the light of the things of God.” Man’s fallen nature is so weak that he must recognize the need for God’s grace to live purity. St. Alphonsus writes, “Man cannot of himself acquire the virtue of chastity: God alone can give it.” Prudence therefore dictates that we must avoid the near occasion of sin and beg the Lord in prayer to receive the grace of chastity. Some of the saints have recommended three
In this technological age we live in, I also see a grave mistake being made by far too many parents and I wish I could warn them before it is too late. Parents who allow their children, particularly their teenage boys, to have unsupervised access to the internet are inviting impurity and destruction into their families. I wish more parents understood that boys are learning from the internet that girls are to be the plaything of men, mere objects of pleasure. Absolutely no teenager should have a computer with internet access in his or her bedroom. A house computer should be in a public space, have internet filters installed, used only when the parents are supervising, and regularly checked for the history of the web searches. Once again, parents are making a grave error when they give their children unhindered access to the internet, in particular with their sons. It is not that they do not trust their boys, but that parents need to have a clear understanding of the effect of Original Sin, traditionally called concupiscence; parents who are not attentive to this weakness in their sons will learn to regret it later. Two good websites today to help men with addiction to pornography are www.integrityrestored.com and www.pornharms.com. There are also two very good pamphlets available: Breaking Free by Stephen Wood and The Pornography Pandemic by Patrick Trueman. I hope this will help create awareness of this epidemic and help for those who have hope of restoring their dignity after having lost their way through impurity. May Our Lady inspire and protect our families from this onslaught in our culture today.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Father Greg Markey is the Pastor of St. Mary Roman Catholic Church in Norwalk, Connecticut. The parish, located in a suburb of New York City, is a vibrant, growing one, with a strong tradition of celebrating the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.
What Catholic Men Want NEXT ISSUE: The Results of an “Impertinent” Survey There are lots of stand-up guys, like the single Catholic men who answered our exhaustive (67 questions!) survey -- for no other reason than they were asked.
This story is for every Catholic woman who ever thought, “What has happened to our Catholic men? There just aren’t any stand-up guys out there anymore.”
Oh, and because they want YOU to know how they really feel. About love. And romance. And family – and the future.
Guess what? You’re wrong.
What they really hope, and dream and want in a Catholic woman, but often can’t explain. WARNING: Our survey featured no politically-correct questions; hence, we received only honest answers. Look for our Special Report in the April issue of REGINA Magazine. And tell your friends and family it’s available at Editor.REGINA@gmail.com.
The Homeschooling Goddess
Dear Dorothy by Dorothy Gill Admit it, you’re curious about homeschooling. You have no clue what it’s all about, or what a real homeschooling family actually looks like, but you’re pretty sure that they’re a strange breed of survivalist apocalypsetypes who live off the grid behind their ‘No Trespassing’ signs. After all, what else could possibly possess a family to say “no, thank you” to a free education provided just down the street, and instead take on the full-time responsibility of teaching their own kids -- if it wasn’t for their paranoid anti-social tendencies? You might be surprised to learn that the most frequently-cited priority of families who take this road less traveled is the happiness of their children. I’m betting that you can relate to that one, so here’s a look at the top three myths about the whole homeschooling phenomenon.
What about socialization? If you are asking this question, then you have probably not met many homeschooled kids. Or you have met them but did not realize it, because you were looking in vain for those rumored telltale socially-awkward clues. As it happens, kids who do not spend the majority of their waking hours in the exclusive company of their peers end up being perfectly comfortable relating to and spending time with people of all ages. (This is similar to what they will encounter in the real working world, after all, so you can rest assured that your kids will be well-prepared to take their place in adult society.) If in fact you did notice anything unusual, it might be that you were surprised by the child’s polite, unaffected manner. Chances are you were greeted by name while being looked in the eye and offered a hand to shake -- all from a smiling face that didn’t seem to hold you in any particular contempt for your adulthood. Frequently, homeschooled kids’ self-confidence is not as vulnerable to pressure from their peers, and therefore they may well be more individual in expressing their style. This self-expression might manifest itself as anything from geek to fashionista, though chances are it will not mirror what you’d see on the local school grounds. ____________________________________________________________
If you are asking this question, then you have probably not met many homeschooled kids. ____________________________________________________________ You may also notice that homeschooled kids are generally happy. Even the teens. This is because being able to use their time more efficiently, having access to home-cooked nutrition three times a day, adjusting their study schedule to accommodate their sleep needs, and the absence of the daily
social ostracism, cliques and bullying which are huge sources of stress in the life of ordinary teens actually ‘dials down’ the usual teenage surliness. _____________________________________________________________
You may also have noticed that homeschooled kids are generally happy. Even the teens. _____________________________________________________________
Am I capable of homeschooling my children? If you’ve ever wondered if you have what it takes to homeschool, there’s only one question you have to ask yourself: “Got kids?” If you do, then you qualify. The education of children in the home, by their parents, in the company of their differently aged siblings, is the most natural environment for learning. There is no automatic barrier that materializes in the mind of a child at the age of 5 or 6 that renders void the parent’s heretofore competence in directing the child’s discovery of her universe. And there is no ingredient more important in the education of children than love. In this, a parent is more qualified than any credentialed stranger can ever be. By virtue of your vocation as a parent, you are already endowed with everything you need to successfully homeschool your children.
How do I begin? ‘Home education’ is a much better description of this work than ‘homeschooling.’ This is because schools are where you load a room up with same-aged children sitting at desks and attempt to teach them all the same thing at the same time. This requires text books that are designed to facilitate 45 minute instruction segments, punctuated by a bell. There is no need to replicate this dubious environment at home. With education (as opposed to ‘school’) as your goal, you have access to the world as your text book and the rhythm of family life as your school bell. And your local library, community center, the internet and the dozens of online curriculum providers will provide as much or as little assistance as you could possibly need. This approach accommodates any budget, and allows you to custom-tailor your approach to each child’s needs. _____________________________________________________________
With education (as opposed to ‘school’) as your goal, you have access to the world as your text book and the rhythm of family life as your school bell. So, have the courage of your convictions. Turn off the TV and video games, harness your kids’ creativity, direct their natural curiosity and let the learning begin.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dorothy Gill is the mother of four sons, ages 11 to 26 and has been homeschooling since 1992. She is active in her parish and lives in Vancouver, Washington with her husband and three of her four sons.
Time to Take a Stand – for Yourself, and Your Family
Letter to a Young Mother
PATRON SAINT OF MOTHERS: Saint Anne is depicted here with her daughter, the Virgin Mary. Tradition has it that she taught Mary to read. I received your email about your distress at the American election results. Our reaction was to invite friends over for dinner at the spur of the moment last night. We had comfort food: rigatoni and meatballs, with homemade sauce. We also attended Mass yesterday.
In telling you these things, I am stressing something here: the need to remain calm, to do the normal everyday things. The English say, “Keep Calm and Carry On.”
Some say that it is now ‘open season’ on Catholics in America. That anyone who is faithful to the Church’s teachings – indeed even her hospitals, colleges and schools – will now be persecuted by our federal government, and that many of our great institutions will have to close.
Remember that the Church has survived ferocious persecution in the past. Recently, I visited a ‘priest’s hole’ in a still-functioning roadside tavern in England. The owners thought of it as a quaint artifact, with no clue about the terror and torture that Catholics faced in the England of “Good Queen Bess.” Such is the power of cultural amnesia. On a practical level, you will have similar challenges in raising your family that I had/have. It is time to FOCUS. Your job is to protect your family:
NEVER take the easy way. You will regret it later. This goes for food, education, socializing, TV – everything. REMEMBER that kids are like sponges. They absorb all influences around them, so you MUST BE VIGILANT about what these are. REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE IN CHARGE. This goes especially for teachers, social workers and shrinks – they will NOT have to live with the consequences of their decisions as far as your kids are concerned – YOU WILL. FIND A GOOD PRIEST. The Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) is a good place to start, or any Latin Mass community. You need other faithful families around you so your daughters will have friends. This is CRITICAL so they do not feel ISOLATED growing up. YOUR NUMBER ONE EDUCATIONAL PRIORITY is to make sure your daughters can read with ease and for pleasure. Reading is still the best way for them to reach out beyond their immediate environment to worthwhile thoughts and places, to reach the Truth. DO NOT rely on the schools to teach them this, or you may be disappointed. The best way to do this is to read to them when they are young. (HINT: When they are 6,
7 or 8, try reading exciting adventure stories like Nancy Drew, but very slowly. Soon they will become impatient and grab the book out of your hand. Presto!) BE CLEAR-EYED ABOUT CONSUMERISM. You do not need the latest styles, or the approval of your Facebook friends. I wore old clothes for years, and dressed my kids in consignment clothes until they were 12. I refused to buy videogames or pay for cable TV and insisted that my kids work menial jobs when they were/are teenagers. But my kids saw Europe, and got serious scholarships. SHOW YOUR KIDS THAT THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE TRULY ARE FREE. I took mine to Church where they were exposed to great music and liturgy, every Sunday no matter what. All homemade food, served with style. When I had no money, I could still put a sheet on the table with a candle. I could still read them to sleep. I could still pray with them. LEAD, do not FOLLOW. Do not worry about lecturing too much. Do not try to be ‘friends’ with your kids.
“You will have challenges in raising your family: No guaranteed income. Bad influences on TV and the internet. Bad-to-mediocre schools. Bad-to-mediocre clergy. Weird neighbors. Friends and family who go off the rails. A culture that derides your basic beliefs.” Finally, PRAY for the grace you need to be a good wife and mother. My grandmother Concetta came to America as a young woman with nothing but the good family and strong faith of her village in Italy. She married, had 6 kids and buried her second son at age 2, while she was pregnant with my father. When my dad was born 3 months afterwards, she named him “Vittorio Angelo” – “Victorious Angel.” Grandma Concetta had a hard life. My grandfather drank. She had to send two sons off to WWII, and she died from the stress when she was the same age I am now – an old woman, worn out. But she taught the Faith to her sons and daughters, which endures now to her great-great grandsons, recently baptized. I never met my grandmother, but her Faith and goodness profoundly influenced my life nonetheless. In fact, I would say that it was the SINGLE GUIDING LIGHT of my entire life.
THIS is what we pass on. THIS is our legacy. The Faith is, in the end, all that matters. And truly, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
She’s a young, Catholic, Army doctor and she’s
Running Around Europe easy trade off. (You burn roughly 100 calories a mile, so 2600 calories for splurge food sounded good to me!)
What has been your favorite race in Europe? The US military sponsors the "Run to Remember" in Stuttgart, Germany. Special Forces organizes the race to honor all of our fallen brothers and sisters in arms since the start of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. At the start of the race, the runners are called to attention, and the roll call of the fallen is read. After that emotional start, we race through the forest, a truly challenging course which gives me perspective. It’s about not quitting and embracing the discomfort of a race, when there are others who have given the ultimate sacrifice. My favorite experience was actually running the "Run to Remember" half marathon in the morning, then traveling 3 hours to run the Romantic Castle half marathon in the evening. It was really a grueling day. But the second was a much more forgiving course, and the people were very friendly. Plus, the view was fantastic -- Neuschwanstein Schloss, the real "Walt Disney Castle" in the distance.
And your worst running experience in Europe? FINISHING TIME: Dr. Julie Young, Captain, U.S. Army fulfills a personal goal in Berlin. At age 30, you have already done quite a bit. Tell us about yourself. I grew up in a military community -- Clarksville, Tennessee near Fort Campbell, Kentucky. In 2000 I began at the University of TennesseeMartin, where I was a ‘walk on’ to the Women's Basketball program. Immediately after graduating, I began Optometry school at Indiana University, on an Army scholarship, which left me with a three year commitment to the Army. My military career therefore began with my residency program at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas. In 2009, I moved to South Korea for my first "real" duty station. After a year there – with lots of travel through Asia -- I was assigned to a clinic in Germany.
How did you start your love affair with running? Running has always been part of my physical training for sports, but to be honest I historically saw it as a necessary evil. I didn't start running for pleasure until I was in Korea. This all began because I have a problem saying "no", when there’s something I can do to help. The Army base staged races nearly every month, but participation was dwindling. I was asked to compete in a duathlon, then a sprint triathlon, and then a half marathon. At one point, my parents were in Korea for a visit, and I asked my dad -- a long-time runner -- to pace me for my first half marathon. He reluctantly agreed. I set a personal record on my first race that still stands.
When did you decide to run marathons? Running a marathon had been on my bucket list for years: the only problem was that I really hated running. Korea was a pivotal year for me. I learned to actually enjoy running, and as an added bonus, it helped keep the weight off. An American girlfriend in Germany convinced me I could really "do" a marathon. So I set my sights on the Brussels marathon, just a couple of hours’ drive away. Now, I love Belgian chocolates, waffles, fries, and their amazing beer, so my reasoning was that running for a few hours was an
My worst experience running in Europe was also the funniest experience. I am not sure why Europeans like to dress in costume to run, but they really do. A group of friends decided to run the Champagne Valley half marathon in medieval Rheims, France – the capital of the Champagne district. I was warned there would be people in costumes, but that it nevertheless was a "serious" race. At the starting line, we were amazed to see a complete hospital bed, including an "IV fluid pole" right behind us, with 8 or 10 "doctors" and one really small "patient." As we began to run, I was confused by the people carrying water bottles during a race. The reason for this dawned on me about four miles into the race, when we finally reached our first water station. I realized that, when you run through fields, there aren't really wide roads, or places to set up water stations. In consequence, we would only have hydration stations when we were in the French villages. (An important lesson learned: check the course map for hydration stations, and plan accordingly.) Once I recovered from the realization that I was not going to have water regularly, my goal for the race shifted significantly. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that in the last half of the race, champagne was served in the "hydration stations." In short, it was not a record-setting day, but it was an important lesson learned.
Doctor Julie’s Advice for New Runners Get good shoes. They really are worth it. Talk with your doctor, physical therapist, or go to a specialty running store. Get cute workout clothes. It’s not always about how good you run, but how good you look doing it! You are more likely to get out there, if you have cute clothes to wear. Just get going. Walk, jog, run. Some days are easy to run and others are a real challenge. Not every day is going to be great. Enjoy the good ones, but learn from your struggles.
What are European runners like? Runners come in all shapes and sizes, physically, mentally, and socially. As for me, I am not out to "win" any race I enter. The Europeans in my time category tend to be pretty jovial folks out for a nice little run. Everyone has been very friendly. Conversations can be a bit challenging, however, as typically English is not the primary language, and my communication skills are slight in other languages, but a smile sure goes a long way!
BERLIN, GERMANY: Dr. Julie keeps the pace with other runners, as the sun pours through the famous Brandenburg Gate in the German capital.
RUNNING THROUGH CHAMPAGNE: Dr. Julie ran a marathon through the famous vineyards of the Champagne region of France in summer 2012.
“Running is also a place for me to pray. Sitting home and praying is a struggle for me. Being outside and alone on a long run provides an excellent alternative. I think the solitude of running is my favorite part.” What does running do for you? Running is completely addictive, once you get over the hump. However, starting a running program is in no way easy. It takes dedication, but it can teach some very valuable life lessons. Running allows time for me to be quiet, to put aside all the stressors of the week and just relax. (The first few minutes are not quiet, as I am still huffing and puffing until my body realizes it is OK.)
BAVARIAN DREAM: “During this race, the view was fantastic -Neuschwanstein Schloss, the real Walt Disney Castle -- in the distance.”
What’s your next challenge? I just completed the Berlin Marathon, and my new goal is to set a personal record in the half marathon. I have not picked a race yet, but I am looking for a flat course in the Spring of 2013; my goal time of 1:45.
“Running a marathon had been on my bucket list for years; the only problem was that I really hated running. “ TOWER BRIDGE GLOWS: Dr. Julie enjoys a night on the town in London.
Bucking the System
Ladies, We Are What We Cook The frantic American family lifestyle “choice” to cram chemically-altered food-like substances down our throats on our way to those all-important soccerpracticeyogagolfgymlunchappointments -- simply, blessedly, doesn’t exist here in the Old Country. So, why do American woman of (ahem) a certain age despise what the Brits so endearingly refer to as “cookery”? ____________________________________________________________
So, why do American woman of (ahem) a certain age despise what the Brits so endearingly refer to as “cookery”? ____________________________________________________________
SICILIAN STREET MARKET: Beverly De Soto explores the famous market at Catania, where many of her own family’s recipes originate from.
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ext time you find yourself terrifyingly bored at some de rigeur gathering – I’m talking bridal and baby showers, children’s birthday parties, Tupperware or the like – I’ve got just the thing to light a fire under the other ladies, guaranteed to instantly banish your boredom.
(Ah, you say. Now, this is dangerous line of thought. Who wants to talk about sex, politics or even sexual politics with a group of people whose ideas are likely informed by the crones on “The View”?) Not a bit of it. I’m talking about food. What you eat. What you can’t eat. What you are allergic to. What makes you fat. What you love, hate or fear about food. What food meant in your family when you were growing up. The list is seemingly endless… I predict you will find that many women in America spend a great deal of time obsessing about what they put in their mouths. I don’t know why this is, but this phenomenon is a fairly recent one. In my childhood in the 1960s, my immigrant family hardly ever talked about food. Instead, they cooked. I live in Europe these days, where morbid obesity is still unusual, and most women are not noticeably overweight. And, they cook. ____________________________________________________________
I live in Europe these days, where obesity is still unusual, and most women are not noticeably overweight. And, they cook. ____________________________________________________________ So, why do European women cook? Well, it is a matter of (wait, hold your nose) “lifestyle.” With the welfare state taxing and redistributing the way it does, most women don’t have the “disposable” income to blow on fast, cheap and unhealthy food. Without millions of women roaming the highways looking for a fast food fix, Mc Donald’s ain’t on every Eurocorner, if you follow me. So, they cook for themselves and their families. Which means that their families tend to sit down to a meal together at least once a day. Like normal people.
Now, here’s where we get to the sexual politics. Back in the 1970s, the girls who went to college emerged with a chip lodged firmly on their shoulders. The personal was the political, and so the ordinary became the battleground. Housework was political -- and cooking was really political. Very heady stuff for two generations of young women brought up sandwiched between Hollywood’s salacious mores and the fury of their feminist professors. In my MBA days at Dartmouth, I was the only American woman in my class who cooked. “Oh,” my female classmates would sniff, “I don’t cook.” In the 1980s, not cooking was a way to show how you had more important things to do than slave over a hot stove. Hillary Clinton expressed it for an entire generation of American women when as a brand-new First Lady she sneered to a reporter inquiring about her plans, “What do you think I’m gonna do? Bake cookies?” Indeed. ____________________________________________________________
Fast forward to 2013, and America is laboring under an epidemic of obesity, health scares, anxiety, depression & divorce ____________________________________________________________ Fast forward to 2013, and America is laboring under an epidemic of obesity, health scares, anxiety, depression, divorce – you name it. I think there is a connection here. In fact, I’ll stick my neck out even further and say this: your family dinner table is your family – and your family’s future. Now, in case you think this is merely polemics, consider that the number one predictive factor for whether an American child will do well at university is not their parents’ level of education, socioeconomic status, race, religion or any other demographic. It is whether their family ate dinner together. Ah, consider the slavery of the poor European woman, chained to her stove. In her size eight dress, cooking healthy food, for her calm family. Indeed, who would ever want to live like that?
Simple. Seasonal. Catholic.
Lasagna Al Forno Con Verdure Arrostite
For Sunday dinner after Mass, impress your friends and family with the real thing: New York Italian lasagna with roasted seasonal vegetables, smothered in Aunt Josephine’s sauce. This recipe is Mediterranean, low in polyunsaturated fats and vegetarian – not vegan – and extremely good for you. If you want to make it even more delicious and healthy, serve a good Chianti, Pinot Noir or Burgundy with it. Aunt Josephine’s Sauce 3-4 ripe tomatoes, chopped 2 large cans of pureed tomatoes ½ teaspoon of fennel seed 6 cloves of garlic Good quality olive oil Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup spinach, sautéed in olive oil and fresh garlic 1 egg 1 cup shredded mozzarella 1 cup freshly grated parmesan or pecorino Romano cheese (NOT that sawdust-ina-round-box that Americans use) Step One: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (160 Celsius). Step Two: Mix the ricotta, egg, grated cheese and nutmeg together completely. Add chopped parsley. Set aside. Step Three: Chop your roasted vegetables and mix together. Set aside. Step Four: Cover the bottom of your 9” X 13” lasagna pan with Aunt Josephine’s sauce. Arrange lasagna sheets to cover. Step Five: Cover these with a layer of the ricotta blend, a layer of shredded mozzarella, a layer of roasted vegetables and sautéed spinach and ¾ cup of Aunt Josephine’s sauce. Step Six: Repeat layers until the top layer is simply lasagna sheets. Cover these with 1) sauce, 2) shredded mozzarella and 3) grated cheese. Step Seven: Cover and bake for 45-50 minutes. Remove cover for last five minutes. Allow to stand for 10 minutes before cutting and serving.
Separate the garlic cloves and with their skins on, place them in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes. Turn them over after 10 minutes so they don’t burn. Meanwhile, lightly toast the fennel seeds in the olive oil over medium heat, taking care not to burn them. Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper and sauté 5 minutes. Add the tomato puree and stir. Strip the skins off the roasted garlic cloves, and add them to the sauce. Using a hand-held blender, pulse the sauce until everything is well blended.
Serving suggestion: Pass Aunt Josephine’s sauce (say a prayer for her soul as you do so), grate more cheese on top, and place some roasted vegetables on the side for color. Garnish with fresh basil leaves.
Roasted Seasonal Vegetables
‘Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine There is laughter, friendship and good, red wine.’
Select your favorite fresh seasonal vegetables in their prime, chop into largish bite-sized pieces and dredge them in olive oil. Place them on an oven-proof cookie sheet or pan. Do not allow the pieces to touch each other.
Buon Appetito! ____________________________________________________________
Place the pan in a very hot (450 degree) oven, towards the middle of the oven. Roast for 20-25 minutes for root vegetables, 15-20 minutes for beans, peppers, onions, shallots and the like. Halfway through, turn them over with a spatula or a fork. Do not allow to burn. Remove from oven, salt & pepper to taste. Reserve half for the lasagna and arrange the other half nicely on a platter, garnished with fresh cherry tomatoes and basil leaves.
Hilaire Belloc 1870-1953
Lasagna Al Forno
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12-16 ready-to-bake lasagna sheets 1 large container ricotta cheese (whole milk or skim) ¼ teaspoon nutmeg Handful of chopped fresh parsley
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Beverly De Soto is the Editor of REGINA. She has time to cook in part because she hasn’t watched TV since “The Partridge Family” was a hit series.
Baby Boomer Catholics
The Prodigal Daughters By Robert P. Beaurivage He said: How many hired servants in my father's house abound with bread, and I here perish with hunger? I will arise, and will go to my father, and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee: I am not worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And rising up he came to his father. And when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and running to him fell upon his neck, and kissed him.” (Luke 15:17-20)
Baby Boomers are a much-covered phenomenon, famous for their rebellion and independence. In the aftermath of the Boomers’ tumultuous coming-of-age in the 1960’s and 70’s, millions of young Catholics embarked on spiritual paths that took them light-years from the Church. In Prodigal Daughters, Editor Donna Steichen brings together the stories of seventeen women who found their way home again. Fellow Baby Boomer Robert Beaurivage talks about his reaction to the stories of his spiritual sisters, in this review. What gives our lives meaning? Prodigal Daughters presents us with the beguiling stories of seventeen women writers of my generation who grappled with this existential challenge successfully. We Baby Boomers can relate to them, because their struggles are our struggles. A good story needs a compelling setting, and there is no more compelling period in recent Catholic and American history than the great social upheaval of the 1960’s and their aftermath. Indeed, we all deal with the consequences of those times every day. Christ Himself told such stories to illustrate and reinforce the great Truths He was teaching. Today, even people who do not know the Bible know about the "Prodigal Son." Prodigal Daughters invokes this most compelling theme: finding one’s way back home against great odds.
Today, even people who do not know the Bible know about the "Prodigal Son." Prodigal Daughters invokes this most compelling theme: finding one’s way back home against great odds.
Prodigal Daughters: Catholic Women Come Home to the Church, By Donna Steichen (1999) Published by Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA
The Baby Boomer generation’s formative years were the time of Vatican II, Vietnam, race and war riots, "free love" and the "New Feminism." It was also the age in which Pope Paul VI averred that "the smoke of Satan" had entered the Church. In each of these stories, we meet these engaging women so like our sisters and friends -- with backgrounds ranging from the ultra-feminist to the new age aficionado, to the recovering alcoholic. The roads they navigated differ broadly, but they all led back to the bosom of the Father: salvation through His Son, a sacramental life and the grace abounding in the Catholic Church. In Prodigal Daughters, each woman recounts her way home, a story both delightful and moving for us in the retelling. The baby-boomer generation’s formative years were the time of Vatican II, Vietnam, race and war riots, "free love" and the "New Feminism." It was also the age in which Pope Paul VI said "the smoke of Satan" had entered the Church. Dietrich von Hildebrand, an intellectual giant whose genius was recognized by various Popes, authored a book about this time period entitled "The Devastated Vineyard." And a devastated vineyard it was. Boomers across the U.S. studied the ordered certainties of the Baltimore Catechism one year, and the next were presented with “catechisms” entirely denuded of the supernatural. One year Boomers had First Friday Devotions, the Rosary and the study of the “Four Last Things.” Then suddenly, like a clap of thunder, these were summarily replaced by guitar Masses in the school basement and revolutionary "missionaries" giving lectures to Catholic school kids. As anyone who lived through those times can recount, there was no place to hide. In my own experience, I can look back and realize that if anyone attending my school kept the Catholic Faith through that time, theirs would be a miracle of grace.
have missed that point entirely. Even many of her companions had very fine qualities, and deserve our sympathy, if not our support. Juli relates the kindness and devotion of the Sisters: "the Pax Sisters are so good: brave, warm-hearted, justice-loving, prayerful, loyal. That's what makes conflict with them so difficult." Yet, Juli Wiley did not let her attachment to the Sisters get in the way of her devotion to the unborn. She recognized the incongruity of the nuns observing Tisha b'Av (the Jewish day of mourning the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem) to commemorate the "injustices" done to the proabortion nun Sr. Mansour:
There was no place to hide. In my own experience, I can look back and realize that if anyone attending my grammar school kept the Catholic Faith through that time, theirs would be a miracle of grace. These unsettling years of the devastated vineyard were the formative times of these writers. As Leila Habra Miller so succinctly put it: “We were robbed…The overwhelming majority of young Catholics don’t have even a rudimentary understanding of their faith. As a direct result of their tragic ignorance, a steady stream of young Catholics has poured out of the Church.” I would hazard that Prodigal Daughters is a great book for a skeptic, as well. (After all, what a great opportunity to gain an inside look at how these intelligent women could inexplicably return to the source of so much ignorance, patriarchal repression and superstition!) One of the writers, Constance Buck, relates her musings concerning a devout Catholic, a daily communicant she worked with on Capitol Hill. Mrs. Buck was bewildered by her colleague’s cheerfulness. "... I regarded cheerfulness as a quality suited to morons. Knowing about male violence, the loss of our precious environment, the trampling on human rights around the globe, not to mention the incalculable tally of sexual and racial discrimination in our own capitalist country, what intelligent person could be cheerful?" Mrs. Buck could not understand it: she had never met anyone as cheerful as her Catholic coworker who though possessed of her own ideas, always based these on a bedrock "God-given principle." (Perhaps the irony of the situation escaped Constance at the time: while she had followed a path towards an illusory promise of fulfillment, it was she who grew to regard cheerfulness as the province of the unthinking.) It is so easy for us to bring our own basic assumptions to bear on others. Since these women have been on both sides of the fence, we can learn a great deal from their experience. Juli Loesch Wiley is a notable example. A former member of Pax Christi, she rubbed elbows with many feminist media figures such as Sr. Joan Chittister and Bishop Thomas Gumbleton.
“My habitual effort to look happy - or as happy as was consistent with the knowledge that the world in general is not going well - was replaced by actual hope and soaring joy. I realized how much despair I had been carrying around as a skeptic." As a wise priest once said, ‘be kind to the person sitting next to you, as he/she could be the next saint.’ Juli was such a person – a liberal feminist, but truly well intentioned, with a desire to protect innocent human life which eventually brought her into sharp conflict with her fellow travelers of the religious sisters at Pax Christi. Had we met Juli in her early days, we might have judged her harshly. As we learn from her story, she was on the path back home, though we might
“What desecrates the Temple of the child's body, if not abortion? What destroys the Temple of the Church, if not organized defiance of the Church's too-infrequent attempts to guard her moral integrity? (I realized) that these Benedictines are true daughters of those who destroyed the Temples - not those who mourn them." For the believer, this book provides hope in large helpings. As the story of the Prodigal Son illustrates, there is always a road back. Light overcomes darkness, Truth ultimately wins over error, and the infinitely merciful Heart of Christ is greater than any sin that He has already vanquished. If the great truths of our existence, if true knowledge is to be found in Divine Revelation – even in our modern age – then the stories of these intelligent, brave women are surely a cause for us to take note and rejoice. They were so far away, yet made the improbable journey home.
The stories of these intelligent, brave women are surely a cause for us to take note and rejoice. They were so far away, yet made the improbable journey home. Catholicism presupposes an objective truth, as a religion based on the historical Person of Jesus Christ, and a commitment to Him. He calls Himself in Scripture, “The Truth.” (John 14:6) In the intellectual environment of the day, finding Him can be so very difficult, because the concept of "truth" seems foreign to so many, as it did to writer Maureen Quakenbush: "Truth", for me, had been a very limited notion, insofar as I had had a notion of it at all. Long before that time, I had accepted the principle that there is no truth, that all is relative in this world of mirrors. People who divide the world into the true and the false, I thought, fail to see all the gray areas - which are chiefly in the moral realm. I think this is the natural conclusion of a mind that hasn't learned to reason clearly, whenever the resolution of two conflicting views would mean that one reputable person's deeply held conviction must be wrong. Or, worse, that someone would have to change what he is doing. Yet, the mere realization that there actually is a truth changed everything for her: "My habitual effort to look happy - or as happy as was consistent with the knowledge that the world in general is not going well - was replaced by actual hope and soaring joy. I realized how much despair I had been carrying around as a skeptic." Having imparted a small sampling of the many surprises in "Prodigal Daughters", I will leave you with one more: an insight in the form of a prayer from Constance Buck who, after receiving this awesome gift of truth, realized at the same time her responsibility to proclaim the truth always with love: “O God, first make me a good person, a virtuous person, a loving person. Then give me the truth.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert Beaurivage, himself a "prodigal son" obtained a law degree as a second career, and has a special interest in traditional Catholic liturgy and theology. He currently lives in Southern Maine.