The Ripple Effect of Chastity in my Life {Freedom’s Calling, part 4}

~ Laura ~ 17 Comments

Today, please welcome Katie Herzing for part four in Freedom’s Calling – my series commemorating Humanae Vitae’s 50th anniversary and sharing the journeys of Catholics who have come to understand and embrace the truth of this teaching. For more information on the series, you can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, and part 7 here.

~

I have spent my entire life in the Catholic Church from being Baptized on Easter Sunday, less than a month after I was born, until now at 33. Somehow, somewhere along the way I was given the supernatural gift of faith, and even through high school, college, and my 20’s I have remained in the Church. I studied Theology in college with the intention of being a youth minister, and since graduating in 2007, I have worked for the Church or a Church-based organization all but a few months.

I say none of that to boast about ‘how Catholic I am,’ but to just explain the importance of the Church and her teachings in my life. I once ran a round-table discussion in college called “The Mis-Conceptions of Contraception” where we talked through all of the things we should know about contraception. This was when I learned the whys of what the Church teaches – the basics of what Pope Paul VI explained in Humane Vitae.

I was an eager college student studying theology, so none of the Church’s teachings seemed like a shock to my lifestyle. I wasn’t dating anyone, and knew that if I was, we wouldn’t be sleeping together before marriage. I also wanted desperately to be a mom to a lot of children (to be honest, I still do). I learned some of the medical truths about contraception including the risks that the woman takes on and other health issues. None of these are secrets, but they are either pushed under the rug or ignored in favor of so-called sexual freedom. I always knew that because of the risks, and my understanding of Catholic teaching, contraception would never be an option for me. [And just recently my doctor asked if I wanted her to prescribe something “to help with cramps,” and I asked “well, what would that be?” She of course said “the pill,” and I said, “I’ll stick with the ibuprofen.”]

In the midst of all this, I’ve been single the entire time, and we can define that as “extra single.” That is to say, none of my experiences with contraception have anything to do with my marriage or pregnancy (achieving or avoiding). However, I think they have a great deal to do with my life. Why is this? As a single woman, I am preparing for my future vocation, which I believe to be marriage. In this, I’m working on bending my will, sacrificing, and living a life of virtue. One of the virtues I’m trying to live out is chastity. This is not just “not having sex” but includes more of how I integrate my sexuality as a woman into the entirety of my life. It affects the way I dress, where I choose to spend my weekends, and how I think about myself.

It took me a lot of time, and a few counseling sessions, to get to a point where I can say (and truly believe) that “I’m worth this. I’m worthy of love. I’m worthy of greatness.” This isn’t boasting, it’s living in the truth of who God created me to be.

I also believe that contraception has a wide reach into our larger society’s culture, values, and habits.

In the 60’s when Humane Vitae was promulgated by Pope Paul VI, the rise of the second wave feminist movement was just beginning. He predicted that if we allowed the use of contraception (a fundamental tenet of the mainstream secular feminist movement then and now), we would see a rise in marital infidelity, a general lowering of moral standards, and a rise in disrespect for women. I believe all three of those have come to fruition, even in Catholic circles. Pope Paul VI was quite the prophet.

There are many people who believe that using contraception in their private marriage has no effect on the larger community. The truth is that immediately it doesn’t seem to. Not immediately. If only one person was using contraception, we probably wouldn’t have the same issues that we have now. But most women are using contraception – married and unmarried. According to the CDC, nearly 100% of modern women will use a form of contraception in their lifetime. The idea of a “contraceptive mentality” is really just another phrase for the reality of our culture’s current mentality about children.

Contraception divorces sex from babies. I imagine this is an attractive idea to many people who enjoy the pleasurable nature of sex, and those throughout time who thought they should be able to experience that without the natural possibility of assuming the responsibility of raising a child. If I am blessed to be married, I’m certain there will be moments in our life that my husband and I will desire to be together without the prospect of a baby coming nine months later. It’s natural for us to be tempted by this thinking. But I also know that children are one of the primary reasons why God designed spouses to come together in this way free from barriers.

Our culture says the Church is oppressing us because she has restricted us from using contraception. However, when you live in the truth of the teaching, she is protecting us, respecting us, and upholding our dignity. The Church is protecting us from the physical and social consequences of putting our will, our pleasures, and our desires above what God has called us to. The Church respects women so much she doesn’t want them to be belittled, used for the pleasure of their bodies, and discarded. She upholds the dignity of the woman, the dignity of who she was created to be, and the dignity of her exquisite life-bearing nature.

Most people will say that this is hard to live out. I would agree, but just because something is difficult doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it. I don’t imagine that practicing NFP in my future marriage would be rainbows and sunshine every day. Nothing worthwhile is. I do believe that as a single person I’m preparing myself for it now by learning and embracing what the Church teaches and why.

I am practicing sacrifice when I invite a friend to stay with me for a few weeks while she’s in need during a hard transition.

I am practicing service when I make a meal for a friend or watch their little ones so they can have a date night.

I am practicing self-control when I deny myself an extra sweet or work out even when I don’t want to.

I am practicing love when I sit with friends listening to their struggles and encouraging them to stay strong.

I am practicing virtue now to build my muscles for when it’s harder.

Living the virtue of chastity (which is what Humane Vitae is all about at its core), isn’t easy, especially in our culture so intent on convincing us it’s useless. However, I’ve found without a shadow of a doubt that the Church is right and that living this way is worth it. I’m worth it. You’re worth it.

Katie has lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the last ten years. She loves Jesus, enjoys cooking, DIYing and decorating at home, reading lots of books (her goal in 2018 is 175!), and blogging about trying to grow in virtue. Her “day job” is helping Churches grow and thrive, so she travels a lot and chronicles her travel adventures on Instagram. No trip is without incident!

You can connect with her online over on Instagram and at her blog Becoming Perfectly Myself.

Want more of this series?

Part 1: My Introduction

Part 2: Celebrating the responsibility of our creative power with Amy Thomas of Catholic Pilgrim

Part 3: Self Control and Our Ultimate Mission with Kristi Denoy of Hail Marry

Part 5: Moved by NFP with Heidi Indahl of Work and Play, Day by Day

Part 6: Freedom in Surrender with Laura Durant Healing Heart of Jesus

Part 7 (the end): When God’s generosity meets the demands of conscience and sciencewith Leslie Sholly of Life in Every Limb

Self Control and Our Ultimate Mission {Freedom’s Calling, part 3}

~ Laura ~ 11 Comments

Today, please welcome Kristi Denoy for part three in Freedom’s Calling – my series commemorating Humanae Vitae’s 50th anniversary and sharing the journeys of Catholics who have come to understand and embrace the truth of this teaching. For more information on the series, you can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, and part 7 here.

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Growing up Catholic, I attended Mass sporadically, although I did hit all of the sacraments basically on time. In ninth grade, my then-BFF, who was also Catholic, took me to her parish for religious education.

There I learned about the Church’s stance on life in a slightly wrong, surface level. The message I learned was that pro-life meant anti-abortion. I knew abortion was wrong and premarital sex was outside of God’s plan. I knew nothing about openness to life within marriage or that contraception was also contrary to Church teaching. I wore my virginity proudly, too, planning to wait until marriage.

For myself.

For others, I had more of a secular mindset. I thought that if you were sinning by having sex before marriage, you might as well add on another sin and use a condom so you don’t get pregnant.

This lopsided outlook was formed by what I learned from my parents, my youth minister and his wife, late 1990’s to early 2000’s teen movies, my classmates, and a combination of Teen, Seventeen, Teen People, and YM magazines.

My virginity lasted until my freshman year of college, when I had my first boyfriend. I was pro-condom and went on a low-risk artificial hormonal birth control pill. Despite being a founding member of a Catholic sorority in college, I was involved in relationships, casual hookups, and a couple of one-night stands. I knew that my actions were against what the Church taught, but I had begun to fall away and didn’t really care. It felt good, I liked it, and I was having fun.

This lifestyle continued after college graduation, into my early adulthood. It created a unique situation in that I didn’t really get to know my partner, even if I called him “boyfriend.” For me, it ultimately led to a rushed wedding and a marriage that was quite short-lived which ended in divorce and left me a single mom.

About two and a half years after my divorce, I decided to really learn what the Catholic Church taught about sex, marriage, and contraception. I was yearning for a closer relationship with God and a deeper connection that I had been missing. My daughter was growing, and I wanted to bring her up in the faith; thus, I wanted to know exactly what that faith taught that I had somehow missed. I did this primarily by listening to The SonRise Morning Show on my morning commute and Catholic Answers Live on my drive home. I had no idea that contraception can be a mortal sin or how it worked biologically. At this point, I was 25 and fully ready to research more and live out the faith I claimed.

Once my first marriage was annulled, I considered dating again. I turned to Catholic Match and met some nice guys, dated a couple, and married one of those. Once in a relationship, it was extremely difficult to avoid falling into my old dating habits, even though I fully understood Church teaching as it pertained to dating.

When my husband and I became engaged and I learned that only Natural Family Planning was available to Catholic couples as a means to space pregnancies, I was upset. It took me a little bit longer as well as reading Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West and Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love by Edward Sri and lots of prayer and discussion to accept this hard truth.

Further, I studied the teachings of Blessed Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae and found him to be so utterly prophetic, it was eerie. Contraception hurts women, ultimately, and marriages. I know this first-hand from my experience. As a self-proclaimed feminist, that’s something I cannot support. As a practicing Catholic, it’s something that I cannot accept for myself.

For those who are currently where I once was, I recommend really diving into Humanae Vitae and the books I listed. Once you read truth, it’s hard to ignore it. Natural Family Planning can be frustrating because it requires faith, prayer, trust, and self-control. RIght now, I’m just a few months postpartum after a VBAC, so my husband and I have discerned that we need to abstain for medical reasons. This self-control is a good thing, though, especially in the entitled culture in which we live. When abstinence is difficult for us, we cling to one another in non-physical ways, such as deep conversation or watching YouTube video after YouTube video of bad lip readings or “honest” movie trailers, still fostering intimacy.

The ultimate mission of matrimony is to help my husband get to heaven. The ultimate mission for us, as Christians is to bring others to Christ through our witness. The ultimate mission for Catholics is that we are called to be saints; a call to holiness. Adhering to the teachings within Humanae Vitae are an excellent way to fulfill that mission.

Kristi Denoy blogs and podcasts at www.hailmarry.org, where Catholic marriage and motherhood are discussed. She is proudly married to her CatholicMatch and mama to two beautiful girls, ages 9 years and 3 months, respectively. Her writing has also appeared on Spoken Bride, Catholic Match, and Not So Formulaic and she’s been a radio guest on A Seeking Heart with Allison Gingras on Breadbox Media and The Jennifer Fulwiler Show on Sirius XM. You can connect with Kristi via Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

Want more of this series?

Part 1: My introduction

Part 2: Celebrating the responsibility of our creative power with Amy Thomas of Catholic Pilgrim

Part 4: The Ripple Effect of Chastity in my Life with Katie Herzing of Becoming Perfectly Myself

Part 5: Moved by NFP with Heidi Indahl of Work and Play, Day by Day

Part 6: Freedom in Surrender with Laura Durant Healing Heart of Jesus

Part 7 (the end): When God’s generosity meets the demands of conscience and science with Leslie Sholly of Life in Every Limb

Celebrating the responsibility of our creative power {Freedom’s Calling, part 2}

~ Laura ~ 14 Comments

Today, please welcome Amy Thomas for part two in Freedom’s Calling – my series commemorating Humanae Vitae’s 50th anniversary and sharing the journeys of Catholics who have come to understand and embrace the truth of this teaching. For more information on the series, you can read part 1 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, and part 7 here.

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I grew up in the Disciples of Christ church. Growing up, there was never any talk about contraception. My parents never really talked to me about it and really the only thing I knew about it was through school and friends. When I turned 18, I went with a girlfriend down to the local health clinic and got on birth control pills. It was just what you did. I didn’t even think twice about it, because nearly every girl I knew was on birth control pills. It almost seemed like an initiation into womanhood.

Looking back now, I am shocked at how little I knew about the pill and how willing I was to ingest something without even considering it. I fell in lock-step with what the culture told me was normal and gave it little thought. When I went to the health clinic, they didn’t run any medical tests to see if I was in a healthy condition to take these pills. They didn’t ask about my health history. They didn’t educate me at all about the pill, other than to tell me how to take it. I had no clue what it did to my body or how it worked. The whole process took maybe a half and hour. At the end of my appointment, they handed me my little brown bag of free pills and off I went.

It’s interesting, but there wasn’t a single person in my teen years that offered a different view about contraception. I just assumed that it was the “responsible” thing to do, because that’s what teachers in school told me. I didn’t understand my body and how it worked. Sure, I knew that sex brought about babies and I knew that a woman had a menstrual cycle. However, I was extremely ignorant about the workings of the female body and fertility. I was influenced most by my friends who all encouraged me to be on the pill, and my boyfriends who happily endorsed it.

Before I became Catholic, I was extremely against Catholicism. However, I knew very little or nothing at all about the Catholic faith and its teachings. My husband is Catholic and when we married, I was completely in the dark on the Catholic teachings on contraception. At the Engaged Encounter we attended before marriage, the speakers touched on the Church’s teachings, but it was difficult for me to fully take it in. One really needs to understand the Catholic Church before being hit with what it teaches about contraception.

I remember that I didn’t really think much about what the speakers said. At that time, I wasn’t Catholic and didn’t plan on becoming Catholic. In my mind there was no reason for me to accept what the Church taught regarding this subject. Plus, I couldn’t fully grasp what the speakers were teaching because I didn’t have a frame of reference for anything that they were talking about.

At that time, my husband was lukewarm in his faith and I don’t think he fully understood the Catholic view of human sexuality. We lived against the teachings, but mostly because we didn’t understand it and I was still Protestant. There was really nothing that was going to make me stop and consider the ramifications of taking birth control, except a wake-up call. God gave me that wake-up call in my late 20’s. A health scare related to the pill started my husband and I on a path that really opened our eyes to the beauty and truth of what the Catholic Church teaches on this subject.

Very quickly back when I had started taking the pill in high school, I started having terrible side effects. In college, I had an incident that found me faint, delirious, and foaming at the mouth in a restaurant bathroom. I went to the hospital and they couldn’t find anything wrong with me. Then one afternoon at home I started reading all about the side effects of the pill on my package insert. I was experiencing nearly all of them and so I stopped taking it. Not wanting to get pregnant, I went to the doctor and she immediately put me on a lower dose pill. No check-up, no discussion of healthier alternatives. The only option was a lower dose pill.

I took that pill and over the years I switched from one pill to the next because of adverse side effects. One day in 2009, I was at work and I had this horrible pain in my heart that spread up into my left shoulder and down my arm. I immediately googled it and everything that came up was linked to birth control pills. All the warnings said to stop taking the pill immediately if you felt that pain. I called my husband and he told me that this had to stop. We decided that ingesting birth control pills wasn’t good for my health anymore. But, what to do?

Slowly but surely, we found our way to Natural Family Planning. To my surprise, I found that it made sense and was reasonable and logical. Through learning about NFP, I became enraged that I had never learned the wonder of my body. A woman’s body is amazing. All the signs it gives you to help you understand your cycle and fertility are fascinating. We do such a disservice to young people by just throwing contraception at them and telling them that this is the only way to be responsible. Once my husband and I were taught how to use NFP, we’ve never looked back. It’s healthy, promotes communication, and helps me to understand my body and not treat my fertility as if it’s something awful to be feared.

There are times when NFP requires discipline and sacrifice, but it’s not impossible to practice. Discipline makes us better people. Sacrifice helps us to grow in love and shed selfish tendencies.

The Church doesn’t want women ingesting or inserting harmful things into our bodies. Our natural fertility is not an enemy to snuff out with harmful chemicals. Our reproductive system is the only system where we as humans use chemicals and other means in order to keep it from working naturally. Nobody is taking pills to make their heart stop beating. Nobody wants to insert a device that makes their kidneys not function properly. The Church is protecting us from harmful products that the world would have us use in the interest of pleasure without natural consequences.

Most important of all is the fact that bringing forth life is not a bad thing. It’s a beautiful thing! That the marital embrace can bring forth life and spouses can be co-creators with God of a new human being is truly amazing. This should be celebrated.

Amy hails from the great state of Kansas, though she’s lived the last 16 years away from the “Land of Oz” traveling the country with with her Air Force Airman. She graduated from Kansas State University in 2001 and married her love, Dustin, that same year. She has three amazing kiddos–two daughters and a son. Amy runs the website Catholic Pilgrim where she loves to write about the incredible journey of living a genuine, authentic Catholic life. You can connect with her online over on Instagram and on her Facebook page Catholic Pilgrim.

Suggested resources:

Amy found the Couple to Couple League Magazine helpful, as well as the help and encouragement of Catholic bloggers on social media who devote a lot of energy to this topic. Catholic Wife, Catholic Life and To Jesus, Sincerely are two of her favorites.

Want more of this series?

Part 1: My Introduction 

Part 3: Self Control and Our Ultimate Mission with Kristi Denoy of Hail Marry

Part 4: The Ripple Effect of Chastity in my Life with Katie Herzing of Becoming Perfectly Myself

Part 5: Moved by NFP with Heidi Indahl of Work and Play, Day by Day

Part 6: Freedom in Surrender with Laura Durant Healing Heart of Jesus

Part 7 (the end): When God’s generosity meets the demands of conscience and science with Leslie Sholly of Life in Every Limb

Freedom’s Calling {A Humanae Vitae Series Introduction}

~ Laura ~ 20 Comments

In a world where self-fulfillment is the goal, sex is a rite of passage in teenage years, contraception is viewed as a responsibility, and kids are seeing pornography before turning ten, it is an unthinkable and even laughable notion to forsake instant gratification and choose sacrifice in the realm of human sexuality.

Yet, here we are. And we’re not laughing about the issues throwing caution to the wind has led to.

We are living in a time when generations are becoming progressively more lonely. Many people are sexually confused or tragically abused. It doesn’t take much to realize that this area of life has become one of deep confusion, addiction, and personal tragedy.

No group of people is exempt from this madness. And no group really agrees on causes, effects, or solutions.

Even among those who identify as Catholic, our views vary on what is and isn’t acceptable. For example, a Pew Research Study released in September 2016 found that only 8% of responding Catholics viewed contraception as morally wrong, 41% as morally acceptable, and 48% as “not a moral issue”. As an imperfect but faithful Catholic, I am part of that 8% and stand behind what my church teaches. In fact, all Christian denominations denounced contraception until the Anglican Bishop’s Lambeth Conference of 1930 first accepted it in a vote of 193 to 67. In far less than a century, the entire landscape of family life and reproductive health has radically changed.

Some laud the development of effective contraception as finally getting with the times. But the Catholic Church has staunchly recognized from the beginning several things:

  • Men and women were created for each other, as is self-evident in our complimentary nature.
  • Men and women were gifted by God with the possibility of co-creating new human beings together by mirroring the creative love of God revealed in the community of persons we call the Trinity.
  • Bringing a new human life into existence is a great responsibility, and a natural end of sex. So is the bonding of spouses.
  • Marriage was established by God as the permanent partnership between man and woman whereby children can be raised in a legally bound and sacramentally graced union.
  • Sex is meant for spouses committed to each other in marriage because by nature, the total giving of oneself with the potential of creating a child only makes sense in a committed, vowed, relationship.

To be honest, it doesn’t make perfect sense to be writing about this. I am single as they come at this point. I have no personal experience being married. But I come from a family, could certainly have my own one day, and have a vested interest in the health and well being of my fellow human beings. I have for a while.

It’s been a relatively long time since I first started reading and learning about Catholicism’s approach to these issues. I started reading a lot of current events back toward the end of high school when I got on Facebook and the pro-life movement first came on my radar. From there, it’s been a continuous process of slowly building my understanding. Why? I just realized that the world falls short of what we’re made for, and had to find out why and how and for what I was created.

I took a class on Christian Marriage in college (which was so good), and have read extensively on Theology of the Body and these issues because let’s be real: if a Catholic doesn’t do that nowadays, why stand behind what the Church teaches? How is one convicted enough to stick to something they don’t understand?

Some of the key books I’ve read or am reading.

Understanding how I am made, and God’s plan for love and life is necessary in these times. If I hadn’t taken the personal responsibility to learn the why behind what people already know the Church teaches, who knows what kind of different choices I would have made. But here, now? I certainly have only scratched the surface, but am convicted that if more people could seek and grasp a deeper understanding, our world would be so different.

There is a great battle happening in our culture and in our souls for not just the unsatisfying license to do whatever we want, but the true freedom to order our lives rightly. To master ourselves. To break free of sin and slavery to ourselves. This is possible for anyone, and a necessity for everyone. As G. K. Chesterton put it, “It is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.” Do you want to be part of changing our culture? It seems like such a hard thing by society’s standards, but Josemaría Escrivá encourages us that “When you decide firmly to lead a clean life, chastity will not be a burden on you: it will be a crown of triumph.”

Much of the time Catholics have this discussion in terms of married people (which is undoubtedly important). But coming to understand that no matter our state in life, we are all made to love out of self-gift was a transformative realization in my life. There is something in this for everyone. It’s hard to explain, but for me, it completely changed how I love people. (And here are some ways I’ve shared how to live this as a single person.)

I realized too often I did things with an expectation of what would be given back, which left me feeling unloved when things aren’t reciprocated. Seeing acts of love instead as a free gift of myself is different, because gifts have no strings attached. They are undeserved and cannot be earned.

That kind of love is what Catholicism shows us is possible and calls every one of us to live in different ways specific to our state of life.

Though the world says sleeping around, watching pornography, and using contraception are normal, I am here to tell you that it is possible to say no to all of that. Not only is it possible, it is empowering. Beautiful. Freeing.

I am free from addiction.

I am free from the worry of STD’s, getting pregnant before being married, and the emotional baggage that sleeping around brings.

I am free to live my best life until or unless a guy comes along with the same standards.

I am free to understand and respect how my body works naturally and not pump it full of synthetic hormones.

I am free to love and sacrifice fully, with nothing holding me back.

I am free from being enslaved by bodily passions.

I am free.

Insert appropriately cheesy picture from college days // JM Media

With the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae next month, I wanted to share this with you in the hope of broaching an awkward and controversial conversation, as per usual. This document (written by a soon to be canonized saint) reaffirmed Catholicism’s long standing stance on the issue of contraception and prophetically foretold what would happen with the broad acceptance of contraception, when at the height of the sexual revolution the world expected the Church to bow. But it didn’t, because this is one of those issues that gets to the heart of what it means to be human, and will never change.

There are people out there committed to this too. It’s not just some fringe religious nutcases. There are well educated, faithful, joyful people living out this truth in ordinary and extraordinary ways, so this post is just the beginning of a seven part series. Each person will share a bit about how they came to understand and embrace this message of life-giving love. It is a journey. Wherever you are in yours, my hope is that this series encourages you to ask hard questions, learn more, and consider how you are called to respond in your own life.

This radical self-gift kind of love is what each of us is capable of giving.

This is what we are free to do through self mastery and right ordering of our passions.

This is the calling on each of our lives.

This is Freedom’s Calling.

–

Check back and follow along in the coming weeks for the remaining guest posts of this series! Feel free to contact me and participate in the comment section with any input and discussion.

Here are links to the rest of the posts:

Part 2: Celebrating the responsibility of our creative power with Amy Thomas of Catholic Pilgrim

Part 3: Self Control and Our Ultimate Mission with Kristi Denoy of Hail Marry

Part 4: The Ripple Effect of Chastity in my Life with Katie Herzing of Becoming Perfectly Myself

Part 5: Moved by NFP with Heidi Indahl of Work and Play, Day by Day

Part 6: Freedom in Surrender with Laura Durant Healing Heart of Jesus

Part 7 (the end): When God’s generosity meets the demands of conscience and science with Leslie Sholly of Life in Every Limb

To Life,

 

 

Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or drop a personal email. 

7QT, Vol 68: Series, piano, and controversial issues

~ Laura ~ 6 Comments

Two weeks in a row?! That’s right. I’m on a roll. Mostly because:

1.

NEXT WEEK we’re kicking off that series commemorating Humanae Vitae’s 50th anniversary! Freedom’s Calling is a seven part series, and I’ll be releasing one at a time on Mondays and Thursdays. Be sure to follow along somewhere so you see them! If you’ve not heard me talk about it yet, each piece is the story of someone coming to embrace the Catholic teaching on sexual ethics, or sticking with it over time. These women are beautiful, wonderful, people, and I’m excited to share with you their stories and testimony of the freedom the Church calls us to.

2.

Do you consider yourself a competent cook? I would mostly say yes to that, but every once in a while something turns out weird and reminds me I don’t actually have much technical prowess and am more the beneficiary of flying by the seat of my pants. It made me feel more accomplished to read these 18 Basic Cooking Skills You Should Learn in Your Twenties and only have a few that I’ve not done. There’s not really an occasion I would cook a whole chicken for, and mussels? Gross. What’s your score?

3.

You know I can’t do a quick takes without some controversial issues too. You might have heard that earlier this week, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of the Colorado-based cake artist Jack Phillips. Jack was approached by two men planning a same sex wedding, who requested a custom wedding cake. Jack declined to create this custom order just as he’s declined custom Halloween cakes, divorce cakes, and cakes disparaging people who identify as gay. He doesn’t do those kinds of custom cakes, because he believes those things are wrong and does not want to use his artistic ability to express his support of them.

Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission had ruled against Jack, finding him guilty of discrimination. However, I thought this article made a good point: He wasn’t refusing service to these men because they were marrying each other. He offered to sell any of his baked goods. He simply declined to participate in the specific custom artistic process of celebrating the occasion. Justice Kennedy wrote: “The neutral and respectful consideration to which Phillips was entitled was compromised here. The Civil Rights Commission’s treatment of his case has some elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated his objection.” It is encouraging to see that some people still recognize that sincere religious beliefs shouldn’t be attacked in the public square. Aren’t religious people a protected class anyway? Oh the irony.

4.

Another good read this week! Joanna Gaines: “If I could tell the younger generation something it would be to start from within.” I just appreciate her public presence. Her family-first, no-drama, integrity is refreshing.

5.

California recently voided the so-called End of Life Option Act that legalized doctor assisted suicide, ruling that it had been rushed and not passed correctly (true). This is good, but not the end. Here is a beautiful little interview with Stephanie Packer, a 37 year old mother of four who is suffering from the terminal illness scleroderma and using her voice to be a proponent for “aid in living”, not “aid in dying”.

6.

Switching to a lighter note: Do you know of any good online resources for learning piano? I was generously gifted with a keyboard for my birthday last month, and have loved tinkering with it a bit. I took lessons here and there, so I know the basics already. But ideally, I’d like to be able to play songs using basic cords. I found this course already (which I’ve started), but would love to hear of what else is out there. Maybe a youtube channel?

7.

Alright, that’s it for now folks. Have a good weekend and see you soon for the series!

And head on over to Kelly’s place for more quick takes!

To Life,

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