To put the matter very [...]]]> I do not claim that Angelina Jolie’s announcement that she had a double mastectomy is the most important story of the week. An excellent commentary on this has been published in On The Square over at First Things, so I am not going to duplicate what she had said.

To put the matter very simply, the decision to cut off a healthy part of your body is not acceptable unless it is absolutely necessary. Doctors could not (and did not) tell Ms. Jolie that it was absolutely certain that she would get breast cancer: they only said that she had a high risk of getting breast cancer. While I totally appreciate Angelina Jolie’s desire to be there for her children and spare them, and herself, from the ravages of cancer, there are a number of far less damaging ways to reduce the risk of cancer.

It is disturbing to amputate a healthy body part, but this kind of amputation is disturbing because it touches on something unique to womanhood. The ability to breastfeed an infant (even if you never do) is a part of femininity and a sign of what a woman is made for: to give life and to nourish life.

Angelina Jolie fails to appreciate the full value of womanhood when she says that her choice “in no way diminishes my femininity.” Her statement is based on the fact that the surgeons carefully removed the breast tissue while leaving the skin, and she was then given implants. Her statement, however, is only true if breasts are nothing more than curves of flesh with nipples. Breast are more than this: they speak of the call to motherhood. When we disconnect womanhood from the call to motherhood, we run the risk of reducing women to little more than a curve of flesh with nipples. [That specific cancer, it is sad to say, is far advanced in our society]

St. Agatha contemplates Angelina Jolie’s choice.

The last thing I want to say is that running through Angelina Jolie’s article is a palable sense of fear. She says, “Cancer is still a word that strikes fear into people’s hearts, producing a deep sense of powerlessness.” She concludes her article by saying, “Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.”

Fear makes us recognize that we are weak, and the natural response to fear is to reach out for power, and this is exactly what Angelina Jolie did. The medical procedure gave her a feeling of control over her own health. This is exactly the opposite of a Christian response to fear: the Christian response is to humble ourselves, overcoming the fear with trust in God’s love for us. This trust is rooted in the hope of the resurrection: “even if cancer kills me, God will raise me up to eternal life.” It is faith in the resurrection of Jesus that casts out fear.

This is the reason why I chose to comment on this event: we live in frightening times, and we must learn how to conquer fear with faith.

The sadest part about Angelina Jolie’s choice is that she has not conquered her fear, but she has only kept it at bay for a while. As she admits in her article, she is still at risk for ovarian cancer, and she is still at risk for many other diseases as well. There is only so much she can cut to keep ahead of disease: I pray she finds another way to fight her fears.

It is easy [...]]]> One of the prayers of the Mass that I never understood very well was the prayer that goes like this:
grant that we, who are nourished
by the Body and Blood of your Son
and filled with his Holy Spirit,
may become one body, one spirit in Christ.

It is easy for me to understand the first part of this prayer, about becoming one Body in Christ. We talk about the Church being the Mystical Body, and it is not hard to imagine each Christian being like a little living cell in the great body of Christ. Just as every little cell in the human body is kept alive by the nutrients in the blood stream, so every cell in the Body of Christ is kept alive by the lifeblood flowing from Christ.

What I did not understand in this prayer was the idea that we should become “one spirit in Christ.”

This had always been a puzzle to me until I read the office of readings this morning from St. Cyril of Alexandria. The holy bishop said,

With regard to our unity in the Spirit, we may say, folliwng the same line of thought, that all of us who have received one and the same Spirit, the Holy Spirit, are united intimately, both with one another and with God. Taken separately, we are many, and Christ sends the Spirit, who is both the Father’s Spirit and his own, to dwell in each of us. Yet that Spirit, being one and indivisible, gathers together those who are distinct from each other as individuals, and causes them all to be seen as a unity in himself. Just as Christ’s sacred flesh has power to make those in whom it is present into one body, so the one, indivisible Spirit of God, dwelling in all, causes all to become one in spirit.

After reading this, I understood three things.
1) Praying to become “one body, one spirit” is two different ways of saying the same thing; we are praying for unity as a Church. Our desire for unity is a desire for the greatest possible unity, which is to be united as God is united. This is humanly impossible, but it is possible through the grace of Jesus Christ.

2) The part of the prayer that speaks of “one body” points towards unity in Christ, and especially unity through the most Holy Eucharist. The prayer to become “one spirit” emphasizes our unity that comes through the working of the Holy Spirit.

3) There is something more to unity than being a body, as the “body politic” of the United States demonstrates to us. This is the unity of being of the same heart and mind. I am not just talking about being on the same page or being on the same wavelength, but being animated by the same spirit.

We might think about the prayer in terms of each parish. A parish should be one body, meaning coming together under the same roof, but through prayer and devotion to God it is our hope that the parish becomes one in spirit, meaning having the same cares and concerns, and sharing the same passionate love for God the Father and for Jesus Christ.

The other place we might apply this prayer is to the family. A husband and wife become one through their union of bodies as God intended, and they also become one through living together under the same roof. They should not stop at being “one flesh” but they should seek to become “one spirit,” sharing the same cares and concerns, being moved by the same passions, and ultimately united by the same love for God the Father and for Jesus Christ. +

The statue reflects the way Adele described Our Blessed Mother, as having golden hair and a white dress tied with a yellow sash.

It was [...]]]> The Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help recently received a new statue of Mary as she appeared to the visionary, Adele Brise in 1859.

The statue reflects the way Adele described Our Blessed Mother, as having golden hair and a white dress tied with a yellow sash.

It was unveiled on Wednesday, May 1st.

See more photos from The Compass.

I find my life is much happier and more peaceful when I don’t watch or read the news. I usually just skim the headlines to see if there [...]]]> I am consistently impressed with Simcha Fisher’s blog and she has a great post on Ten things to do instead of drowning in the daily news.

I find my life is much happier and more peaceful when I don’t watch or read the news. I usually just skim the headlines to see if there is anything I really need to know (there rarely is) and then go over to News.va to see if the Pope said anything inspiring (he usually does).

Simcha Fisher really highly recommends cleaning; any respectable housewife (Simcha included) would probably not agree that my cleaning actually counts as cleaning. I just make the dirt less conspicuous.

I totally agree with her general point. Focusing on one thing that we can actually make better – no matter how small it is – is one hundred thousand times better than focusing on twenty things that we are powerless to change.

That being said, I need to go straighten up this room. +

And here is a close-up of the same image:

I recently encountered a beautiful story about a young husband and wife. She was raised a Hindu in India, and he was raised a Baptist in Iowa, and they entered the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil. What was so powerful about the story was [...]]]> Read the full story at the Des Moines Register

Ryan and Anu

I recently encountered a beautiful story about a young husband and wife. She was raised a Hindu in India, and he was raised a Baptist in Iowa, and they entered the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil. What was so powerful about the story was that it shows the power of faith in the Resurrection, and how it carried them peacefully through the death of their first child, who died in the womb nearly at full term:

Joy came over her when he came into the world, an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.

Ezra was beautiful. He had his father’s nose and his mother’s round face. They held him. They felt no anger or regret or pity.

The couple had planned to baptize Ezra Saturday night at St. Augustin Catholic Church in Des Moines, after the Easter Vigil ceremony to join the Catholic faith. They studied the faith for months, contemplated life’s mysteries and the everlasting. They had tried to convince their parents that Catholicism was the right choice, but couldn’t.

The whole reason for our faith, Ryan Galloway said, is that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead. Now, he could hold his son and smile because of that faith. It meant he could see his son again someday.

Do not all religious worship the same God? Yes, we do, because there is only one God, but to be Christian is to worship the God who raised Jesus from the dead.

Read the full story at the Des Moines Register