If you’re anything like me, you never expected anyone to cross a boundary in a way that allowed you to rightly accuse them of sexual assault. I knew the statistics as a teenager. I kept my keys in my fist like I was Wolverine. I wrote a whole speech for a class about the dangers to women that come from toxic masculinity. A family trip to New Orleans at age 15 gave me a souvenir of a catcall, and a school trip to Nashville one year later came with a memento of a stranger tapping me under my skirt. Afterwards, I wrote a school assignment about street harassment. I could recognize those experiences as assault – I knew those strange men were out of line. But when my first boyfriend was outraged on my behalf after I shared those experiences with him, I never expected him to cross that boundary, too.

Please read with discretion: This article mentions sexual assault, rape, and domestic abuse.

Talking About the Saints Who Survived Assault and Abuse

The experience of sexual assault drastically changed my relationship with God. The day that I realized it wasn’t my fault, my prayers shifted rapidly from blaming myself – asking God what I could have done to save the relationship – to vitriolic cries, asking God why He just let it happen. The most violating experience of my life happened in my childhood home while my parents were upstairs. My parents were at least ignorant at the time. God had no such excuse.

As I was spiritually thrashing in the pain of feeling forsaken, a particular saint started to get under my skin: Maria Goretti.

One of my earliest friends in college had chosen her as a Confirmation saint, and she told me that she really admired Maria Goretti’s purity. I remember being polite, but internally scoffing a bit. “What an odd thing to value,” I thought. I knew some young Catholics who didn’t want to kiss people or even talk to someone they liked if it gave them impure feelings or thoughts. If that’s what “purity” looked like – hard pass.

At that time, the worst for me was yet to come. Now, I wonder whether Maria Goretti made an appearance a few months prior as a sign that she was praying for me.

I had major complaints about how the Church holds up saints like Maria Goretti, Agnes, Rita of Cascia, Monica, and Dymphna as examples of virtue in cases of sexual assault, rape, and domestic abuse. Perseverance in an abusive marriage has been glorified as the better option to divorce. Does a woman’s life have less value than a sacrament? Three of the five women I mentioned are martyrs – it’s a reality that men who abuse women often take those women’s lives. Is dying at the hands of your abuser holiness? All I remember the Church teaching me on matters of abuse was that it was better to persevere for the sake of the relationship than to flee for the sake of yourself.

Maria Goretti’s and My Shared Experience

However bitter I was about purity being overrated, Maria Goretti was a lot like me.

Maria Goretti experienced her abuse before the age of 18. Currently in the United States, “[f]emales ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.”

She knew her attacker, and I knew mine. In fact, “victims know their attackers in 8 out of 10 cases.”

She was attacked at her home, as was I – and “55% [of assaults] occur at or near the victim’s home.”

And I could guess from the statistics that if you’re reading this, you might have a lot in common with Maria Goretti, too.

A recent tweet by Sheila Gregoire, Christian marriage blogger and author of She Deserves Better, caught my eye with something I needed to hear when my first boundary was pushed: “I wish male evangelical authors would stop talking about ‘pushing past a girl's boundaries’ when making out, like that's normal. Pushing past boundaries means pushing past her ‘no.’ That means you are committing sexual assault. Call it by its real name.”

It took 15 months and reading St. Thomas Aquinas for me to call it by its real name. Violence is not only physical force – Aquinas says that it “effects something against the will.” I processed this new definition and thought, “In what world is making out not even vaguely sexual? If an act falls under the definition of ‘sexual’ and is contrary to the will, it is therefore sexual violence.” Suddenly, I had the power to call my experience assault – and my suffering finally made sense.

An Involuntary Trauma Response Has Little to Do with Holiness

For the longest time, I blamed myself for freezing in that moment, for not crying out like Maria Goretti did – but responses to assault are unique to each experience.

Psychologists have discovered four main trauma responses. You've likely heard of fight and flight, but maybe freeze and fawn are new to you. “Freeze” is what happens when your body needs time to plan for action, but without this plan, you’re stuck in a state of inaction. “Fawning” is an attempt to pacify the threat to you so that you avoid harm. These responses usually kick in without a conscious thought process because threats rarely leave time for you to think.

Maria Goretti clearly had a fight response: She cried out, "No! It is a sin! God forbids it!" as her attacker, Alessandro Serenelli, made advances. That's incredible courage – and it's courage I don't have to be jealous of. I don’t have to feel like God loves me less because I froze in the moment of my assault. An involuntary trauma response has little to do with holiness. My body and my mind protected me the best way they knew how.

Looking for God In the Aftermath of Sexual Assault

I was afraid to ask God where He was when I was assaulted, but when I finally did, He answered me immediately with a single word: “Weeping.”

His brief response to my prayer was strikingly similar to the shortest verse in Scripture: “And Jesus wept.” In the Gospel, Jesus wept for his friend Lazarus, who had died. Jesus knew Lazarus was ill, but he waited to journey to his friend. In the meantime, Lazarus died. And when Jesus did arrive, he was met with the cries of, “Lord, if you had been here, [Lazarus] would not have died!”

I placed myself in Lazarus’ position, with abuse being its own illness and assault being a sort of death – one that warrants the tears of God to fall to the earth, on my behalf. For the death to my voice, Jesus wept. For the death to my body, Jesus wept. For the death to my free will, Jesus wept. And he weeps for you reading this, whether your experience of sexual violence was last night, last year, or last decade.

The fight in me came out after the assault. The courage it took to confront my abuser and say I had feelings in line with a survivor of sexual assault because of what he did – that was more than a instinctive fight response. It was courage, and it’s courage I share with Maria Goretti. I'm sure it's courage that she shares with you, too, no matter what your experience was like. Even if no one but God knows what happened to you, the choice to keep living each day is a courageous one.

Being in an abusive relationship had the worst impact on my mental health among all other experiences in my life. Before finding a therapist, there were days when I didn't want to live. My mental health deteriorated to the point that I almost walked into moving traffic. I had dreams that made me wake up convulsing – it was so unusual that I wondered whether it was demonic. Even almost a year after I was out of the relationship, with PTSD still haunting me, there were days when I asked God to take me in my sleep. Seeking support, going to therapy, and healing all take courage.

After Sexual Assault, Forgiveness Can Be Complicated

Forgiveness is something we might pressure ourselves into on account of our faith, and I want to encourage those reading: After someone else just violated your will, you do not need to force yourself to do anything. Forgiveness is good and freeing, but it’s hard, and you can take the time you need with it. You don’t have to repress your emotions in the name of forgiveness. You might need to forgive continuously for your whole life, and even then still never do it perfectly.

Honestly, forgiveness is harder for me now than it was initially because I’ve done a lot to alleviate the need to fawn and preserve the relationship I once had. The good news is that I can now offer real forgiveness that isn’t borne of an involuntary trauma response.

Forgiveness requires grace. It can even take a miracle. I think that Maria Goretti’s forgiveness was both courageous and miraculous. In the moment of the attack, she was afraid for her attacker’s soul, that he would go to Hell for what he did.

In time, I saw that Jesus also wept for the man who assaulted me. It grieves Jesus to see the hearts of men in such a state that they destroy the women around them with abuse. When I think of my own abuser, I find myself praying for him to have a conversion, at least to see his wrongdoing for what it is and to never harm someone that way again.

If you have experienced sexual assault and would like support, here are a couple of resources:

RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network)

Dial 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

Women want options when it comes to their healthcare and understanding their fertility – and Silicon Valley is responding. In 2021, the femtech market was worth around 51 billion USD worldwide, and it’s forecasted to double by 2030. Historically, options for health monitoring and fertility care have often seemed limited, especially when sitting in front of an American-trained doctor. But today, wearable tech like the celebrity favorite Oura Ring and apps like Flo, Clue, FEMM and FDA-approved Natural Cycles are giving patients greater insight into their own health. With this data in hand, women are increasingly seeking out medical professionals who are equipped with more extensive training to address their health concerns.

As Women Learn More About Their Fertility, Doctors Are Learning More, Too

Physicians are beginning to notice these trends towards expanding options for women’s healthcare. Medical school students in particular are seeking out specialized training to equip them with more knowledge about fertility awareness in order to serve patients. 

One organization providing this training is FACTS About Fertility, a group of physicians, health care professionals, and educators who are working to provide the medical community with information about fertility awareness-based methods (FABMs).

Dr. Marguerite Duane, Co-founder and Executive Director of FACTS, emphasizes the importance of patients working with trained medical professionals, rather than relying on technology alone: “I tell women, ‘You’re smarter, you’re smarter than your smartphone!’ Therefore, instead of just using an app to tell you when you may be fertile or not, I encourage women to learn to track their cycles with trained FABM instructors. By working with their educator or FABM trained medical professional, they can get to the root cause of the underlying abnormalities and develop a targeted plan of treatment.”

Deepa Manda, a fourth-year medical student at University of Pikeville Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine (UP-KYCOM), plans to become a primary care physician in rural communities. She recently completed two elective classes with FACTS because she wanted a more holistic education about women’s health – beyond traditional IVF tracks for fertility care.

Manda found that FABMs are a great educational tool for women to learn about their own bodies, regardless of their stage of life. She was impressed that FABMs can help physicians in their care of women ages 15-45, monitoring them for a variety of medical issues that women have beyond fertility.

Growing up in an Indian culture, Manda felt that women’s bodies weren’t discussed. Because of this, she appreciates that FABMs are designed to educate patients, helping them make “better decisions for themselves.” Because the first goal of FABMs is education, the methods are not sexualized or political, and Manda believes they offer ways of tracking fertility that encourage self-government.

Better Education Means Better Care for Women

In practice, one female Internal Medicine physician (who wishes to remain anonymous) has used the FACTS CME course to support her patients better. She has been happy to provide patients with preliminary knowledge on how they can monitor their bodies’ signs of fertility. She sees firsthand that FABMs give “tremendous self-knowledge” to women, and that they cooperate with other medical management.

Furthermore, she has a vision for greater incorporation of FABMs into medical practice: “I think at minimum, a starting point would be for medical communities to incorporate fertility window monitoring into treatment. This I think would be a tremendous first step because of how easily the knowledge of a woman’s fertility window could be incorporated into any other care they are receiving.”

She also has witnessed the negative effects of oral contraceptive pills on women. Recently, she saw a 31-year-old female who had no prior history of deep vein thrombosis or clotting disorders. However, the patient had been taking a combined oral contraceptive (COC) pill since high school. The patient had six varicose vein ablations, and before coming to her for treatment, the patient had never been told (even by her gynecologist) that the COC was a significant risk factor for the condition. 

Alec Hampton, a fourth-year medical student at Kansas City University School of Osteopathic Medicine, completed both FACTS electives this year, saying, “I feel they were invaluable to my future training to become a Family Medicine physician. FABMs are important because they empower both women and men.”

He said that his knowledge of FABMs allows him to care for women in an alternative way than what historical frameworks in medicine have offered to women in the U.S. “Many women, particularly those who are wanting to conceive, do not want to be prescribed hormonal contraception. These women are largely ignored, or referred to a specialist who can take months to even get an appointment with. FABMs provide a solution for these women and give the primary physician the tools to address the real problems affecting their patients.”

Noah Gomez, a second year OB-GYN resident at The Sisters of Charity OB/GYN Residency program in Buffalo, New York, sees that there is a large demand among women to learn natural methods of understanding their cycle. “Women want to know when they can get pregnant and not get pregnant; they want to know when they’re healthy and when they’re not.” 

Gomez, who completed the FACTS electives in his fourth year of medical school, thinks that a good way to start integrating FABMs into mainstream OB/GYN practice is to add discussion of FABM use to the standard screening questions during gynecological appointments.

He believes that FABMs provide an education framework for teaching the signs and symptoms of fertility, saying, “FABMs change the paradigm of gynecology, allowing women to truly understand what’s going on within their bodies on a cyclic basis. They give them power to make their own decisions.” 

Expanding Diverse and Holistic Options for Women’s Healthcare

Young medical students and physicians who recently entered the workforce are largely optimistic about how the use of FABMs can expand options for women’s healthcare. They are excited about the use of FABMs as a collaborative and empowering tool for both women and men to use while working alongside appropriately trained medical practitioners.

As Alec Hampton put it, “By providing superior healthcare, word of FABMs’ success will continue to spread, making it impossible to ignore. By practicing good, ethical medicine, we will create a demand for exactly that.”

Looking for your next summer read? We picked one topic for each month and added our team’s personal recommendations. Whether you’re looking for a memoir by a woman like you, food for thought about current debates, or to meet your new favorite saint, you’ll find it in one of the books on our list:

June: Memoirs by Contemporary Catholic Women 

There’s no better way to explore your own faith than by hearing from other women like you to learn how they’re navigating life – from dive bars to leading global organizations.

1. When Life Gives You Pears by Jeannie Gaffigan
2. Parched by Heather King
3. Something Other Than God by Jen Fulwiler
4. Our Lady of Hot Messes by Leticia Ochoa Adams
5. Fat Luther, Slim Pickins: A Black Catholic Celebration of Faith, Tradition, and Diversity by Marcia Lane McGee and Shannon Wimp Schmidt 
6. Into the Deep: An Unlikely Catholic Conversion by Abigail Favale 
7. Embracing Weakness: The Unlikely Secret to Changing the World by Shannon Evans
8. Working for a Better World by Carolyn Woo
9. Fifteen Feet from the Pope: Dispatches from a Sabbatical in Rome by Luanne Zurlo
10. The Heart of Perfection by Colleen Carol Campbell
11. God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine by Victoria Sweet

July: Books That Explore Current Issues and Debated Topics

From feminism to abortion and reproductive health, there’s a lot of information to sift through in today’s debates. If you’re looking to learn more – whether from those you agree with or those you don’t – check out one of these books.

1. Rethinking Sex: A Provocation by Christine Emba 
2. The Fifth Vital Sign: Master Your Cycles & Optimize Your Fertility by Lisa Hendrickson-Jack
3. Rehumanize: A Vision to Secure Human Rights for All by Aimee Murphy 
4. Everything Below the Waist: Why Health Care Needs a Feminist Revolution by Jennifer Block
5. Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez
6. Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
7. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
8. The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having — or Being Denied — an Abortion by Diana Greene Foster
9. This is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences by Sarah Hill, PhD
10. Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health by Toni Weschler
11. The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler

August: Books to Learn More About Saints

Have you ever thought that all the saints seem to be exactly alike? The women on this list will prove that assumption wrong and show you different ways to live your faith.

1. Mother Teresa, CEO: Unexpected Principles for Practical Leadership by Ruma Bose and Lou Faust
2. My Sisters the Saints by Colleen Carol Campbell 
3. The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist by Dorothy Day
4. Sister Thea Bowman, Shooting Star: Selected Writings and Speeches by Thea Bowman and Celestine Cepress
5. Pray for Us: 75 Saints Who Sinned, Suffered, and Struggled on Their Way to Holiness by Meg Hunter-Kilmer
6. My Badass Book of Saints by Maria Morera Johnson 
7. Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Therese of Lisieux by Heather King
8. Edith Stein: The Life and Legacy of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross by Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda 
9. Chiara Corbella Petrillo by Simone Troisi and Cristiana Paccini
10. Chiara Luce: A Life Lived to the Full by Michele Zanzucchi‍
11. Chiara Lubich: A Biography (A Spirituality of Unity) by Armando Torno

I can still picture the face of the “special guest speaker” who walked into my freshman year high school religion class: Handsome, dark-haired, and with a lopsided grin, this 25-year-old boy band knock-off was here to talk to us – a group of hormonal 15-year-old girls – about sex. We giggled as he told us that sex was our secret, special treasure to keep only for our husbands. Then came the rose exercise.

Each young woman was presented with a rose. As we wandered around the room, every person we met ripped off one petal from the rose. This was supposed to represent sex: Each time we had sex with a different person, a petal was removed from the rose until all we were left with was a thorny stem.

Off-Brand-Nick-Lachey explained that, every time we engaged in premarital sex, a little bit of our sacred gift was taken away. The inevitable emotional imprint we left on our partners would lead to heartbreak and pain, hindering our ability to connect emotionally with future partners. Eventually, our souls would become so marred that there would be nothing of value to present to our spouses. “Well,” I thought, “it’s too late for me!”

The Reality of (Not) Saving Sex for Marriage Is More Nuanced Than We Think

Many Catholic women are taught that, by saving themselves for marriage, they could avoid sexual trauma and come into marriage with a clean slate. Young men are often taught that they will be rewarded for chastity with a beautiful spouse, with whom they will share ecstatic sexual union. (This is code for great orgasms.)

But the reality is far more complicated. The truth is, not all premarital sexual experiences are traumatic, and waiting for marriage does not guarantee great sex. So how are Christian women meant to contextualize our past sexual experiences, especially if they were positive?

Prior to meeting my now husband, I did not understand the divine, unitive, and sacrificial nature of love. I received a deeply flawed version of Church teaching, full of obvious falsehoods that I immediately rejected. I was told, for example, that women only experience sexual desire when they are in love.

Looking back on past relationships, I still feel grateful for the positive aspects, the beautiful moments, and the things I learned about myself. I’m happy that I was respected and cared for, and that I came out of those relationships with an understanding of my embodied self, how to communicate my desires, and the ability to find joy in sex. I also understand that using sex for my own personal growth was a misuse of my love. In approaching relationships that way, I fell short of being the most loving version of myself.

That said, it is possible to objectify another person without having sex with them. A fellow Catholic, who I’ll call Angela, recently described her experience of supposedly doing everything right, yet discovering that she, too, had made mistakes.

“If we’re living out Theology of the Body properly, it doesn’t just affect sex,” she confided during our vulnerable conversation. “You can objectify each other by telling a white lie, hiding a part of yourself, or ignoring a part of them because it’s inconvenient to you. All of those things I regret. But I also forgive myself, and I believe God forgives me as well.” I feel the same way.

The Beautiful, Messy Reality of Sex

Off-Brand-Nick-Lachey should have taught me that sex is the most concrete, earthly representation of God’s love. God loves each of us as if we encompassed the whole world, and as if all eternity were spent loving only us. That’s why we, too, should focus on just one person.

Sex brings love down to the very earth – the sweat, the scent, the mucus of human experience. It’s the very sloppiness of sex, the unexalted state, the banality that makes it beautiful. Even in marriage, sex is not usually the transcendent, ecstatic thing that purity culture promises us it will be – but that’s the point. God wants us to know that we are holy in our imperfect bodies and that we should not feel ashamed.

To be honest, I can’t say for certain that I would have behaved any differently if I had been taught Theology of the Body when I was younger, as Angela was. But it certainly would have been more compelling than a false story about how premarital sex was going to steal my dignity and ruin my marriage. The truth is always more compelling than a lie.

At the same time, Angela admits to wishing she was better prepared to embrace sexual pleasure in marriage. After years of both resisting sex and holding it up on a theological pedestal, the messy reality of sex came as a bit of a surprise. It would have been helpful, she admitted, to have some frank talk with other married women – not just about the science of cycles and pregnancy, but also practical guidance on finding sexual pleasure. Permission to take things slow and to have fun, and knowing that all of this was very normal would have gone a long way.

In an ideal world, Catholic women would receive both Theology of the Body and an understanding of just the body, without the theology. Still, despite our vastly different experiences, both Angela and I have ended up in happy, wholesome marriages. This is the truth of God’s grace at work.

I wish I could step back in time and give my 15-year-old self a hug. I want to tell her that it’s not too late and it will never be too late. I want to tell her that the man telling you that you’re broken is wrong. I wish I could tell myself that while waiting for marriage doesn’t guarantee a perfect sex life later on, it does have value in the much deeper sacred mystery.

Sex really is a mystical representation of God’s love for his people: self-giving, sacrificial, fulfilling, and creative. It blurs the lines between self and other. Sex is every bit as sacred, beautiful, and holy as the Church says it is – and nothing you can do could possibly diminish either your own value or the value of sex.

It’s always a rose that you give to your spouse.

Catholics dedicate the month of May to Mary, our spiritual mother. I remember the special celebration my Catholic school held every year: the May Crowning, when we placed a floral crown on the head of a Mary statue. At the time, my family had recently moved from Miami, FL to a small, predominantly white Catholic town. There was a lot that I was learning and that I had never heard of before – but hand in hand with Catholic traditions was a heavy emphasis on and preference for European Catholicism. Being Colombian, I struggled with the culturally Euro-centric Catholicism I encountered. And as I grew into a young woman, Mary became another stranger, now with fair skin and golden hair.

Docile and Silent or Courageous and Strong?

Mary had always been perfect, but the emphasis on her stainlessness, her purity, and her silence seemed to overshadow the warmth, joy, and strength I had once envisioned her to have. And so I loved her from afar; no longer with the tenderness I felt when I first came to know her. I found myself wanting to know more about Mary. Had my Hispanic notion of La Virgen, or Mamita Maria (as many affectionately called her) really been that off?

It was hard to make sense of Mary’s more “docile” features. Growing up, every praise-worthy Latin mother I knew worked herself tirelessly to the bone, danced throughout times of joy, and faced difficult times head on with a fiery passion and strength. These features were beginning to seem completely opposed to the “new” Mary I was learning about. In my classes and all around me, Mary was meek, soft spoken, solemn, and almost unassuming.

Mary’s Passionate Prayer

This overwhelming disconnect came to a head when I read the Magnificat prayer. It is one of the few quotes from Mary in the Bible, and I believe it to be one of the most impactful:

“And Mary said: ‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him. He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.’”

This is not the unassuming, soft spoken Mary I was learning about in the classroom. Mary’s song, the Magnificat, demonstrates who she really is: Mary – the young Jewish woman, who without a doubt had brown skin, darker hair, and North African features – speaks out with a proclamation of praise.

The Lord her God, the God of Israel, has come to fulfill the generational promise to His people – who are also her people – through her sacrifice. She made her great “yes” and began to actively participate in God’s plan for the salvation of all people.

I have no doubt this proclamation was made with the passion of any faithful Jew, a passion that enabled Jews to tear their garments and burst into song and ululate. It’s a passion similar to that of King David, her ancestor, who danced wildly before God in the Ark of the Covenant. Mary proclaims her rejoicing, her fervent praise, and her loyalty to God – and her words are immortalized for thousands of years.

The Many Depictions of Mary

If we are to know Mary for who she is and what she can be for us, we must know her humanity, as it really is. If we choose to see Mary in only one way – in the context of a single culture or heritage – we should ask ourselves why that way seems most suitable to us.

Why do many people in America prefer depictions of a fair skinned, blonde Mary with light eyes? Is a European Mary “more” Mary than a Middle Eastern Mary? Are we trying to make her fit into a mold based on Euro-centric beauty standards? Is it okay to present Mary with an appearance that’s different from the way she really looked in order to suit our needs?

These questions carry a lot of implications, and I have no doubt the responses would be complex with many factors in play. However, could it be that, at the heart of the matter, the reason is as simple as people preferring what they know rather than what they don’t? It might seem rather simplistic, but I think sometimes the truth is simple.

But, why does it matter? And what might Mary have to say about it?

Mary has appeared to people all across the globe, and her apparitions have played a crucial role in the conversion of millions of people to Catholicism. When we take a look at Mary’s apparitions, we learn that she sees and presents herself as the mother of all peoples.

Our Lady of Guadalupe (Mexico)

Our Lady of Guadalupe’s apparition alone resulted in about 9 million conversions.

Mary appeared to Juan Diego as a beautiful, native Mexican calling him in his native tongue Nahuatl: "Juanito, Juan Dieguito." Her image on the Tilma (which has countless miraculous properties) depicts her in such a way that the Aztec people could understand who she was. She stands in front of the sun, showing that she is greater than their sun god Huitzilopochtli. She wears the stars on her mantle, showing that she is greater than the stars above. The moon beneath her feet shows that she is greater than their moon god Tezcatlipoca. Mary donned the Spanish cross on her neck, the flowers of quincunx and yoloxochitl on her gown, and the black ribbon over her stomach, signifying her pregnancy. She used their symbols and imagery to teach them – and she presented herself as one of their own.

During a trip to Mexico City, I visited the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and was struck by the profound reverence displayed by the Hispanic pilgrims. I saw hundreds of people walk on their knees for miles while praying the rosary and singing all the way to the shrine. Inside the church, there was a clamor of voices singing and wailing, the sound of hundreds of people letting out a cathartic cry. Many cried out, “Mamá!” before the Tilma. This made me realize that I had not felt like I knew Mary because I only knew her through one lens. I believed that Mary was meant to look and be only one way.

Our Lady of Akita (Japan)

In 1973, Mary appeared to Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa just outside of Akita, Japan. Sister Agnes was deaf, but she was cured and able to hear Mary speak. Sister Agnes received the stigmata and many messages from Mary, mostly apocalyptic in nature, warning about the persecution of priests and heavy punishments for those proclaiming heresy.

Here, Mary appeared by animating an existing Japanese wooden statue of herself. The statue was seen weeping 101 times and having the stigmata. In December of 1973, a Japanese television station filmed the tears coming from the statue's eyes.

Our Lady of Kibeho (Rwanda)

Mary also appeared to three young girls in Rwanda: Alphonsine Mumureke, Nathalie Mukamazimpaka, and Marie Claire Mukangango.

Alphonsine saw Mary first and would see her the most frequently from 1981-1989. Mary appeared to Alphonsine by the name “Nyina Wa Jambo,” which means “Mother of the Word.” Alphonsine immediately recognized her as Our Lady.

Mary asked Alphonsine to spread her message, but Alphonsine was met with skepticism and prejudice because she came from Gisaka, an area known for practicing magic. Alphonsine asked that Mary help her to overcome these challenges by appearing to others so that they would listen to her words. Mary then appeared to Nathalie Mukamazimpaka and Marie Claire Mukangango, the latter of whom was staunchly opposed to Alphonsine’s stories about the apparitions.

Mary’s mission was to encourage them to pray the rosary without ceasing, and to warn them of future catastrophe and violence. Five years after the last apparition, the tragedy of the Rwandian Genocide occurred.

Our Lady of Vailankanni (India)

It’s believed that Mary appeared to several unrelated people in Velankanni, India. Most notably, she appeared to a young boy selling buttermilk, presenting herself as a beautiful woman carrying a child. She asked him for some milk to feed her child, which he gave to her.

She then asked him to seek a specific Catholic man in a nearby town and request that he build a church in her honor in Velankanni. The boy, who had previously been unable to walk, was cured and he ran to the town to find the Catholic man. The basilica that stands there now is dedicated to Our Lady of Vailankanni, also called Our Lady of Good Health.

Our Lady of La Vang (Vietnam)

Mary is also thought to have appeared to a group of Catholics in Vietnam who fled from persecution to the Lavang jungle. She appeared to them dressed in the traditional Vietnamese áo dài, with the child Jesus in her arms. She instructed them to boil medicinal leaves to treat their illnesses from the contaminated water and she comforted them in their hardships.

Though the apparitions in India and Vietnam have yet to be fully approved by the Church, both shrines were elevated to Minor Basilica in 1961 and 1962 respectively by Pope John XXIII.

Mary, Mother of All Peoples

As any good mother does, Mary comes and makes herself known to her children in a personal and familiar way.

Every mother knows how to best connect with her children, how to speak to them in a way they understand, and how to encourage and guide them. If anything, these apparitions prove that her methods are effective and that she can’t be bound by any one depiction.

That being said, are we missing anything by not recognizing Mary’s heritage and cultural context with images that show a more realistic appearance?

I believe that we are. It’s important to recognize that there might not be an objectively “better” representation of Mary than what she looked like in her earthly body. There is speculation that St. Luke, who was close to Mary and knew her well, painted The Black Madonna, otherwise known as Our Lady of Częstochowa. Even then, we know through the story of Our Lady of Częstochowa that the miracles from this image have comforted and strengthened the faith of the Polish Catholics who received them. Mary doesn’t put herself in a box, so why would we?

The most important thing I have found in learning about Mary is that God and His plan are bigger than what we can imagine. He gave us His mother to be our mother, and as such she comes to meet us where we are – in our own language and culture, and with a familiar face.

When it feels hard to know her, I think back to her words to Juan Diego: “Am I not here, I, who am your mother?”

In February, Rihanna gave a groundbreaking performance at the Super Bowl – not only because it showcased her extraordinary musical career, but also because she was the first person to take this coveted stage while visibly pregnant. The 35-year-old billionaire businesswoman is emblematic of a new generation of mothers refusing to choose between what some call #babiesanddreams.

The Start of the #BabiesandDreams Movement

In her 2020 Golden Globes acceptance speech, a pregnant Michelle Williams said that she wouldn’t have been able to “live a life of [her] own making, and not just a series of events that happened to [her],” without abortion.

In response to this speech, Catholic mother, speaker, and coach Leah Darrow posted a video on her Instagram account (from the bed where she was in labor with her fifth baby), sharing her belief that babies are not an obstacle to a woman’s dreams. A few days later, after she gave birth to her son, she followed up with a post sharing her “#BabiesAndDreams story” and inviting others to do the same.

The worldview represented by Williams’ speech, Darrow told me in an email, “reflects the misplaced emphasis on one’s work at the expense of the sanctity of human life. As I was going through labor, preparing to welcome my fifth child, I felt an overwhelming need to convey the message that babies and dreams are not mutually exclusive.”

Darrow says that the reaction to her post “was diverse. While the majority of women strongly supported the message and felt encouraged, there were some who focused on how babies, in their view, can hold you back from the life you once had. Nonetheless, [her] goal remains to encourage women to embrace both motherhood and their aspirations, without feeling that they must choose one over the other.”

These conversations come just two years after Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, became the second world leader to give birth while in office. She is also a millennial, just 37 years old when she gave birth, and the youngest leader New Zealand has had in over a century.

Like an increasing number of millennial mothers, I too am navigating a space that doesn’t fit any of the old labels defined by the bitter “mommy wars.” I know many moms who are building businesses or careers with or without full- or even part-time child care. Technology provides flexibility, and the COVID pandemic brought both a heightened awareness of the demands of family life and an acceptance of blending work and parenting. It’s not always easy. Sometimes, it’s downright stressful. But, in the year and a half since my daughter was born, I’ve learned that there is no easy way to be a mother.

I reached out to a few women whom I saw using the hashtag on Instagram and Facebook to find out how other women – Catholic millennial moms, in particular – felt about this social media trend. The disparate views represented by the women I spoke with reveal the many ways in which women are approaching motherhood and the pursuit of their other dreams.

How Women Are Living the Dream

For some women, having babies inspired or enriched their other dreams. Comedian Jennifer Fulwiler explores this in detail in her memoir, One Beautiful Dream: The Rollicking Tale of Family Chaos, Personal Passions, and Saying Yes to Them Both. Books like hers speak to a growing number of women navigating these tensions.

“Having more babies created dreams I didn’t know I even had,” said Sara Lally, a photographer in Florida. “Before I had my second daughter, the thought of pursuing photography full-time had never occurred to me … I didn’t even have a camera. But here I am now, not at all encumbered by my three children, but rather inspired by them.”

“It’s a reminder that children enrich all of our dreams that are worth dreaming – they don’t put a damper on them,” echoed Amanda Gonzalez, also a photographer. “I’m a better everything now that I have kids: [a] better planner, creator, worker, communicator, more resilient, more creative, more confident. I have more ideas and more investment in the world around me.”

It seems that there is something about the act of mothering that nurtures creativity of all kinds, as women like Haley Stewart and Ashlee Gadd have written eloquently. Perhaps the act of co-creating life helps with the creation of art. Designers like Anna Liesemeyer of In Honor of Design and even Joanna Gaines have celebrated their motherhood as such.

The Pandemic Boon – and Boom

Technology has equipped modern moms to curate much more diverse working conditions than those of years past, both in improving flexibility with traditional 9-to-5s and in creating avenues for women to pursue their own ventures.

The number of self-employed mothers has risen in recent months, 8% higher in August 2022 than in January 2020 according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which also reports that almost 10% of all mothers in the workforce are self-employed. And, in a recent Shopify survey of 1,532 mothers, over half said that they were interested in entrepreneurship.

“The pandemic exposed the impossible balancing act that society demands of working mothers, and how incompatible our ideals of the ‘good mother’ and the ‘career woman’ are. More than that, it’s shown us how unsustainable the nature of work has been for women with children,” wrote Roxanne Voidonicolas, content marketing lead at Shopify. “ … For the women who want to (and can afford to) work part-time, business ownership is particularly appealing. It allows them to prioritize their own obligations, guilt-free. Becoming a mom entrepreneur is the only work arrangement that doesn’t need to be binary: all in or all out.”

I took a poll in the Facebook group Catholic Women in Business and discovered that only 32% of the 184 women who responded work full time and without children (either they are not mothers, or they have child care). The rest work part time (with or without child care), work full-time alongside child(ren), or, like me, are full-time caregivers who freelance or have “side hustles.”

Another poll, conducted by Motherly’s LinkedIn page, asked mothers what helped them most with work/life balance. Of the 920 who responded, 92% selected either remote work or flexible work hours; only 2% selected on-site child care, and 6% selected supportive co-workers. These results indicate that most women are interested more in alternative ways to work than in having more support for a traditional, 40-hours-a-week on-site approach to their career. This kind of workplace evolution is integral to allowing many women the kind of integrated “babies and dreams” lifestyle they desire.

Economists found last fall that there was a “mini-baby boom” in 2021 in the U.S., which they partially attributed to the recent rise in flexible and remote work. One of the co-authors of the study told Axios that the COVID-19 pandemic is “the first recession where we actually see birth rates go up.” This increase was mostly among college-educated women (many of whom were able to work from home, giving them more flexibility) and first-time mothers.

I was one of those college-educated first-time mothers who had a baby in 2021 – and I have definitely benefited from Zoom calls, off-hours voice memos, and the expectation that babies and toddlers will sometimes interrupt virtual meetings.

The Challenge of “Doing It All”

Some of the women I talked to felt that the hashtag was just another example of our culture’s pressure for women to “lean in” and “have it all.”

“The reality is, sometimes the sacrifice of choosing life for an unplanned child is really difficult. It doesn’t change what the right thing to do is,” one woman said. “But it just is difficult in a lot of circumstances and isn’t as cut and dry as ‘you can have both.’”

It’s well-known now that a large number of women dropped out of the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these women worked in industries such as hospitality, child care, and leisure that were hit hardest by the pandemic, and notably the least accommodating to virtual work. Others left because of child care and school closures.

While women’s participation in the labor force has returned to pre-pandemic levels, the so-called “she-session” was a strong reminder that, as Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote in a now-famous essay for The Atlantic, “women still can’t have it all.” Child care can be unreliable, and many mothers want to provide that care themselves. Full-time working mothers may spend all of their time outside of work caring for their family and their home, leaving them with no time for passion projects. Without a full-time job, stay-at-home mothers may find themselves wondering what their passions even are outside of their family. I know I’m not the only woman who has become a mother and had a complete identity crisis.

Another woman messaged me and said that when she sees women telling their social media followers that they can have #babiesanddreams, she feels that “almost always, their husbands aren’t working full time. Or they work with them.”

Many women, like me, are able to pursue their dreams in between caring for a child because their husbands earn enough that they don’t have to rely on the woman’s income. Others are able to pay for child care or for help with housekeeping or other tasks.

For moms who are full-time caregivers, this woman pointed out, “it’s so hard” to run a business and care for children. “Not impossible, but not as easy as it’s made to seem … There’s very few in the space … who are actually full-time ‘childcare providers’ and running big businesses.”

“And so I get a bit disillusioned by the hashtag, I guess, because I don’t always resonate with either side. I’m just trying to do what the Lord called me to – which I call ‘bothness’ – and also sleep every once in a while.”

In response to the idea that #babiesanddreams is impractical or overly optimistic, Darrow “respectfully disagrees.” For some women, she told me, a fixed mindset might be holding them back from embracing the idea that they can pursue a dream other than motherhood while prioritizing their family.

More broadly, she added:

“I would contend that the definition of ‘dreams’ should not be confined solely to professional or secular pursuits outside the home. In our contemporary society, we tend to overlook the importance of the dreams that we can pursue within our homes, marriages, and relationships. Furthermore, it is essential to acknowledge that having babies does, in fact, significantly alter and reprioritize one's life, a fact that I, particularly, do not dispute. In my view, babies should always take priority over career aspirations, reflecting the unique responsibilities and blessings that come with motherhood.

“While I am passionate about helping women pursue their aspirations, I also respect the individuality of each of my clients and believe that it is ultimately between them and God to determine what their dreams are. I firmly reject the notion that motherhood precludes one from achieving personal goals outside of the realm of parenting. Such a view is not only misguided but also counterproductive to the progress and empowerment of women everywhere.”

Perhaps, then, the important point is that mothers can raise child(ren) while pursuing other dreams – but we might need to redefine or reshape our dreams in different seasons of life. Or, as Catholic mother and coach Lisa Canning wrote in her book The Possibility Mom: How to Be a Great Mom and Pursue Your Dreams at the Same Time, “Success [as a mother] is possible, but it might look different than you imagined.”

This is something Marie Kondo, famous for her home organization expertise, seems to have learned. She caused a firestorm online earlier this year after commenting that she had “kind of given up” on total tidiness after having three kids of her own.

Listening to God’s Voice

As Catholic mothers, reflection and prayer are key. God may ask us to pursue full-time work, full-time caregiving, or any blend in between. It’s up to us to discern the timing and the path that He wants us to follow.

In the meantime, we can do everything in our power to ensure that that path for mothers is as smooth as we can make it. For business leaders and HR professionals, that might mean implementing paid parental leave and flexible work policies. For entrepreneurs, it might mean creating products and services that make the motherhood journey easier. For women working in ministry, it might mean creating small groups and Bible studies for mothers.

For all of us, it means embracing what Jennifer Fulwiler calls the “village hustle.” It means fighting the idea that motherhood is something we should perfect on our own and building a community of imperfect women helping each other achieve their dreams.

In 1970, kid-lit icon Judy Blume published a novel that rocked young adult literature – so much so that, as recently as 2009, it was one of the most frequently challenged or banned books in schools and libraries in the US. Regardless, Blume’s tour de force book, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, has been loved by girls worldwide for more than 50 years. Its down-to-earth, raw discussions of adolescence still resonate, despite advancing technology and changing cultural conversations about women’s bodies. So when the long-awaited film adaptation was released last week, I was first in line to see it. Many of its first reviews focused on Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson), her fascination with her changing body, and the story’s still-radical portrayal of puberty – but I was more impressed by the story’s portrayal of the other titular character: God.

Judy Blume’s Margaret

For those who didn’t grow up with the book, a quick synopsis:

It’s 1970, and 11-year-old Margaret Simon’s parents decide to move from New York City to suburban New Jersey. In response, Margaret utters a prayer from which the book gets its title. This act alone is particularly unusual for her as the daughter of a Jewish father (Benny Safdie) and a Christian mother (Rachel McAdams) who have decided to let her choose a faith tradition when she’s older.

When her new teacher, Mr. Benedict, learns that she “hates” religious holidays because her family doesn’t celebrate them, he suggests that she explore religion for her sixth-grade research project. Though Margaret’s spiritual life doesn’t at all resemble how her family and friends imagine faith, God is her safe space, the one to whom she pours out all of her thoughts about new friends, boys, and above all – her overwhelming desire to grow breasts and get her period.

Margaret’s Struggles in Her Spiritual Search

In the book, Margaret’s lack of religious identity sends shockwaves through her classmates and other adults. But in 2023, her situation is much more common: According to 2021 Pew Research Center data, 3 in 10 US adults are “nones,” meaning that they identify with no particular faith tradition.

In the film, it’s Margaret’s spiritual seeking that itself causes a stir. When her parents become angry that her paternal grandmother (Kathy Bates) took her to a Shabbat service, Margaret insists that it was her own idea and that she wants to go to a Christian church, too. The dialogue hints at her parents’ own unhealed religious trauma: Her mother’s parents disowned her for marrying a Jewish man, and her father quips that going to temple turned him off to going to temple. But Margaret keeps searching for answers, telling God, “I won’t make any decisions without asking you first. I think it’s time for me to decide what to be.”

At the heart of each person’s spiritual journey is a search for identity: Who am I and why am I here? These questions, explicitly or not, are even more overwhelming during adolescence, when we’re confronted with conflicting opinions about who we are and what we should be.

In one of the most heartbreaking scenes of the film, Margaret’s Christian grandparents, Jewish grandmother, and interfaith parents get into a heated argument about which religion Margaret should belong to. Margaret finally stands up and screams at them to stop fighting, saying that she doesn’t believe in God anyway, and she later concludes in her research paper for Mr. Benedict that all religion does is cause conflict.

This is the culmination of Margaret’s “dark night of the soul.” We know that she doesn’t really want to believe that God doesn’t exist, but she’s frustrated that she can’t find Him, especially in people who claim to follow Him. In another scene, where she stumbles into a confessional, she laments, “I’ve been looking for you, God. I looked in temple. I looked in church. But you weren’t there. I didn’t feel you at all. Not the way I do when I talk to you at night. Why God? Why do I only feel you when I’m alone?”

Margaret Teaches Us to Be Honest with God in Our Prayers

It’s been 20 years since I first read Blume’s book. As I watched the film as an adult, I was struck by how honest Margaret is with God in her prayers. She doesn’t filter anything as “too inappropriate for church”; she says what’s on her mind and doesn’t apologize for it. It reminds me of how someone once described Eucharistic adoration to St. John Vianney: “I look at him, and he looks at me.” Blume shows the reader that God isn’t afraid of Margaret’s big feelings and hard questions, even when the adults in her life are.

There is no come to Jesus (or Yahweh) moment in the story; Margaret doesn’t pick a side at the end. But, as the film’s ending shows, she doesn’t need to. She just turned 12. She has a lifetime of growing and learning to do, even if she feels so grown up at the same time. She doesn’t know which religion is “right” yet, but she knows that God is real, and that’s enough for now.

In the final scene, Margaret finally gets what she’s longed for all year: her period. Her closing prayer gives a glimmer of the continuation of her spiritual growth, and it’s one that anyone, no matter where they are on their walk of faith, can pray: “Are you still there God? It’s me, Margaret. I know you’re there, God. I know you wouldn’t have missed this for anything! Thank you, God. Thanks an awful lot…”

Imagine you had an hour to talk candidly with the Pope. What would you say? This question sounds like a classic dinner party conversation prompt, but for ten young people from around the globe, it was a real opportunity and they made the most of it. And – it was all caught on camera in Hulu’s The Pope: Answers.

The film introduces ten 20-somethings as they engage in raw, honest conversation with Pope Francis. Their questions start out simple and silly: asking him if he has a cell phone, gets a paycheck, or ever dated before becoming a priest. But they don’t waste their time with small talk. Soon, they dive into the grittier conversations that make the film worth watching.

What makes the film so special is that it isn’t just a neutral interviewer asking the Pope questions about his stance on controversial issues. Their questions are spoken from the heart, interwoven with personal stories and nuance.

The young people are so diverse that everyone who watches the movie has someone they can relate to:

There’s a woman grappling with how to reconcile her Catholicism and her feminism. There’s a girl who is very traditional and devout. There are practicing Catholics, lapsed Catholics, a Protestant, a Muslim, and those who are atheist or agnostic.

There’s a girl who protests outside abortion clinics and another who helps women get abortions. There’s a nonbinary person, a lesbian, and a single mother. There’s a woman who is a sex worker/cam girl at night so she can stay home with her daughter during the day and who says she is empowered by this career.

There’s a guy who was abused by a priest and felt he was never given justice by the Vatican court proceedings. There’s a woman who used to be a nun and felt she was psychologically abused, and left her order and the faith.

I was so impressed by each person’s poise, courage, and grace. They are all respectful; no one seems like they are there with an agenda or to bait the Pope into say something inflammatory. It all seems very earnest. But they also push back at times if they aren't satisfied with the response they get.

When the Pope refers to abortion doctors as murderers, someone pushes back, saying that with all due respect, that equivalency lacks nuance. When Pope Francis tells the abuse survivor that he will ask the Vatican court to revisit his case, someone pushes back that, respectfully, that isn’t good enough. If he is only able to get justice by getting face time with the Pope, what about the others who don’t have that privilege?

Pope Francis never becomes defensive. He explains himself, but he does so with humility and earnestness. He always keeps the person, rather than the issue, at the center of the conversation.

‍The Pope: Answers gave me hope for what the Church could be like if we, the people, speak up for ourselves with a combination of candor, grace, and resolve – and if the clergy respond in a humble, Christ-like way. The film showed me that the voices of young people from diverse backgrounds are integral to bringing out the best in our Church.

As a little girl, I dreamed about who I would be when I grew up: astronaut, teacher, lawyer, CIA agent, even a nun. I considered them all, yet I was plagued by uncertainty. But the one thing I was certain of was my future title of “mom.” I looked forward to the days of sticky hands, messes on the floor, inexplicable meltdowns, and popsicle-smeared smiles. The good, the bad, and the ugly of raising children – I wanted them all. So when I found the right guy, got married, and began trying to expand our family, I knew I’d get pregnant quickly. I just knew we’d have 3 or 4 kids by the time I was in my early 30s – but that didn’t happen.

I am the 1 in 6, the growing number of women (and men) who struggle with infertility. And this week, National Infertility Awareness Week, is an opportunity for people like me to speak out, raise awareness about infertility, and receive comfort in other women’s stories. Check out the hashtags #niaw, #niaw2023, and #infertility on social media for messages of hope and perseverance.

The Isolation of Infertility

Some couples have male factor infertility, where the husband’s sperm count is abnormally low. In other instances, the wife has PCOS, low ovarian reserve, or endometriosis. Many have no idea why they aren’t able to conceive. But no matter the cause of infertility, one thing remains true: infertility is lonely.

When my friends moved on from newlyweds to mommies, I remained stuck. They filled their homes with tiny clothes, diapers, and baby books, as mine became filled with medications, syringes, boxes of ovulation tests, and fertility books. Our conversations gradually shifted from light chatter about our favorite Taylor Swift songs and what to wear on Friday night to tips on the best breast pumps and how to fight morning sickness. I wanted to relate and be a part of these discussions, but you don’t know what you don’t know. And I didn’t (and still don’t) know what it feels like to be a mom.

As a Catholic woman walking through infertility, the isolation can feel even more stark. It’s no secret that the Catholic Church encourages and values motherhood. At Catholic weddings, the couple vows to “to accept children lovingly.” The Catholic Church staunchly opposes the use of birth control. On Mother’s Day, most priests recognize mothers at Mass and often give them flowers. Mary is frequently honored throughout the liturgical year for being the mother of Jesus.

And just last year, Pope Francis made headlines for suggesting that not having children is selfish. He said, “A man or a woman who do not voluntarily develop a sense of fatherhood or motherhood are lacking something fundamental, something important.” While I know that his comments have more to do with couples who willingly choose not to have children, they still sting.

Clearly, having kids is entrenched in the identity of Catholics.

What about those of us like me, then, who have tried really hard, yet can’t seem to conceive? How do we cope in a Church that glorifies motherhood?

How to Cope with Infertility – from Women Who Have Been There

I lead a local infertility and loss ministry group called Sarah’s Laughter. I’ve walked with over thirty women going through infertility, listened to the pleas of their heart, and heard how they cope. Some have been struggling to conceive for years on end. Some have gone through multiple rounds of fertility treatments. Others are actively pursuing adoption. After listening to their sorrows and incorporating their suggestions, here are some ideas on how to cope.

Acknowledge that your lack of motherhood is a loss.

Naming your pain validates your sorrow. I have often felt guilty for grieving over what could have been, when other people in the world experienced tangible, devastating losses like death, abuse, or cancer. I felt shame that my body failed to do what it was supposed to do as a woman. But minimizing the sorrow only made me feel worse. The truth is, infertility is a loss, and a heartbreaking one at that.

Share your journey with people you trust in your community.

Not only will this halt the awkward, painful question of, “Do you and your husband want to have kids?” but it will help lighten your burden. Those close to you and in your community want to help, but they often don’t know how. Telling your story and asking for their prayers is a way they can help.

Embrace non-traditional ways in which you can mother.

Even if we don’t have children, we can still pour out our beautiful maternal hearts to others. We can be mothers to every child we encounter by showering them with love. We can be mothers to friends who are hurting and need empathetic, warm embraces. We can nurture those in our careers, churches, and extended families. Don’t let your lack of children prevent you from leaning into your maternal nature. 

Be proactive about difficult days, like Mother’s Day.

At my church, I ask that infertile women be included during Mass on Mother’s Day. My priest readily agrees each year. This lessens the dread of attending Mass and also assures me that God and my church community care for me. 

Find purpose in the gifts that God has given you instead of dwelling on what you don’t have.

Early on in my infertility journey, I felt like becoming a mother was my sole purpose in life. I told myself that, if I didn’t conceive, then my life would be empty and sad. In doing so, I made my desire for a baby into a god. I’ve learned over the years to shift my perspective of my infertility journey into one of gratitude. Difficult days will never go away, but practicing gratitude for what you do have can change your heart.

The Catholic Church honors motherhood, but the Church also cares for you and your own struggle to motherhood. If you are walking through infertility, know that you’re not alone. Take heart in Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth: “And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.”

Editor's Note: This story was updated on June 13, 2023 to include updated data released by WHO on April 4. It previously stated that 1 in 8 women experience infertility. The updated number is 1 in 6.

Dear Therapist, 

I have a strange question to ask about female sexual sin. I’ve had a long, hard battle with both pornography and masturbation – and I am dating the most wonderful man on earth. He has helped me tremendously, but now every time I sin, I feel a million times worse than I ever did before we started dating since I’m now hurting our relationship by my sins. I've seen a lot out there geared towards women whose male partners are struggling with sexual sin, but what does it feel like for a guy to have his girlfriend struggle? Does he feel just as betrayed and hurt as the women I've heard about? I've brought it up with him before, but I'd rather not talk about it with him since I don't think that would be best for the relationship right now.

Sincerely,
Anonymous

Response from Regina Boyd, LMHC

Hi friend, thank you for sharing this. I want to answer your question briefly and then explore some other ideas with you.

I’m curious to know how your conversation went the first time this came up. You mentioned that you didn’t want to talk about it because it wouldn’t be good for the relationship. Is that because it caused a fight, or because you don't want him to feel like you are discussing this topic too frequently? 

Either way, I think it’s helpful to point out that there is no one size fits all answer to the question of “How would a guy feel about this if it were his girlfriend?” Just like with women, there are a range of responses. Some might view this as the ultimate betrayal, while others might see it as one more sin that you struggle with.

Without knowing all of the details, I think that the heart of your question may have to do with shame. This is a tricky emotion to navigate and it makes it easy to catastrophize anytime you slip up. Shame, and the anxiety that ensues, are what make you think that you are ruining the relationship.

My invitation for you – and not just with pornography and masturbation – is to ask if you can treat yourself with more grace, patience, and mercy than perhaps you have been. It sounds as though you have already experienced tremendous growth as you strive for holiness. So, rather than focusing on ways that you might be hurting your relationship, you could think about how much you have grown, be excited about how much more God wants to do in your life, and remember that God has been with you all along.

One of the Gospel passages that came to mind was when Jesus called Peter to walk to him on the water. Peter was successful while focusing on Jesus, but became anxious when he paid attention to the storm. We face the same temptation with anything that the Lord asks us to do, and I believe your situation is no different. Fear not: Jesus is there with you, calling you to himself. Keep going and keep your head up, with eyes fixed on Jesus.

I’d also like to point out more good news for you: You are actively taking steps toward the relationship you want to have and you have a plan for the life and the marriage that you really want! As challenging as it can be to ignore the intrusive thoughts about past or potential future sins, I encourage you to turn your thoughts toward the path God has set before you and focus on that.

If you haven’t already sought help from a spiritual director, trusted spiritual advisor, and therapist, I would encourage you to do so. While it might be demanding of your time and emotional energy, I’m confident that they would only help on your journey.

Count on my prayers for you, and keep on fighting the good fight.

There are plenty of songs out there to keep the Christmas party going long after you walk out of church, but for Easter – not so much. Short of cranking praise and worship music or queuing up “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” how’s a girl to keep the Easter vibes going into brunch and beyond? Look no further – here are 10 bops to casually slide onto your Easter brunch playlist.

1. “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” by The Backstreet Boys

“Everybody, yeah, rock your body, right. Backstreet’s back, alright!” This celebratory anthem is sure to get everyone on their feet (just like Jesus was).

2. “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor

“You think I’d crumble? You think I’d lay down and die? Oh no, not I. I will survive!” Jesus’ retort to those who thought they had killed him once and for all?

3. “Get the Party Started” by P!nk

“I’m coming out so you better get this party started! Get this party started on a Saturday night; everybody’s waiting for me to arrive.” Because there ain’t no party like an Easter party.

4. “Bejeweled” by Taylor Swift

“Best believe I’m still bejeweled, when I walk in the room, I can still make the whole place shimmer!” T-Swift teaching all of us not to settle for less.

5. “I’m Coming Out” by Diana Ross

“I’m coming out! I want the world to know, got to let it show.” It’s giving Jesus emerging from the grave vibes.

6. “Stayin’ Alive” by Lizzo (cover of the Bee Gees)

“Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive. Stayin’ alive.” Of course, you can listen to the classic version, but a dash of Lizzo says “party” to us.

7. “Titanium” by David Guetta ft. Sia

“You shoot me down, but I won’t fall. I am titanium!” Well, maybe not titanium, strictly speaking, but I think Jesus being fully God and fully human is just as effective.

8. “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor

“Rising up, back on the street. Did my time, took my chances. Went the distance, now I’m back on my feet, just a man and his will to survive.” Time to get the karaoke going with this “rising up” classic.

9. “The Boys Are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzy 

“Guess who just got back today? Them wild-eyed boys that had been away… The boys are back in town!” The disciples’ theme song as they came out of hiding to preach the gospel of the risen Christ?

10. “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba

“I get knocked down, but I get up again. You are never gonna keep me down.” A perfect closer to your brunch playlist that will get stuck in your guests’ heads for the whole Easter season.

Special thanks to my friends from the “Oddly Specific Playlists” Facebook group for their recommendations!

A few years ago, I was involved in developing a program for young women in the Archdiocese of St. Louis called “The Wonder of Eve,” where we introduced basic reproductive biology and cycle health, all framed by what we hoped would be empowering ideas about God’s design for our female bodies. All of this was drawn from enthusiastic presentations of Church teaching that we had ourselves embraced and lived through young adulthood, marriage preparation, and our own marriages. Many of the insights and the idealism that underpinned the presentations were sources of hope for me as a young Catholic feminist. The only problem was that what I was saying about the gift of women’s bodies, fertility, and sex was striking against the reality of my experiences.

Coming to Terms with the Complexity of My Female Body

I’d had no experiences of my body and fertility – from the painful, irregular start of menstruation and the shame and fear for my future fertility that it caused, to the infertility during early marriage, and finally to the traumatic, late second trimester stillbirth of my fourth baby – that felt wondrous and beautiful.

Yes, there were moments of beauty, like the tender memories of nursing (mixed in with the anguished ones), the vulnerable and unitive experiences of sex, or the birth that I still recall as joyful. But if I’m allowed to be completely honest about how I relate to God and others through my female body, the unmitigated positivity no longer resonates. It’s been complicated by experience, which has forced me to see the coexistence of both beauty and painful difficulty.

It’s taken me some time, grieving, and reflection on my experiences to be able to recognize the wisdom in my discomfort. And I’m beginning to think that it’s a wisdom that many women share because we have all experienced the reality that our bodies, fertility, and sex are touched by both beauty and pain – and often at the same time.

As women, we are called to draw on our own experiences, difficulties, and wounds – including in ways that might challenge some of the prevailing narratives or prominent voices we have heard expressing Catholic teaching about the body and sex. Not only are our experiences valid, but we can also learn to hold them together and be honest about them without ping-ponging between positivity and cynicism (guilty as charged). We can use our experience to speak the truth about what it means to be a woman, and to accept both our bodies and ourselves.

Women’s Unique Experiences of Sex and Our Bodies

I base my observations on a central insight that a woman’s experience of sex and her body differs from a man’s experience of sex and his body. Women’s experiences are rooted in our femaleness, in those experiences of ovulation, gestation, and lactation that influence how we experience our bodies and interact with others. The genes and hormones that control these physiological processes are outside of our conscious control, and yet they influence everything from our muscle growth and bone development to our mood swings and libido. Our endometrial lining sheds and our glands produce human milk without being asked to do so. While my biology does not completely determine my identity, the experience of being embodied in ways I do not entirely control – but to which I have been asked to surrender – is central to my experience as a Catholic woman. 

The gift of fertility, which women are to receive and reverence in our own bodies, is inherently connected to the gift of sex, given to husbands and wives to participate in God’s own love. Often, the theology of sex is presented in ways that (as I’ve written about elsewhere) unrealistically emphasize the “sacramentality” of sex, even likening the experience within marriage to that of receiving the Eucharist at Mass. In this telling, sex between spouses – so long as it is “free, total, faithful, and fruitful” – is the privileged way that God reveals Himself to those spouses, and it is considered an avenue of grace.

But this portrait of sex does not fit with most women’s experiences of it throughout their lives, and this is the case for several reasons.

Dyspareunia (the medical term for pain with intercourse) can be caused by health conditions such as endometriosis or ovarian cysts, or may occur postpartum and after menopause. It is estimated to affect three in four women throughout their lifetimes. I cannot tell you the number of women I counseled in my NFP practice who reported pain with intercourse. Simply validating this experience for my clients provided space for them to process it. Vaginismus, a complex physiological and psychological condition that makes penetration and intercourse impossible, affects an estimated 5-17% of women.

Both of these conditions can be exacerbated by taboos around sex, as well as by unrealistic expectations of what sex should be like, and even our knowledge of these conditions is impacted by these taboos. Women’s pain with sex is so common as to be normalized in our conversations with one another and even with our medical providers.

Spiritualized Language Used to Describe Sex Doesn’t Always Reflect Women’s Experiences

If not physical pain or difficulty with sexual intercourse, then the emotional burdens associated with fear of pregnancy, infertility, past trauma, and loss can all deeply shape women’s experiences of sex and their bodies, impacting their experiences of both unity and pleasure from sex.

Catholic women might carry some shame around their bodies or their sexual pasts, either rooted in the ambient culture’s messages about beauty and sexuality, or our Catholic culture’s standards for modesty and chastity. All of these physical, psychological, and relational experiences are the lenses through which we approach messages about the beauty of our bodies and of sex. But there is a clear tension between women’s actual experiences of sex and the spiritualized language used to describe it.

My experiences have taught me that adding immense spiritual weight to such a complex, human experience like sex doesn’t help us understand its spiritual reality. Poetic insights about the dignity of womanhood don’t necessarily help us better accept our bodies. Instead, the idealization of these embodied experiences can make us feel wrong (or broken, or ashamed) if our experiences don’t line up, or lead us to hesitate to tell the truth about them. They can leave women feeling left out or confused. Worst of all, they conceal the reality of a slow, daily acceptance of our limits and vulnerability, especially in the long haul of marriage.

All too often, we as women can feel wrong in our experiences and fall silent because of them, believing that any difficulty in seeing the inherent beauty of sex and of our bodies is our fault. This robs us of the healing that could allow us to experience our bodies – and ourselves – more fully.

Finding a More Honest Way to Talk About Sex and the Female Body

Instead of leaning heavily into theology when faced with confusing experiences of sex and our bodies, how can we find a more honest appreciation? How can we get unstuck?

First, we can lean into the complexity and acknowledge that we might be listening to an oversimplified narrative. We can challenge our own assumptions about Church teaching, some of which I have done here. We can talk to other women about our experiences, approaching them with curiosity and compassion – and offering some of that to ourselves. Greer Hannan opened up that conversation in an article for America, and she continues the conversation on her podcast, Femammal.

We can also seek healing for those parts of our experience that have brought pain or even trauma to our bodies. Therapy is an important setting for this, but another great Catholic resource is from author Dawn Eden Goldstein, My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints.

These situations all demand vulnerability and love from our spouses in a way that is not captured by the physical act of intercourse itself. Communication – of which marital sex is one type – is where the grace of marriage enters in, uniting husband and wife. With this in mind, both men and women can move towards a shared recognition while marriage and sex do reveal part of Christ’s love for the Church, neither is central to the Gospel or to the Christian life.

To rescue marital sex and the body, created male and female, from the culture, active advocates for Church teaching may have done the same thing my well-intentioned colleagues and I were tempted to do in teaching young women: to launch reality to the heights of mystical experience, leaning heavily on analogy and imagery rather than our own experiences.

Perhaps the witness of women today can change that.