CNA<\/a>).- A new book recounting the true story of one woman's faith voyage encourages women to turn to the saints as they strive to embrace their dignity amid the struggles of the modern world.<\/p>\n\t\u201cThe saints are amazing guides for us on our journey,\u201d said Colleen Carroll Campbell, journalist and author of a new spiritual memoir, \u201cMy Sisters the Saints.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tPublished in October by Image\/Random House, the book details Campbell\u2019s journey, discovering that her struggles and decisions were reflected in the lives of the saints and coming to embrace the Church\u2019s teaching \u201cas powerful and relevant and true.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tCampbell told CNA that she was struck not merely by the academic writings of the saints, but by their personal stories. As she learned about their lives, she found a deep connection with them, leading her to ask for their intercession and eventually see their subtle activity in her life.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cMy Sisters the Saints\u201d begins during Campbell\u2019s junior year at Marquette University, where she played the dual role of campus partier and overachieving resume-builder. Although she had been raised in a Catholic family, her faith got compartmentalized in college, and she found herself \u201cchecking the box on Sunday\u201d without being truly engaged.<\/p>\n
\tFeeling empty, she sought answers in a feminist philosophy class, where she agreed with the early ideas of equal dignity and rights but found herself increasingly \u201cstifled\u201d by the more radical ideas presented as the movement progressed.<\/p>\n
\tThe longing for a \u201ctranscendent horizon\u201d eventually drove her to her knees, where she asked God to show her who he was and help her find answers in her life.<\/p>\n
\tA breakthrough came when Campbell's parents gave her a biography of Carmelite nun St. Teresa of \u00c1vila over Christmas break, and she found it to be a \u201ccompelling\u201d account of an accomplished woman with a \u201czest for life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIn her, I really saw for the first time a woman saint to whom I could relate,\u201d she said, pointing to the saint\u2019s experience of being pulled in different directions on the search to embrace God.<\/p>\n
\tShe explained that St. Teresa offered a mix of \u201cfemininity, freedom and faith\u201d that she could aspire to, while making holiness feel like an adventure.<\/p>\n
\tCampbell\u2019s spiritual journey continued when her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s disease during her senior year of college. The news caught her off-guard, and she quickly found herself filled with emptiness and dread, which led to impatience and frustration.<\/p>\n
\tShe found solace, however, in St. Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux, the young French nun known for her \u201cLittle Way,\u201d whose father suffered from dementia in his later years, an experience that the saint described as an epitome of suffering in her own life.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cShe had a very strong view of redemptive suffering,\u201d Campbell reflected. \u201cShe saw meaning in his trial.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThat really changed my perspective,\u201d she continued, explaining that she found hope that she could relate to in the midst of a culture that rarely sees dignity in suffering.<\/p>\n
\tLike St. Th\u00e9r\u00e8se, who saw her father gradually conformed to Christ on the cross, Campbell watched as her father \u2013 a devout and hopeful Catholic \u2013 grew in his own faith. While it was still difficult to watch a loved one suffer, the friendship of St. Th\u00e9r\u00e8se provided a \u201clens through which to view it,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
\tLater, Campbell turned to St. Faustina, a simple and illiterate Polish nun, in struggling with the balance of family and career while she worked as a speech writer for the White House as her fianc\u00e9 was in medical school in St. Louis.<\/p>\n
\tShe discovered the connection between humility and trust and realized that marriage is not a dead end to freedom, as the culture surrounding her would have her believe, but \u201can avenue to a deeper freedom\u201d that the world does not recognize.<\/p>\n
\tStruggles with unexplained infertility led Campbell to seek the wisdom of the saints once again. Caught between a secular world that failed to understand the depth of her pain and the judgment of some Catholics who scorned her for failing to have children, she found herself ashamed and \u201cnear tears\u201d on multiple occasions.<\/p>\n
\tShe grappled with the feeling that there was something wrong with her womanhood or her marriage and that God somehow viewed her as having less worth as a woman.<\/p>\n
\tWrestling with the question of why God would give her desires for motherhood without fulfilling them, Campbell discovered the writings of St. Edith Stein, a German philosopher and nun who converted from Judaism to Catholicism and died in a concentration camp. Before entering the convent, the saint gave talks in Europe on the dignity of women.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cShe saw the beauty in recognizing your feminine dignity and embracing it,\u201d Campbell said, explaining that the saint saw motherhood as a gift imprinted in every woman\u2019s soul but expressed in various ways, including spiritual as well as physical manifestations.<\/p>\n
\tCampbell realized that there were ways that she could be a mother in her present state, bringing her maternal gifts to her work and caring for ailing father.<\/p>\n
\tReading both St. Edith Stein and Bl. Pope John Paul II\u2019s writings on the dignity of women \u201canswered some fundamental questions about my value in the eyes of God,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\tCampbell hopes that her book will inspire readers to learn more about the saints.<\/p>\n
\tShe explained that contemporary readers may think that saints who lived hundreds of years ago are \u201cinaccessible.\u201d She hopes to dispel this idea by blending the stories of saints with her own modern-day story, so that readers may be able to see parallels in their own lives.<\/p>\n
\tWomen today are looking for heroines and role models, she said, adding that her own journey has shown her that her questions about life are universal, and saints are the ones that \u201chave run the race and come out with satisfying answers.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Washington D.C., Dec 15, 2012 \/ 06:04 am (CNA).- A new book recounting the true story of one woman's faith voyage encourages women to turn to the saints as they strive to embrace their dignity amid the struggles of the modern world.<\/p>\n
\t“The s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\n
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