The psychodramas and the traumas gone, the songs are left unsung: Tandyn Almer, 1942-2013

January 14, 2013 By Dawn Eden

Yesterday I was humbled to attend the funeral of a remarkable man I never met in person, but without whose music the course of my life would have been much different: Tandyn Almer, the songwriter best known for penning the Association’s groundbreaking debut hit “Along Comes Mary.” Tandyn Almer, circa 1966, pictured on cover of upcoming compact disc of previously unreleased demos (via Ashbee’s Fragments) The Association sing “Along Comes Mary” on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” 1967 In 1988... Read more

VIDEO: I discuss St. Thérèse of Lisieux on Ireland’s iCatholic

January 5, 2013 By Dawn Eden

While preparing to speak about My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints in the London area on January 7 and 8 (see my tour schedule on The Dawn Patrol), I had the opportunity to share my book’s message with the Irish video site iCatholic.ie. Here is a clip where I talk about why St. Thérèse of Lisieux is an important saint for people seeking healing from childhood trauma. Two more clips from the same... Read more

A year’s worth of gratitude

January 1, 2013 By Dawn Eden

As the New Year begins, I am pausing to give thanks to God, and I also want to thank you everyone who has prayed for me this past year. In January 2012 I had the overwhelming joy of teaching on an academic level for the first time, when I was invited by the rector of the Pontifical College Josephinum to address the seminarians there about “Celibacy and Communion in John Paul II’s Catechesis on Human Love.” I wrote afterwards on my... Read more

Our Lord “wants not only to be loved in a Child, but in your child”: Christmas wisdom from Caryll Houselander

December 24, 2012 By Dawn Eden

I just finished Caryll Houselander’s 1947 novel The Dry Wood (beautiful overall, though not without flaws) and found a stunning passage on the mystery of the suffering of innocents, an apt follow-up to the one I posted earlier. The scene is the funeral of a child; the speaker is a priest, delivering the homily; and the words carry particular meaning this Christmas, in the wake of the Newtown tragedy: No one can understand or explain why innocent little children are allowed... Read more

Caryll Houselander: “Sin tried to batter life out of the innocent son of God … just as it has done to the bodies of innocence ever since”

December 15, 2012 By Dawn Eden

I am reading the 1947 novel The Dry Wood by English Catholic mystic (and so-called “original Bond girl”) Caryll Houselander, and am struck by a profoundly prophetic passage that seems particularly meaningful in the wake of the Newtown slaughter. The scene begins as first-time father Art Jewel witnesses hospital staff treat his deformed newborn son, Willie, with bone-chilling disgust. This provides Houselander with an opportunity for an extended meditation on secular civilization’s hatred of innocence: When at last Willie was born,... Read more

Author who survived Kate Middleton’s disease helps women get beyond morning sickness

December 5, 2012 By Dawn Eden

Ashli McCall talks about hyperemesis gravidarum on CNN in 2007 The Washington Post‘s “On Faith” has a must-read story by my friend Ashli McCall about her apostolate to suffering pregnant women: Ashli McCall: “Surviving Kate Middleton’s pregnancy disease was a test of faith.” Ashli is the author of Beyond Morning Sickness: Battling Hyperemesis Gravidarum, the only comprehensive, physician-approved patient’s guide to the illness that currently afflicts the Duchess of Cambridge. Through her website BeyondMorningSickness.com, Ashli ministers to HG sufferers by... Read more

A saint who said “d’oh” (and a priest who imitates him)

December 3, 2012 By Dawn Eden

On this day that the Church celebrates the life of Francis Xavier, I urge you to take five minutes to listen to a marvelous podcast by the English Jesuit Father John Edwards about the great saint who was one of the first to join St. Ignatius Loyola in what would become the Society of Jesus. With beauty and wit, Father Edwards encapsulates the “immense love” that prompted the saint to put himself completely at the disposal of God’s will as... Read more

The saints “rose above their violations through a deep conviction of divine love in their hearts”

November 29, 2012 By Dawn Eden

Melissa Kimiadi of A Journey Through NYC Religions writes beautifully of how the saints, having shared in our experience of brokenness, now show us how to share in their healing in Christ: Saints were degraded and thrown into the dirt by their own families as unwanted children. Yet, they rose above their violations through a deep conviction of divine love in their hearts. The timeless message is that that although none of us are exempt from abuse and bondage, there... Read more

Poles apart: Santa Claus and the real St. Nick

November 25, 2012 By Dawn Eden

In the latest issue of the Weekly Standard, I review a new biography of St. Nicholas and find that the culture, in Santa-izing him, has truly sanitized him. Whereas Santa is a secular icon, the real St. Nick was “against all forms of paganism, schism, and heresy”: Granted, Nicholas is never seen resorting to violence against persons. Unlike the legend of his slapping the heretic Arius at the Council of Nicaea, English shows that on the only occasion when history records Nicholas... Read more

Practicing the presence of people

November 21, 2012 By Dawn Eden

Yesterday I returned from a trip to Rome with my father, who had invited me to join him as he traveled there to speak at a scientific conference. It was a grace-filled experience on many levels (more on that in a future post or two), but one of the most meaningful parts of it was not what I saw in the Eternal City, but, rather, what I saw on the way there and back. I was deeply moved at the... Read more