Dawn Eden is the author of My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints (Ave Maria Press, 2012) and The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On (Thomas Nelson, 2012).
Born into a Jewish family in New York City, Dawn lost her faith as a teenager and became agnostic. During her twenties, in the 1990s, she was a rock historian, interviewing artists such as Elton John, Brian Wilson, and Del Shannon. She went on to work on the editorial staff for New York City newspapers, including the New York Post and the Daily News. Her stories on rock music appeared in the San Diego Reader.
When Dawn was thirty-one, she experienced a dramatic conversion to Christianity that ultimately led her to enter the Catholic Church. Her first book, The Thrill of the Chaste (2006), became a surprise hit, published in four languages and earning her speaking invitations throughout North America, as well as in England, Ireland, Poland, and at World Youth Day Sydney. (She holds the honor of being the only chastity speaker ever to have been invited back to speak for a second time at Georgetown University.)
In her new book My Peace I Give You, which carries an Imprimatur from Donald Cardinal Wuerl, Dawn offers a Catholic spirituality of healing for adult victims of childhood sexual abuse. She holds a master’s degree in theology from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., and is currently continuing her studies toward a doctorate.
She will be coming to the following places next month in Southern California:
August 13: St. Therese of Carmel, San Diego, California, 7 p.m.
August 14: Divine Renewal religious goods store, Imperial Beach, California, 5:30 p.m.
August 15: St. Thomas More Society of Orange County, Irvine, California.
August 16: Our Lady of Grace, Encino, California.
Here is a June 16 post by Ms. Eden on patheos.com.
In my new book, My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints, I tell about saints who suffered childhood sexual abuse or other forms of trauma—from Church doctors like Thomas Aquinas and Bernard of Clairvaux, to lesser-known figures like Josephine Bakhita and Margaret of Castello. I also share my own story as an abuse victim who has found healing through Christ and the Church.
Admitting my need for such healing is more than I was able to do when I was writing my first book, The Thrill of the Chaste, published in 2006. When I began promoting The Thrill, I was eager to tell people how the love of Christ had healed me from suicidal depression and enabled me to break free from a sexually degrading lifestyle. What I did not say was that, despite having made such progress, I still bore unhealed wounds.
Even as critics praised me for my honesty about my past, I carefully avoided revealing the hidden pain that prevented me from fully experiencing Christian joy. If I were being completely open, I would have had to reveal that I had suffered sexual abuse as a child.
The abuse left me with post-traumatic stress disorder, which manifested itself in anxiety, social fears, and flashbacks. I also suffered ongoing emotional fallout, including misplaced guilt—blaming myself for my own victimization.
Taking my troubles to the Lord helped, especially after I found an ancient prayer called the Anima Christi (Soul of Christ), which pleads, “Within thy wounds hide me.” It gave me hope that there was a place in the pierced Heart of Jesus for my own wounded heart.
Although I felt isolated, in fact I was far from alone. The Centers for Disease Control found that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men report having been abused in childhood. That amounts to at least one person in every pew in every parish. But because childhood sexual abuse is rarely discussed openly, it is not easy for victims to find fellowship.
I tried to find friends in heaven, but the saints’ sufferings seemed far removed from my own; that is, until one day in December 2010, when, opening a book on a friend’s shelf, I found the story of a South American girl that shattered my preconceptions of sanctity.
From the age of nine until her death three years later in 1904, Blessed Laura Vicuña was preyed upon by her mother’s violent live-in lover, Manuel Mora. Although Laura’s mother was aware her daughter constantly had to fight off Mora, she refused to leave the cruel rancher. Once, she even begged Laura to dance with Mora at a party—afraid of what he would do if he were denied.
Reading about Laura’s victimization, I was struck by how similar it was to my own. Like Laura, I was abused by my mother’s lover. That is, in fact, a common situation among victims: a child living with a single parent with a live-in partner is 20 times more likely to be abused than one living with both biological parents. Twenty times.
It was profoundly affecting to learn that the Church had recognized the sanctity of a girl whose sufferings were like mine. I could also identify with Laura in her response to the abuse. She sought Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, drawing spiritual strength as she knelt before the tabernacle at her school chapel. It does not take much imagination to think that, as she moved her gaze from the tabernacle to the crucifix above, she too must have longed to hide in Jesus’ wounds.
But it wasn’t enough for Laura to remain hidden with Christ. She had to bear him to others. She did so most dramatically as she lay dying, when, after receiving final Communion, she indicated to the priest that she wished him to move aside so she could speak privately with her mother. It was then that she revealed she had offered her life to God for her mother’s conversion. Her act of forgiveness sealed her sanctity.
Laura’s courageous witness gave me the courage I needed to give a witness of my own through My Peace I Give You. I believe that a strong public witness to those who bear sexual wounds is particularly necessary as Catholics recover from their own Church’s abuse crisis.
Even as the Church continues its internal purification, it cannot forgo or delay its mission to the world at large. The overwhelming majority of adults who were sexually abused in childhood were victimized at their own house, a public school, or a neighbor’s house—not at God’s house. Many victims will need psychological help—and part of the Christian’s duty is to help them get it—but their primary wounds are spiritual, requiring spiritual healing. Most importantly, anyone who has suffered any trauma needs to know that even the wounds that have yet to heal become sanctifying when brought to the light of the wounded and resurrected Christ. The saints show us the way.
To see Dawn Eden answer questions on YouTube, click here.
To read the Dawn Eden post on patheos.com, click here.
Yes, Anima Christi, composed by the great Saint Ignatius of Loyola himself, is a very beautful, consoling prayer.
Another wonderful gift of our Holy Church is our Saints and how they were just like us, but, they overcame their sins and faults and have given us a road map to follow. Everyday we should find a Saint to read about and not just the Big Saints, but, also the ones that don’t make ‘star billing’ and we will be able to find a new friend to help us along our pilgrimage to Heaven. God bless you Dawn for being brave and honest; just stay humble and don’t let the devil deceive you with all of his cunning and tricks. +JMJ+
What a timely and wonderful book, given what children have gone through, and what has been revealed in the last several years. God bless her, and those who read her book!
This would be great info for my friend, who has a daughter who had premarital sex and is not forgiving herself, she cuts herself and keeps secrets of her allowing boys to use her. My friend, who is an awesome mother, an active pro-life advocate had to endure years of trying to figure out why her daughter was cutting and lying, sneaking with boys and so on. She even endured false assumptions that she was the cause of her daughter cutting herself, because she was too strict and so on. I hope that this would be great information to help her continue to get her daughter the help she needs. May God bless these excellent parents who deal with tough times trying to raise their children well even when they clash with the values of this society. God help them find support to find the real issues that need healing and forgiveness. God have mercy.
Abeca, I’m very sorry to hear about your friend’s daughter committing self-harm. It is common for young women who have suffered sexual abuse to engage in cutting behaviors. I do think that My Peace I Give You might be helpful to her, particularly chapter 1, where I tell about St. Josephine Bakhita. I propose St. Josephine as a patron for those who suffer from the temptation to cut themselves, because, as a slave in Sudan, she was forced by one of her masters to receive “tattoos” that were made by cutting:
“there is a long tradition of calling saints patrons of psychological or medical conditions not because they had those actual conditions, but because they underwent experiences like them. St. Maximilian Kolbe, who never abused substances in his life, is considered a patron saint for recovering drug addicts—because the Nazis killed him by lethal injection. St. Denis of Paris is a patron of head- ache sufferers not because he ever had a migraine, but because he underwent the ultimate headache—decapitation. In the same way, St. Josephine Bakhita’s experience of mutilation places her in fellowship with those who have engaged in cutting, even though her own cuts were not self-inflicted. After all, no one really wants to cut herself. The desire to self-harm is a compulsion born of extreme mental pain. It is a kind of slavery from within.” (My Peace I Give You, page 10)
Praying for your friend and her daughter.
Thank you Dawn Eden, I will pass your information to her. What I have done was try to help her daughter learn to forgive herself and that even though she was heavily influenced by her peers, she can learn that they were not good influences and that whatever mistakes she has made, that the sacrament of confession will also help heal her pain, her low self esteem issues and seeking out acceptance from those whom are not such good role models. God bless you for sharing your story, I’ll make sure to get your information to her. I may also want to attend one of your talks in August, my whole family and my friends can all be blessed to hear you share your story. God bless you.
Dawn thank you, I also wonder if this young lady was raped or pressured into having sex with her peers? In high schools there is a lot of those pressures on young ladies from boys and vise versa. After they use up the girl, they end up spreading rumors about them being a slut and that can do a lot of harm on a girl, girls sometimes look for love in all the wrong places and I hope they find Jesus. I admire how you found healing through the faith, the real truth and way to help you. God bless you. Thank you for helping out others who need this blessing and also to encourage our youth to remain chaste, they are often pressured into having sex. Adults don’t realize how much pressures these children are faced with in the secular division, I also feel for the parents because often they ask them selves what’s wrong with my kid. The influences outside are way to powerful, and when you are a devout family, faithful and seeking to be holy, often times kids aren’t well equipped to resist and even when parents do give them the tools necessary to help them live out their values, often times, particularity depending on where you live, they are faced with being the only ones standing up and sometimes, they want acceptance and therefore conform, compromising their values, selling themselves short.
I had known that 1 in 4 women had been sexually abused as children. I was not aware that a child living with a single parent with a live-in partner is 20 times more likely to be abused than one living with both biological parents. I knew that these kids were at risk but to hear the actual number is truly chilling. Our children are so precious and need protection. I hear so much about girls cutting themselves these days. When I was a young person I never heard of such a thing. What has happened that there is an epidemic of such behavior?
Mark from PA, don’t believe everything you read. Some people do things just to gain attention. Drugs, depression and other disorders are rampant. Anyone attempting to diagnose mental conditions on a web site is a concern. Worse yet, anyone who believes non-professional advice regarding mental illness is a bigger concern. (It would be better to ignore them.)
Bill Kells thinks he is giving good advice to ignore information on mental conditions. Pretend that mental conditions do not exist unless you hear it from a professional like Bill Kells. This is very similar to pretending that Church teaching does not exist. Just make up your own thoughts and beliefs and ignore those who say otherwise.
CATEHRINE, you have fully convinced me that mental conditiions do exist.
max@ 5:04pm Thank-you for attributing to me this incredibly great compliment, especially when it is coming from a minion but I simply cannot take credit for such a great compliment…..”But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.” …St. Paul to the Galatians 6:14 Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible
minions and minnows alike rejoice in your gratitude, CATHERINE. i’m sure. although i have not yet asked them.
Catherine I appreciate you bringing up mental health awareness. A lot of people assume that when a child cuts or does harm to themselves that they have been sexually abused and that is not always the case, there are instances that it is a mental health issue, which in turn can make them vulnerable to being victimized or easily influenced by their peers to immortal behaviors. My friend’s daughter, in her case, they have just discovered that she suffers with depression and who knows what else they have yet to diagnose her with. One must be very careful before they make any assumptions when diagnosing a child or anyone.
Cutting is a response to emotional pain. People who cut feel release from the pain when they cut the skin. It became sort of an “in”-thing among the emo crowd. It should always be taken seriously. The main risks are infection and the need for stitches if they cut too deep. It usually ends with adolescence. It is more prevalent in girls but boys do it also. The person I knew who cut was a young man who had lost a parent, did poorly in school due to ADD and had difficulty fitting in at school.
k there are also copy cats. When a defiance child hangs out with peers who cut, a few cases, some cut for the attention. I knew a child who cut very slightly not to cause bleeding, you can see like a scratch like cut, shows it off to all their peers to get the attention. This child did it to get back at the parents for not letting her date a boy in which the parents did not approve off. The child hated her parents for it, so out of rebellion, she kept telling everyone she wanted to commit suicide. I hate it when therapist always assume that all cases are alike but in reality, one must investigate further before they can diagnose what are the real underline issues.
abeca, yes, you are right.
Mark, I love those Old Testament stories too. We wouldn’t have the whole Muslim situation had Sarah been patient and waited for God’s will to be done. She thought what God REALLY meant was Abraham was supposed to use her Egyptian servant Hagar. She felt she was too old, and was tired of waiting. Well, we all know how that turned out! That’s what is so delightful about reading the Bible, isn’t it? If the stories weren’t true, they would not have been shown to be so human and vulnerable. Poor Moses losing his temper at the rock of Mirabah and he struck it twice, and he no sooner turns his back then the Hebrews were worshipping the golden calf and he throws down and destroys the ten commandments.Oh, my. And Jacob’s mother helping him cheat his own twin brother Esau of his inheritance…some of the stories are still so shocking! If I had to choose only one book to keep with me on a desert island, it would be the Bible, hands down. ‘Sweeter than honey, full of wisdom, glory, treachery and horror, we come to know our Lord and His Story…the Bible is history. Our story. Praise Him from Whom all blessings flow. We’re so blessed!
I guess you must be replying to something I wrote somewhere else, Dana. Yes, those Bible stories are interesting. I know some of them by heart as I have read Genesis and Exodus several times over plus I have studied them in Bible studies. Some of them sadly, show a dark side to human nature. But the gospels always give me inspiration.
Often time, Kells, it is prudent to shut one’s ears to professional advice and listen to good old wisdom which can come from anywhere. Disciples wanted to keep the kids away from Jesus, but Jesus told them to back off. He told us that if we silence His little ones, then even the stones on the ground would cry out the glory to His Name.
I’ve only recently been reading about cutting. But it calls to mind a novel I once read, Hawaii by James Michener, where a Hawaiian prince upon the death of his sister who may also have been his wife, since that was the custom, was so grief stricken that he went to a cave and smashed his teeth out with a rock.
JLS wow that was an interesting story about the Hawaiian prince. I have never heard of that. It would have been easier for him to swim or run, but why his teeth. Ouch! That is awful.
k yes I forgot to affirm what you posted, I have met a teen who would cut, it was a way to deal with the death of a loved one and the miscarriages that her mom had. She didn’t know how to grief and that was her way to deal with the losses.
“To do good is my religion.” “Religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.” This is the religion which Thomas Paine professed and practiced; this is the religion which the Church wished him to renounce, and accept in its stead, “I believe in Jesus Christ.” The dogma of the Church is passing away; but the religion of Thomas Paine will endure. The seeds of goodness sowed by him are germinating and growing and flowering and fruiting everywhere. Dr. Conway says: “His principles rest not. His thoughts, untraceable like his dust, are blown about the world which he held in his heart. For a hundred years no human being has been born in the civilized world without some spiritual tincture from that heart whose every pulse was for humanity, whose last beat broke a fetter of fear, and fell on the throne of thrones.”
Thomas Paine did not recant. But the Church is recanting. On her death-bed tenet after tenet of the absurd and cruel creed which Paine opposed is being renounced by her. Time will witness the renunciation of her last dogma, and her death. Then will the vindication of Thomas Paine and the “Age of Reason” be complete.
“To do good is my religion.” And who defines “good”? What does “good” mean? “Time will witness the renunciation of her last dogma, and her death.” Yeah, that’s what they all said–from the Sanhedrin and Nero right down to the present day. Dream on.
This is how you define good and it looks like this. Read about it and learn. Victims…Good. Catholic Hierarchy…Bad : Cardinal Mahony is not happy or the Vatican for that matter.
CA – LA Archdiocese cannot block release of secret priest files, victims respond
Posted by Joelle Casteix on July 20, 2012 · Flag
Late yesterday, the California Second Appellate District Court ruled that Los Angeles Archdiocese officials cannot block the release of confidential priest files of 25 known, admitted, or jailed child molesting clerics.
The files were a part of the Archdiocese’s 2007 $660 million settlement with more than 500 alleged victims of child sex abuse. Legal maneuverings by lawyers for the Archdiocese and the accused priests have held up the release of the files for five years.
We are thrilled that hundreds of pages of long-secret church records about pedophile priests will soon be released. Kids are safest when citizens know more, not less, about dangerous child molesters. The public will also be able to learn what church officials knew about predator clerics and when they knew it. That will help ensure some accountability and justice for people who recklessly put kids in danger.
It’s heartbreaking that Catholic officials have succeeded for years in keeping this crucial information secret. The only people who benefit from this kind of legal wrangling are predators and the men and women who cover up for them. It’s time for the LA Archdiocese to uphold its promises in the now-five-year-old settlement agreement with men and women who were so terribly hurt as children. Until then, how can we be sure that anything has changed in the Archdiocese?
Still no word on why these big organizations don’t simply lose the files in the fireplace. Thirty minutes and no files. Seems to me we’re watching a stage play written and directed for the non-questioning mind. Just think, buku files that would expose scores of vile men … and further wreck the Catholic persona … the survival of which files rests in the hands of … whom? It looks to me like the same way homosexuals always do things … sort of hissy like. The pillow fight over these files is likely being held in the local bath house.
We all know that the money has not and will not heal the wounds, but it has served to get the bishops’ attention. They may have been able to manipulate and intimidate the victims and in so doing denied them not only justice but charity, but they have had far less success manipulating the civil law process. More important has been the fact that through the discovery aspect of the legal process, the official Church’s files have been revealed to the public. Here we have discovered the truth of what has actually happened in chanceries and episcopal mansions. These files have provided objective and incontrovertible evidence of cover-up by bishops, religious superiors and even the Vatican. They have revealed an aspect even more disturbing than the cover-up: the almost total lack of pastoral or even human concern for the plight of the victims and their families. The files have revealed beyond question that the authority figures of the Catholic Church either would not or could not comprehend the unspeakable damage wreaked on bodies, emotions and souls by the clergy who actually abused, and the bishops, who ignored, stonewalled, lied and covered up the abuse. The court has had custody these files for years. Now they are all going to finally be released.
Now that is a new twist. By age of reason,you mean the time when hundreds of thousands of Catholics were murdered in France, priests and nuns starved and tortured, brutal beheadings of the French ruling class in seas of blood, regicide, books burned, priceless works of art destroyed…oh, that age of reason? You’re so right, Thomas Paine didn’t recant. I didn’t think anyone even read him anymore. My word, how interesting! What particular things are being recanted by the church? ( Not to be confused with decanting, as in good wine. Can one re-decant wine? or perhaps it’s descant..the really high part in a chorus. But I digress)
The Age of Reason presents common deistic arguments; for example, it highlights what Paine saw as corruption of the Christian Church and criticizes its efforts to acquire political power. Paine advocates reason in the place of revelation, leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as an ordinary piece of literature rather than as a divinely inspired text. It promotes natural religion and argues for the existence of a creator-God.
Most of Paine’s arguments had long been available to the educated elite, but by presenting them in an engaging and irreverent style, he made deism appealing and accessible to a mass audience. The book was also inexpensive, putting it within the reach of a large number of buyers. Fearing the spread of what they viewed as potentially revolutionary ideas, the British government prosecuted printers and booksellers who tried to publish and distribute it. Paine nevertheless inspired and guided many British freethinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Oh, Thomas, his work was so elite and exclusive that now only the most elite with eyebrows into their hairline still read Mr. Paine, in Moroco leather bound volumes with water marked rag paper pages, and satin bookmarks that are glued into the spine, with a classy font with serifs and ornamental chapter headings. And of course, a specially designed embossed bookplate with the owner’s name professionally printed is pasted on the front, to be read only of cold winter night’s by the fire with a bone china tea cup perched on the table next to his chair by the fire. And exclusive! How good of Paine to use common language for the average little man. As you know, I’m joking because we know how poor and common Paine was. I’m glad you find wisdom in Thomas Paine. He certainly played a big part in getting people aroused to fight the British. It must have been an amazing time to live all round! Is there some sort of organization you belong to? I joined the G.K.Chesterton society years ago. Do you ever read him? Like Paine, he believed in Common Sense, but the way he approached it was the antithesis of Paine. I really think you would enjoy reading him if you haven’t. I recommend ‘Orthodoxy’ or “The Everlasting Man”
I would recommend “Locke on Religious Toleration by Mark Goldie”.
If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.