What Exactly are We Celebrating?

This week marked the second anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. While several states have curtailed legal abortions, others haven’t, making a hodgepodge of laws around abortion and maternal healthcare. Abortions are actually on the rise, partially due the uncertainty of the future of the country, economically and politically. The laws may have changed, but the fundraising hasn’t. Both prolife and proabortion advocates are using abortion this election year to stir up their base. Tens of millions will be spent in advertising and marketing this election cycle on both sides. It’s a sensitive, emotional issue that causes people to be single-issue voters. It’s a lucrative political tactic. To many it’s black-and-white and to discuss nuance or systematic change or other issues is anathema. Just vote for the one paying the best lip service.

But what of the real activists, the ones on the ground trying to save lives, care for mothers and children, provide medical care and food and housing? Where are their big budgets?

It’s so easy to be disillusioned by a movement that has been so politically hijacked. I was reminded of that again this week from a post from New Wave Feminists, a secular, prolife group that, among other things, aids mothers on the U.S.-Mexico border.

She wrote:

“For half a century, overturning Roe had been the goal for so many. They were passionate, convicted activists, many with very good hearts who put so much effort into that action because that’s what their elected officials told them was going to save lives. They did this earnestly. But it was also the lowest rung on the ladder. The step, in my opinion, we could’ve completely ignored had we jumped to the following steps of making society more equitable for those of us whose fertility is literally a liability.

St. Mary of the Cross

Jeanne Jugan was born Oct. 25, 1792 in Brittany, growing up during the French Revolution. Her father was lost at sea when she was four years old, and her mother struggled to take care of the eight young children. Her mother secretly gave the children religious instruction, despite the anti-Catholic persecutions of the new, secular government.

Jeanne worked as a shepherdess and learned to spin and knit. At age 16 she got a job as a maid with a Catholic viscountess and accompanied her when visiting the sick and poor. Jeanne declined marriage proposals, and at age 25 she joined the Congregation of Jesus and Mary (Eudists) as a third order associate. She then worked as a nurse in the hotel in Saint-Servanfor.

Due to health, she had to leave her post at the hospital. She found work as a servant for a fellow third order Eudist. Jeanne and her employer taught catechism to the local children and cared for the poor.

In 1837, Jeanne and two other women rented a small cottage and begin a community dedicated to teaching and helping the poor. In 1839, she began taking in poor women in need, even offering up her own bed and renting extra rooms for them. By 1842, she had around 40 people she hoped to house; the community purchased an old convent in order to provide for them. The community recognized that helping the elderly was their call. With that mission, they established the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Go Plow a Field

I’ve tried to shy away from referring to myself as a mystic, but mysticism, mystic writers, and worlds of symbolism seem to routinely enter my life. I’ve been reading some mystic writers, including St. Teresa of Avila as part of a reading challenge. It’s easy to get lost in the beauty; it’s harder to implement into real life.

Awhile ago I was talking to someone who shared that when he joined a parish, several people expected him to be mystical, given his Benedictine background. They saw someone who had been part of a religious order and expected him to be lofty and holy. They wanted someone who would prioritize adoration and philosophy over things like building projects and charity. “I was like, go plow a field,” he told me. Their idea of a former monk was a mystic. But he was more rooted in practicality, in doing the faith more than thinking about it, in ora et labora.