It’s been a busy week. In the midst of a flare-up of some chronic pain symptoms, I also, with the rest of the Catholic Women in Business team, launched our new CWIB Membership Community. My co-president, Elise Gallagher, and I were on Catholic Faith Network on Tuesday morning (around minute 48 on 4/25 here, if you’d like to watch). I was not sure how I’d make it through, but it’s a good reminder that when you’re doing work that you love and that God is calling you to, it falls into place.
Still, I’m constantly learning the humility of saying, “I’m not OK” and asking for help and prayers. I’ve started hosting what I’m calling a “Bible study playgroup”—six moms with our toddlers, taking about Jesus admit the mayhem of one- and two-year-olds. I spent a lot of this morning’s Bible study with a heating pad, a scenario that I would have previously balked at. But it was the best conversation we had so far, and I now have friends praying for me. When we are vulnerable and ask for help and prayers, we allow people to share Christ’s love for us—and we give them the space for their own vulnerability.
I also published a new book review for Catholic Women in Business this week. If you’re interested in leadership, communication skills, and active listening, check it out.
Content I liked this week:
I grew up watching Today in the mornings on school breaks with my mom and kept doing so in the time between when I graduated from college and when I finally found a job and moved out (it was 2010, so it took a hot minute). So, I enjoyed this interview with Hoda Kotb on the Biscuits and Jam podcast from Southern Living. A lot of it was like her talk show—light and fun—but I did really like what she said about what you see in life being a lot about where you look.
This free Substack newsletter by attorney, writer, and mother Ivana Greco was right on the money in terms of how our culture (and our country’s leaders) value homemaking. It’s short and well worth a read.
On a related note, this Public Discourse article by Mary Frances Myler of the University of Notre Dame had some excellent points, but this quote, in my opinion, was the best: “Women have entered both higher education and the workforce in greater numbers, but both environments retain masculine norms that often fail to recognize the unique realities of femininity. Work is good, and it is a creative expression of human dignity. But careerism offers women the shallow archetype of the ‘girlboss’ as the model of success, ignoring the reality that most women won’t ‘have it all.’”
As someone who does some volunteer work in the disability community (and the daughter of a special education teacher), I was so excited to see that Barbie has a new doll with Down syndrome!
Is it just me, or does this statue of Jesus (based on the Shroud of Turin) look kind of like Jonathan Roumie?
This Wall Street Journal piece on Gen Z and religion was fascinating. If younger adults are becoming more spiritual, how can the Catholic Church help steer them toward the Truth?
I am a huge Doctor Who fan—or at least a fan of “New Who,” as I haven’t seen most of “Classic Who”—and I adored this free Substack newsletter by Katie Marquette, host of the “Born of Wonder” podcast. So good. (If you’re a Who fan, comment and let me know who your favorite Doctor is! Mine is 11.)
This Stream article by writer Kathryn Jean Lopez was an excellent challenge to the pro-life movement. My favorite: “One of the worst things we can do is talk about life issues as if they are easy. Life never is. That’s why we are meant to live in community and love our neighbor and create policies that don’t make it more difficult.”
A book I enjoyed this week
I finally read With All Her Mind: A Call to the Intellectual Life (affiliate link), a book edited by Rachel Bulman about the feminine genius and the intellectual life. It had some really wonderful essays in it and was a powerful reminder of the importance of cultivating an intellectual life to grow closer to Jesus and better serve him and the people he’s placed in my life.