For Mother’s Day, I decided to reflect on what Mother Mary teaches all of us—women and men—about the feminine posture of receptivity. So, I read Pope Benedict’s Mary: The Church at Her Source regarding the Magnificat. Mary speaks of “magnifying the Lord.” What does...
G.K. Chesterton once quipped, “The greatest thing the human body can do is to rise from the dead” (quoted by Dale Ahlquist from the TOB Congress audio). That’s what we celebrate today—Easter Sunday. Jesus Christ was the first human to rise from the dead bodily. Quite...
Do you remember your childhood days when your mom would guide you in moderating your helpings for a meal or dessert? “Only two pieces of candy.” “Only one helping of spaghetti.” “Only two helpings of ice cream.” (How good that two helpings of ice cream were allowed!)...
Last week while giving a retreat to middle school students, I had them bring a notepad and pencil into the chapel. After some quiet and prayer, I asked them to notice everything in the chapel and to draw it, be it candles, stained glass, air conditioning vent, pews,...
A special blog by Monica Ashour, honoring Pope Benedict XVI’s death and thus his entrance into eternal life. When my friend and colleague, Sheryl Collmer, texted me this morning, “Rest in eternal joy, dear Benedict,” I smiled and said, “Well done, good and faithful...
December 8, 2001 is the day TOBET was officially founded by nine of us eager, young adult Catholics who had been changed by Jesus Christ through St. John Paul’s vision of the human person known as Man and Woman: He Created Them: A Theology of the Body. We had no idea...
October 22, 2022 Happy Feast Day, St. John Paul! “Are you Monica Ashour?” a stranger said to me. We were on a train to Rome for St. John Paul’s Canonization on April 28, 2014. Shocked, I said, “Yes. Do I know you?” She said, “I’m Mary Sladek, and this is my husband,...
Blessed feast of the Nativity of Mary, the Theotokos, whose body carried God made flesh. 43 years ago this week, Pope St. John Paul delivered the very first audience of his Theology of the Body (TOB), his greatest contribution to our Church and our culture. Having...
On June 24th, 2022 Roe V Wade was officially overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States. “Monica, pull over here. I want to buy something,” Norma McCorvey (“Roe” of Roe v. Wade) said to me as I was driving her back to Dallas after she had given an...
My favorite day in Lent is March 25. No, it’s not my favorite since I can eat dessert because it is a solemnity (though that’s a bonus)! Rather, it is the day that “the body entered theology…through the main door” (TOB 23:4). What does Pope John Paul mean? And how...