Basing herself on her experience of abuse and the healing she experienced after becoming a Catholic, journalist and Jewish convert Dawn Eden wrote a book for survivors of sexual abuse.
Dawn Eden is a Jewish convert to Catholicism. In her book, My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints, she explains how faith helped her to get healed of the sexual abuse she suffered in childhood. Now she wants to bring the same healing to others, especially to prisoners.
A striking aspect of her book is that she was effectively helped by the lives of saints, like Maria Goretti and the saintly Latin American young woman, Laura Vicuňa. In Laura’s case, the abuse was at the hands of her mother’s lover. Laura prayed for the conversion of her mother as well.
Dawn Eden makes this dramatic statement, “When I received the grace of faith in Christ at the age of 31, I was instantly healed of the depression and temptations to suicide that had dogged me since my teens and which I later learned were the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the abuse. But … I still had other effects to contend with, including anxiety, flashbacks, and hyper-sensitivity. And my thought as a new Christian was that … I didn’t have enough faith. So I blamed myself.”
Five years later, at age 37, Dawn became a Catholic. She shares two experiences that helped her to get more fully healed.
The first was an Ignatian retreat. It helped her to see her wounds in the light of Christ’s wounds. She realized that, if she united her wounded heart to the wounded and glorified heart of Jesus, then her wounds become channels of Christ’s light for her.
Dawn was deeply helped by this realization. She had thought that her wounds separated her from Christ. Now she saw that she could meet Christ more deeply precisely through her wounds. She experienced the power of Christ, the great healer.
The second insight came to her when she read the story of Laura Vicuňa—the girl abused by her mother’s lover. “And this was very similar to my own experiences as a child. After my mother’s divorce, I was raised by my mother; I was made to live in what was truly a sexually porous environment where I was not protected from adult nudity, from pornography, from graphic sex talk, and where I too was molested by one of my mother’s boyfriends.”
Dawn was struck that Laura, in addition to forgiving her abuser, forgave her mother, who had cooperated in the abuse. In fact, she actually offered her life for her mother’s conversion.
“When I read that, I broke down crying because I realized how relevant it was for me, as I was still needing to forgive my mother for not protecting me. Then I thought if Laura’s story was so healing for me, imagine how it would be for others…Bl. Laura’s story was really modern, and that was the direct inspiration for my wanting to write a book on healing from childhood sexual abuse through the lives of saints who have suffered such abuse.”
Eden was helped in another way by the lives of such saints. She knows that the victim feels ashamed and often blames herself, or is afraid of moving away from the abusive parent or guardian. When she sees that the abused child went on to become a saint, she finds new hope. She realizes: “I was not the one responsible for the abuse. It could not have been my sin.”
Dawn hopes that her book will help not only victims of sexual abuse, but also pastors who try to help victims. In her own case, she says that when she received the grace of faith, she was instantly healed of the temptation to harm herself. But there were other areas of woundedness for which she still needed help. This is where loving pastoral care can be a great support.
Eden has three suggestions on how church people can help victims:
One: to be present to them, to listen to them, and to assure them that they did no wrong. Many victims blame themselves and think of themselves as persons of no worth. They need to be affirmed.
Second: To pray for them.
Third: To help the person find a good spiritual director, as a well as therapist, preferably a Catholic.
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