translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America copyright © 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. — Libreria Editrice Vaticana. English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica copyright © 1997, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. — Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
English translation of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church copyright © 2006, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
Quotations from papal and other Vatican-generated documents available on vatican .va are copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
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Copyright © 2018 by Amanda Martinez Beck. Published 2018.
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ISBN: 978-1-68192-237-9 (Inventory No. T1932)
eISBN: 978-1-68192-231-7
LCCN: 2018958130
Cover design: Tyler Ottinger
Cover art: Shutterstock
Interior design: Chelsea Alt
Printed in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to:
Zachary, mi media naranja, for his love and support
Saint John, for helping me to write so that my joy may be complete
Saint Lawrence, for teaching me that I am the treasure of the Church
Mary, for always carrying me to Jesus
Loving God,
pour into our hearts and lives
your healing Spirit,
that the sacredness of every human person
might be respected and protected
as the precious image of God.
Contents
Chapter 8: My Sacramental Body
Chapter 1
Siren Song
JOSH GARRELS, “ULYSSES”
Have you heard the story of Hannah from the Bible? With a love triangle, a little bit of religion, and a rivalry between two wives of the same man, it has all the hallmarks of a good soap opera. Hannah is the favorite wife of a man named Elkanah, but here’s the rub: Elkanah’s other wife, Peninah, has all the babies. Hannah’s body is unable to give her what she desperately craves: a baby of her own. The failure of her body to bear children fills her with pain and lament.
Elkanah begs Hannah to see that her body’s limitations don’t diminish his love for her. He says, “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1 Sam 1:8). She ignores him and goes off by herself to bargain with God for what she wants, so loudly that the priest Eli thinks she is drunk. He tells her she is making a fool of herself and that she needs to sober up, but she responds: “No, my lord, I am a woman sorely troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your maidservant as a base woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation” (1 Sam 1:15–16).
The first time I read Hannah’s story, I was sixteen years old, and I felt Hannah’s pain. Except it wasn’t a baby I was longing for. It was a different body. I don’t mean to minimize the pain of infertility; indeed, Hannah’s pain at her inability to conceive would be reality for me almost ten years later. But my life at that point was marked by two distinct things: first, my desire to seek God above all else, and second, to have a smaller, thinner body so that I could be happy and enjoy my life and be all that God made me to be.
Even as a sixteen-year-old, in Elkanah’s tender plea, I sensed God speaking to me.
“Amanda, why do you weep? And why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten size-4 dresses?”
“Yes, Lord, you are,” I responded, even though my heart’s song of longing still played on in its minor key. I committed to seeking first God’s kingdom, hoping all things being added unto me would include a new, slimmer body. But even as I did my best to heed the prophet Micah’s words to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God, my body stayed fat. It not only stayed fat, it got fatter.
In a culture that proclaims a gospel of thinness as salvation, I was clearly headed to hell in a handbasket full of fattening processed food.
If I were writing a memoir about my body, I’d subvert the