Articles – Christy Wilkens

Why perfection is a worthy goal for kids with disabilities

We are all called to perfection, and we are all imperfect, even those of us with typically developing bodies and minds. The perfection we are called to is not flawlessness. It is to complete the work of being perfectly ourselves, to become completely the person God has created us to be.

St. Monica, the Syrophoenician Woman, and Me

As mothers, we are invited to pour ourselves out for our children in nearly every conceivable way. But it is the spiritual self-emptying that is most central to our role.

5 Powerful Scriptural Songs of Praise During Trials

Job, Tobit, the Hebrews in the furnace… Throughout Scripture we find examples of of people who also experienced times of great distress, loss, or persecution, but who rose immediately to remind themselves (and, across the centuries, us) that God is still in His heaven.

Why hospital stays are good practice at radical abandonment

There are sacred places in the world where communities come together for the express purpose of caring for — and lifting up — those who cannot care for themselves. Hospitals, especially children’s hospitals, are definitely among them. Staying in a hospital is a valuable exercise in radical abandonment to the will of God.

What Br. Juniper and St. Thomas Aquinas teach us about intellectual disability

In the spiritual models of Juniper and Aquinas, we can take comfort that God knows our children perfectly. He has a plan and a path to heaven for each of us.

The Disabled: Modern Missionaries Inside the Church

People with disabilities and their families have an important role to play in the future of the Church. Not as noisome gadflies, but as heralds of a better tomorrow.

Why Jesus Coming in Weakness Matters to Special Needs Families

The Israelites expected the a triumphant king who would cast off their oppression and who could not be defeated. But what they got was a helpless infant, hidden in obscurity, requiring total care.

My Rosary Story: Muscle Memory

During our family rosary, we unite ourselves by offering ourselves, pouring what is in our hearts out into the little community of our family. We gather our minds and bodies back from our fragmented daily existence to the heart of family unity, if only for a few brief minutes.

A New Chapter in Catechesis for Persons with Disabilities

The Vatican issues a new document on involving persons with disabilities in catechesis and ministry–not just as recipients, but as active members of the Body of Christ, “in living reciprocal relationships of welcoming and solidarity” with the whole community.

The Seven Sorrows: A Model of Suffering that 2020 Needs

Suffering refines us, as we endure it, and it refines all of humanity, as we leave it at the foot of the cross, our own small pebble added to a cairn the size of the whole world.