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Community | Culture | Family | Life Issues | Marriage
Life-Giving Wounds: A Catholic Guide to Healing for Adult Children of Divorce or Separation
Saturday, February 24, 2024
10:00 am EST - 12:00 pm EST
Catholic Information Center
1501 K Street NW
Washington,
DC
20005
United States
Description
We invite you to join authors Dr. Daniel and Bethany Meola for a discussion of their book and ministry of the same name, Life-Giving Wounds. This event will be offered both in-person and virtually through YouTube. Please register today.
Event Schedule:
- 10:00 am EST: Talk
- 11:00 am EST: Book signing and coffee hour
- 12:00 pm EST: Conclusion
For those attending in-person, Life-Giving Wounds will be available for purchase at the CIC’s bookstore.
Please note that the CIC building’s garage is closed on Saturday mornings. Street parking is available or use an app like Spothero to find open garages.
About the Book:
Over half of the U.S. population will experience the splitting up of their parents, statistics say. Yet no matter how “normal” divorce becomes, it always inflicts a profound wound on families—not only the parents, but the children, whether young or grown. The children of divorce are fractured on the level of their very being: heart, mind, and soul. If left untended, this break could pain them for the rest of their lives, tingeing their relationships, their faith, and their capacity for joy.
Life-Giving Wounds offers a path to recovery for adult children of divorce and separation, and a thorough reference for those who love and care for them. Daniel and Bethany Meola draw from their personal experience, theological formation, and academic research—as well as from their work of accompanying hundreds of men and women from broken homes—to provide a compassionate, spiritually rich, and psychologically sound guidebook following the footsteps of the only true healer: Jesus Christ.
Readers of Life-Giving Wounds learn to recognize the many ruptures caused by divorce and, more crucially, to find new life by grieving, praying, hoping, loving, forgiving, trusting, and committing to one’s vocation. In the Resurrection, God turns suffering into something infinitely beautiful: redemption. This is where we find healing that lasts. Our wounds may remain with us—as Christ’s did with him—but they can, like his, begin to give life.
About the Speakers:
Dr. Daniel and Bethany Meola, Co-Founders of Life-Giving Wounds (Dan is President and Board Chairman; Bethany is Vice President and Board Secretary)
Daniel Meola is an adult child of divorce who earned his Ph.D. in Theology of Marriage and Family from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, D.C. He has been leading retreats and support groups for adult children of divorce or separation since 2015 in the Archdiocese of Washington, and in 2018 he founded Life-Giving Wounds to spread the retreat, support groups, and other ministry to adult children of divorce or separation around the country.
Dan has over fifteen years of experience running retreats and giving presentations to various groups, including for youth, young adults, engaged couples, and families.
Bethany Meola has a Master of Theological Studies degree from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, D.C. She and Dan met there and married in 2011. Bethany served the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for seven years in the Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth. Among other tasks, she managed the website For Your Marriage, and researched and wrote on various topics related to marriage and family. In 2017, Dan and Bethany welcomed their daughter Zelie-Louise through the gift of adoption, and Bethany became a stay-at-home mom. And in 2019, Grace joined their family, also through adoption.
Dan and Bethany live in Bowie, MD with their two daughters and a cat.
What people are saying
“A book as rare as it is needed. A valuable guide for anyone who has encountered suffering in family relationships.”
Patrick E. Kelly
Supreme Knight, Knights of Columbus
“A window into a form of suffering that too often goes unrecognized in the Church. Sensitive, well-balanced, practical, theologically rich yet accessible, honest and realistic yet filled with hope.”
Mary Healy, S.T.D.
Author, Healing: Bringing the Gift of God’s Mercy to the World
“In today’s world, where broken homes and divorce leave lasting scars, Life-Giving Wounds emerges as a beacon of hope. As one who came from a broken home, I highly recommend this book!”
Fr. Larry Richards
Be A Man! Becoming the Man God Created You to Be
“The Meolas provide the research on the trauma that can impair the children of divorce even into adulthood. More importantly they show how integrating a Catholic perspective of Christ’s healing grace with sound psychology can overcome and heal these wounds.”
Art and Laraine Bennett
Authors, The Temperament God Gave You
As someone who works to expose the effects of divorce on children, I can say that Life-Giving Wounds is on the short list of organizations I trust and recommend. This book will be a balm to countless hurting souls.”
Leila Miller
Editor, Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak
“There is nothing else out there like this book! It encourages us not to live in our wounds but to put our hand in Christ’s and to confront our wounds so that we might live as witnesses of his healing love in our world.”
Mary-Rose Verret
Co-Founder, Witness to Love Marriage Ministry
Grounded in solid research and the lived experience of many individuals wounded by their parents’ divorce, this book invites the reader to walk a path of healing in light of the Church’s vision of marriage and the wholeness to which we are called in Christ.”
John Grabowski, Ph.D.
Professor of Moral Theology & Ethics, Catholic University of America
“The wisdom shared by Dan and Bethany illuminates the darkness of divorce and is a primary source of hope and healing for adult children of divorce and their spouses.”
Scott Weeman
Founder, Catholic in Recovery; Author, The Twelve Steps and the Sacraments
About the Speakers
Bethany Meola is the co-founder, vice president, and board secretary of Life-Giving Wounds, a Catholic ministry offering Christ-centered healing for adult children of divorce or separation through retreats, support groups, community, spiritual formation, resources, and more. Dan is himself an adult child of divorce.
Dr. Daniel Meola is the co-founder, president, and board-chairman of Life-Giving Wounds, a Catholic ministry offering Christ-centered healing for adult children of divorce or separation through retreats, support groups, community, spiritual formation, resources, and more. Dan is himself an adult child of divorce.
