Episode 28: The Feminine Body Image – Emily Stimpson Chapman

Thriving in the Trenches a Catholic Podcast

Many of us are likely very familiar with this week’s guest, but you may not know all of her story. Emily Stimpson Chapman shares with us how she went from being terrified to eat at all to one who throws the best of parties with the best of foods and the best of beverages. Emily’s view on the role and nature of woman, whether single or married, is so beautifully woven through the truths our Church teaches. If you have not checked out her new book, The Catholic Table, we suggest you do! So let’s talk about our bodies, food, wine, and hosting the best parties. This is the most delightful conversation with some jaw-dropping truths sprinkled throughout the episode.

Please consider supporting our Podcast Our Guest:

Emily Stimpson Chapman is a freelance Catholic writer based in Pittsburgh, PA, and the creator of The Catholic Table, a blog about food, friendship, and hospitality. Her books include The Catholic Table: Finding Joy Where Food and Faith Meet (Emmaus Road, 2016), These Beautiful Bones: An Everyday Theology of the Body (Emmaus Road, 2013) and The Catholic Girl’s Survival Guide for the Single Years (Emmaus Road, 2012), and The American Catholic Almanac: A Daily Reader of Patriots, Saints, Rogues, and Ordinary People Who Changed the United States (Image, 2014).

A prolific essayist and journalist, Emily writes regularly on “all things Catholic”—from politics and catechesis to higher education and the media, with a special focus on the Church’s teachings on marriage, sexuality, and femininity. Over the years, her writing has appeared in Our Sunday Visitor, First Things, Touchstone, Franciscan Way, the National Catholic Register, Faith and Family, and elsewhere. It has been honored by both the Catholic Press Association and the Associated Church Press, and was included in Loyola’s Best Catholic Writing series.

Emily holds a BA from Miami University of Ohio (Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude), where she studied political science, history, and English literature. She also did graduate work in political science at John Hopkins University and theology at Franciscan University. Before moving to Steubenville, Emily worked in Washington, DC, first as a Legislative Assistant to then Congressman Jim Talent (R-MO), then later at the Heritage Foundation, where she served as Special Assistant to former Attorney General Edwin Meese III.

Show Notes:

• Theology of the Body by St. John Paul 2
• Theology of the Body Institute
• CorProject with Christopher West
• Napro Technology –
• Episode 7 on Freedom with Gloria Purvis

Call to Action –

As women, this week let’s shift the focus to needing to take care of our bodies rather than trying to control them. We can also apply this to any other situation in our life that we re trying to control rather than caring for it and letting God be in control.

Scripture –

“For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread[c] the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” – John 6:56-58

Saint Quote –

“We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures, we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son Jesus.” – St. John Paul II