Miscarriage, a word that I never thought would happen to me. It wasn’t really on my radar and I didn’t give it any thought when I found out I was pregnant with our first baby. Yet, it was this very word that defined my first five pregnancies. It is the word that robbed me of childbirth and holding my newborn baby for the first time after nine months of pregnancy. A word that filled my world with grief, mourning, and loss during the first eight years of our marriage.
I will never forget how alone I felt following my miscarriages. Not knowing that there was a silent community of women who had walked this road before me and felt the same pain that now gripped my heart. In my grief, I thought no one understood my heartache or the cross I was carrying, not my husband and certainly not God. The world kept spinning and life moved on, while my heart stayed stuck in what I no longer had – the beating heart of my baby within me.
There Are Many Who Carry The Cross Of Miscarriage
The reality is our pews are filled every Sunday with countless women and couples who have carried the same cross of miscarriage and child loss. They are the men and women that have found the strength to carry on, knowing that God would never abandon them. They are the men and women of yesterday and today who have trusted in the God who created them, who molded the intricacies of their babies and poured out grace sufficient for the moment. And if we take the time to listen to the stories, we realize that some of these men and women are now canonized saints in the Catholic Church.
The Martin’s Experience Of Loss
Through looking at the stories of the lives of the saints we can be renewed in hope. They remind us that it is in our suffering that we are being made holy, purified and drawn closer to Christ if we allow ourselves to be. Saints Louis and Zelie Martin, the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux buried four of their children, over a four year period. After hearing of her brother’s loss of his only son, who was stillborn St. Zelie wrote a letter of encouragement to him. With words of sympathy and consolation for her brother, she reminded him that his baby was now at the side of God. She expressed the pain she felt burying her own children, but also the promise of eternal life and the joy of seeing her children again in heaven.
Chiara Corbella’s Experience Of Loss
Servant of God Chiara Corbella, who died in 2012 at the young age of 28 experienced much suffering in her short years as a wife and mother. Her first baby Maria, died thirty minutes after birth due to anencephaly. After the passing of Maria, Chiara stated, “The day of Maria’s birth I shall recall as one of the most beautiful days of my life, I shall tell all of my children they have a special sister who is praying for them in heaven.” Several months later, Chiara became pregnant with her second child. When they heard the news at their ultrasound that their second child was missing a leg and part of an arm they asked God, “Where are you taking us?” Not known to Chiara at the time, she would be diagnosed with cancer during her third pregnancy, which claimed her life a year after she gave birth to her son Francesco.
Blessed Frederic Ozanam’s Experience Of Loss
Blessed Frederic Ozanam, founded the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to help the poor. He wrote, “We are here on this earth to accomplish the will of Providence.” At the age of 28 he married Amelie, the couple experienced several miscarriages during the first few years of their marriage. They later were blessed with the birth of their daughter Marie. After twelve years of marriage, Frederic died at the age of forty from tuberculosis. Blessed Frédéric once said, “Great men are those who never have the plan of their Christian destiny in advance, but they have let themselves be led by God’s hand.”
Although the saints did not always understand why they were going through such grief and heartache, they looked to Christ and kept their eyes fixed on the Cross of Jesus. They held onto the hope of eternal life and the promise of seeing their babies again someday in heaven. Even in the difficulties and pain, they clung to their faith. When they did not know where God was leading them or why he would allow them to endure such pain and suffering, they trusted. Knowing the love of God never leaves us at the Cross, but will always bring us to the glory of the Resurrection.
Continue to learn more about the saints and their experience with child loss and miscarriage in Nursery of Heaven.
Image: Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash
