Rachel's Story
An Open Letter to Women of Abortion
Dear Woman of Abortion:
This invitation to you to reconcile from the effects of your abortion was prompted by the excerpt below from an article in The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, Saturday, November 6, 1997. The story about "Joe's" sister helped confirm my decision to write it. You are not alone in the pain of this experience, and where now there is deep pain, love and forgiveness can enter in.
"Doctors were dumbfounded that the elderly, weak, New York woman still clung to life. Days after they had expected her to die, she remained agitated, gasping that she was afraid to die. She whispered to a seminarian visiting the hospital that she was going to hell. He told her there was no sin Jesus would not forgive. Her expression remained rigid. He listed many things that God forgives, adding, almost as an afterthought, abortion. Tears came to her eyes when he mentioned forgiveness for abortion. He called a priest who heard the woman's confession. She died with serenity the next day.
Recently after I had officiated at a funeral, "Joe" told me that his sister had left the Church, and was having a tough time with life. She has had several abortions; she can't sleep at night and is on medication for her "nerves."
My immediate reaction was to ask myself: "Why do women stay in this post abortion pain?" So, you've had an abortion; it is not the end of the world! It is the end of your baby's life, but God in his infinite love has given you a second chance to reconcile, to live more fully, to love, to have another baby. Why don't you take it? Abortion is not an unforgivable sin, but it is very difficult to deal with. Why so? Because it involves life and death, and the mystery of the human person. Most new mothers to be find themselves in a state of disbelief, excitement, wonder at the thught of bringing a new life into the world. She shares a deeply intimate relationship with God, her baby, and herself -- all three are working to bring about a natural miracle.
"We can learn a great deal about spiritual and psychological birth from a woman's birth-giving experience in all its aspects-- physical, psychological, spiritual--and from the early relationship between mother and child." So states Ann Belford Ulanov* as she explains intimacy in terms of the radical otherness of the persons in the relationship. As the woman brings about developing new life within herself, so she too is being changed by that same new life into a new person --a mother.
"The mother-child relationship and religious experience are both inward and personal. In both kinds of experience one discovers areas of human life where barely understood forces or presences are at work."
When the parents of the baby are fully accepting of the new life they have begotten, we have an earthly trinity becoming one in the Spirit of the Living God.
Death and Dying
In our reference stories life and death mingle, the old woman was dying and "Joe's" sister came to light at a funeral. To give birth to her baby a mother comes close to death. She must go through the dying to self in order to bring forth new life. The woman of abortion, like the old woman, is caught in a "death mode" of living-- she did not complete the cycle of life and give birth to her live baby, and from that life renew her own new way of living. Instead she aborted the baby and is caught up in its death. This woman trapped in a "death mode" of living must return to the Source of all Life and encounter life anew. By confronting her abortion the old woman received the grace to end her "death mode" of living. If only for a moment she lived truthfully in order to die peacefully.
She may not have been able to say it but she was grieving her aborted baby -- most of her life was one of grief dominated by fear. You are like that woman if you have not entered into reconciliation. Your name is Rachel.
"Rachel mourns her children: she refused to be consoled because her children are no more. Thus says the Lord: 'Cease your cries of mourning. Wipe the tears from your eyes. The sorrow you have shown shall have its reward. There is hope for your future'" (Jer.31/15 -17).
See! There is no need to shed any more tears; there is no need to mourn any longer. You have not committed the "unforgivable sin" -- it does not exist. The all-loving Lord awaits your gesture of sorrow in order to forgive you. Do not be hardhearted and unforgiving of yourself. Don't drown out your feelings, the voices that cry out to you, urging you to deal with this issue.
No Condemning only Loving Forgiveness
You tell me that you have forgiven yourself and that God also has forgiven you. How do you know this? Are you sure you are not talking to yourself in both instances? By speaking with someone else you objectify the pain and share it with another. Recall Jesus' words to the crowds who brought the woman caught in the act of adultery to him:
"'Let the man among you who has no sin be the first to cast a stone at her.' Then the audience drifted away one by one beginning with the elders. 'Woman where did they all disappear to? Did no one condemn you?' 'No one, sir,' she answered. Jesus said, 'Nor do I condemn you. You may go, but from now on avoid this sin'" Jn.8: 9,10b,11).
The sinful woman who loved much: "She stood behind him (Jesus}at his feet weeping and began to bathe his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment. So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little" (Lk.7: 37-38,47).
You have been pained through your body and your sexuality; it is through them that you will be healed. With God's loving forgiveness make the depths of your pain the depths of your love. You are the incarnation of God 's plan for you. Listen to him -- you belong to him!
Love and Loving: Eternal and Faithful
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name: you are mine" (Is. 43:1).
In our belonging to God we are uniquely ourselves and uniquely His. This realization causes our pain and wretchedness, God asks us to trust in his goodness and his love.
"Because you are precious in my eyes and glorious, and because I love you, I give men in return for you and peoples in exchange for your life" (Isaiah 43: 4).
Much pain exists in the world the direct causes of which are mostly unknown. Your pain is personal, deep, and known. It does not have to be that way. You can relieve it by going to your Priest, or your Rabbi, or your Clergy Person. Go to whomever you speak to about spiritual matters and be reconciled with God, your baby, and yourself. They await you!
Sincerely in the Spirit of the Living God
Patrick J. Mc Ateer, S.J.
Call NOPARH (National Office of Post Abortion Reconciliation and Healing) at: 1-800- 5WE CARE (1-800-593-- 2273)
Fr. Mc Ateer is an assistant pastor at St. 0Ignatius Parish, 6559 North Glenwood Ave, Chicago 60626, Tel. 773/ 764- 5936 Ext. 24
* See Ann Belford Ulanov, Receiving Woman: Studies in the Psychology and the Theology of the Feminine , The Westminister Press, Philadelphia, 1981, Chapter 5.
** Biblical texts are taken from: The New American Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, New York, 1971.
Mary and the Abortive Woman
Along with poverty and war, abortion has become a scourge of death in today’s world. All the more so since it is self inflicted. Its pain is too serious too deep to leave its healing to psychology and spirituality alone. The person who truly wants to heal must become a person of prayer. The woman, and man, must become personally involved with God as He is involved with them and was in a special way through their pregnancy. Mary the Mother of all the Living was involved with God through being pregnant with his Son. Nothing could be more personal and intimate than to carry the life of another’s child in love. Seeing the failing of the first man and woman in the Book of Genesis illumines its universal context and shows the need for healing. By seeing the gravity of the fault, one can more easily see the need for salvation and recovery.
Original Sin - the Context of Sin and Abortion
The account of The Fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of men. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1994, p.89).
If sin does not exist there is no need for healing, spiritual or otherwise. The Fall shows the need for universal healing; abortion and its effects shows the need for fuller personal healing. It is because God exists that the interior spiritualization of external acts take place. The interior powers of the soul enable us to feel guilt, be sad and ashamed; the same faculty gives us joy, peace, desire to do good and avoid evil which reflects the image of God in us. Because we choose to do evil and do it, the nature of the person is injured and needs healing. Our human nature was injured by the sin of our "first parents." Whatever that action was, it offended God. Man chose to do his own will and not God’s -- man did not obey. This wound in his nature inclines man to do what he wants, to please himself and not God. He needs to recover from these wounds which injure himself and others through sin.
The Consequences of Adam’s Sin for All
All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms, "By one man’s disobedience many (that is all men) were made sinners": "sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned...." The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. "Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men" (CCC, 1994, no. 402, p. 101).
Despite our wounded nature we are still free and God wants us to choose to follow Jesus whom He sent to heal us. He by giving us himself in the sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation. He came to us through Mary and reason, logic and some faith helps us to believe the mystery. Despite her immaculate conception, God still wanted Mary to choose to be the mother of his Son. But, as we will see later, she challenged the words of the angel so as not to make the same mistake as our original parents and choose against God. Her blessedness did not remove her critical faculties, but, rather, sharpened them to discern the good and to do it.
Mary as Immaculate Conception Heals Mankind
How can a sinless God come into a sinful world? More specifically, how can a sinless God come into the world as a man born of woman without being touched by sin? He must make an exception in the woman chosen to be his mother; He must make her without sin. This woman must be immaculate and untouched by man that she may be taken by God. Mary is that young woman conceived and born without sin that she may give life to God’s Son. Its meaning is cosmic in dimension. Immanuel, God with us, foretells the coming of the Savior of the Jews and of all peoples. God will bypass the natural with a supernatural action and allow a woman to be conceived without sin.
The Annunciation is the culmination of the Immaculate Conception when Mary said her "yes" to become the mother of Jesus, the Messiah. Her immaculate conception has prepared her to conceive Jesus the Son of God. Mary’s question of the angel "proves" that God wanted her to choose freely to mother his Son. She would not accept this responsibility without first understanding to the best of her ability what was involved. She was afraid! Was it simply the fact that she did not know how this apparently contradictory event was to come about? She had never been with a man; in those days sexual intercourse was the only way to become pregnant. Let us see how Mary’s choice came about.
Lk.1/26 -- 38 --The Fulfillment of the Prophecy
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. He went in and said to her, `Rejoice, you who enjoy God's favour! The Lord is with you.' She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, `Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God's favour.
Look! You are to conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.'
Mary said to the angel, `But how can this come about, since I have no knowledge of man?'
The angel answered, `The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God.
And I tell you this too: your cousin Elizabeth also, in her old age, has conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month,
for nothing is impossible to God.' Mary said, `You see before you the Lord's servant, let it happen to me as you have said.' And the angel left her.
Mary’s Fear
Of what was Mary afraid before the angel explained? Was she fearful of the angel or this "religious experience?" Was she afraid because she did not know how this was to come about and with whom? What kind of man would the father be? Would it be someone she knows or a stranger?
Sexual intercourse is a very personal matter to be had with one’s husband or lover. It is not an activity between strangers with love and trust absent. This is what the angel's message could have meant until it was clarified. God was asking for Mary’s whole personal life and future. Would her partner be violent or caring, known or unknown?
Her body is her own to give to whom she loves.
Who is this person telling her what to do with it and with whom, even if the child will be the Messiah?
Her sexuality is hers, this could be a violation of her body and her person.
Would these have been the sort of thoughts which disturbed Mary? Perhaps, otherwise she might not have been afraid. Are these the sorts of fears some women have when faced with the prospect of giving themselves over to another? Of a few samplings, nearly all agreed they are. God wants, and needs, Mary’s body, her sexuality, her whole person. This is an invasion of privacy. At this point in her young life, she is making the most critical decision of her life. Is Mary different from so many other young women at this time of decision --afraid, concerned, and wanting to do the right thing? Hardly!
She was concerned not only with the how of the event of her pregnancy but the what, who, and why.
Mary loves her God, and has tremendous faith, but she is not stupid. What is being asked and by whom? We can easily see how vulnerable a woman is and how critical her situation when pregnant. She needs support and to know she has someone to trust in; hence, Mary’s fear and question.
God wants Mary to give herself to him completely. He needs her body to give him a human Son. This request is a form of "take over." God wants Mary to mother his Son but not without her consent and not without her companionship. Mary will also teach God’s Son on earth to be obedient. Through her He will learn to love his fellow human beings and to obey his earthly father and mother. From Mary He will learn to discern God’s spirit as Mary did in her consent. Jesus must grow in wisdom of God and man. As Eve in the garden was chosen to be Adam’s worthy companion so Mary is chosen by God to be his spouse and worthy companion. Mary responded in turn by choosing to mother God’s Son. She will do God’s will --- not her own, not the bad, but the good; not death over life but life over death. By her "yes" Mary restored natural life and opened the door to supernatural life with God for all. Without Mary's "yes" the Incarnation would not have taken place --God would not have walked among his people and died for them. In his infinite wisdom and love God includes men and women in his redemptive plan and makes all mankind participants with Jesus and Mary. The coming of Jesus as man makes God like to us and us like to God. Can the created become any closer to the Uncreated? This new relationship with God is a form of the universal healing of humanity. God and men are conjoined and it happened through a woman and the natural process of birth.
"This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: This one shall be called ‘woman’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken" (Gen 3:23).
And in Mary’s pure response and in simplicity we have someone who is spirit of God’s spirit and will give God flesh through her body by having his Son.
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us" (John 1:14). As Eve is the fitting companion for the first Adam, so Mary is the fitting spouse of God and Mother for Jesus Christ, the second Adam. The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you, hence the holy offspring to be born will be called Son of God. And know that Elizabeth has conceived a son in her old age. for nothing is impossible with God.
