on spiritual motherhood

Tuesday, September 10: Describe a distinct moment when your life took a turn.



Rachel hit the name right on the head when she wrote that post. Aside from the obvious moments that define my vocation

• the moment Mr. B and I began our relationship that led to marriage
• M's birth
• E's birth

I think of the little moments that lead to the greater scheme of things - when Joseph and I decided that he should attend law school was pretty big, but wasn't a huge turn. When we decided to homeschool, but we always leaned that way.

My first thought was that this sermon was life-changing for me. And it was. But it carried me into what I think my answer should be.

I feel like Our Lord has blessed Mr. B and I with a sense of clarity (Mr. B more than I) to see the bigger picture and to know, even if we can't see, that there is a Divine plan in the midst of the very heavy crosses we've been called to bear.

When we got married, we knew that we were entering into a sacred covenant in which the primary end is the procreation and education of children. Folks - even good, devout Catholics - would chuckle uncomfortably when we were asked how many children we wanted and they got the answer, "however many God gives us, but we're hoping for at least a dozen." We were blessed to see, with perfect clarity, that family life is how we had been called to give honor to God and make our way toward Heaven.

But, oh the plans we make.

I can't help it. I'm addicted to memes.

God granted us two beautiful, healthy girls - albeit, they came through difficult pregnancies and births.

He also granted us another beautiful life that was lost too soon after conception. We lost a baby, once upon a time, soon after realizing we were pregnant and long before we ever got to meet him or her. 

This little life was given to us during a time when our doctors told us we shouldn't have another baby and so I was scared. Paralytically scared. I remember crying in our living room because I was scared that this birth would be the one that left my husband widowed and my children, including this new little life, without a mother. I remember already loving the little life, but being terrified of what it meant. I remember two days after, coming to an incredible sense of peace and joy and excitement about our growing family. And I remember two days after that is when we began to lose our child.

For once, our clarity was taken away. We didn't know what was happening, as I have a history of bleeding in early pregnancies. Instead of asking for help with the three babies in my care (I was nannying at the time), I closed in on myself and mourned alone. Mr. B and I decided (for whatever reason) that we weren't going to tell anyone what was going on until we knew for sure.

It's not widely taught that even miscarried babies have to be baptized. They do and it's probably one of the harder things that our Faith asks us to do. We didn't know, so we didn't baptize ("we didn't know" is the theme of this time in our life together!).

The most vivid memory I have of this time is pulling three little ones in a wagon behind me (it was the only way to calm the little boy under my care, poor little tyke!) and talking on the phone with my beloved spiritual director. I mourned the loss of this life to him and he prayed for me and with me and gave me words of comfort, though not compromising Church teaching. 

He talked to me about baptism and reminded me that God loves us as we love our children, but only more. He told me to take comfort that our child is in God's Hands, even though we didn't baptize, and to remember, whenever I beat myself up or fear for the fate of our child, that we are leaving him in the Hands which lovingly and painstakingly shaped our baby out of nothingness in my womb.

In the next few weeks, we found out and rejoiced that my sister-in-law and her husband were expecting. Their due date was around the same time that ours would have been. We still hadn't told anyone of our miscarriage and rejoiced with them. Though I was truly, truly joyful at their welcoming a new life, I cried and cried and cried. I mourned, again, the life I would never meet. 

And to be honest, I was mad that this was the cross I'd been given. Me, who got married with the intent of following Our Lord through bearing so many children, was not being given the path to Heaven I decided I was supposed to have.

I wish I could say that I matured past that within a few weeks, but it was a struggle I had up until a couple of months ago. You see, Our Lord has seen it fit that having a large family, at least at this time, isn't His Plan for us. We've been given several fertility issues that make conception difficult, if not impossible. Perhaps it's a cross that will be taken from us in the future, but for now, it's the one we're bearing.

And I was mad and hurt and indignant. I just knew that the traditional camp of Catholic friends we have were thinking that we contracepted and that the more modern camp of Catholic friends we were around thought us hypocrites because we had such a small family while speaking out against contraception and sterilization and encouraging, rather, the use of NFP for families who struggle with their family size. I just knew it. How could it be otherwise?

No one had ever said anything, but I just knew it.

I know what my Halloween costume needs to be.

You can probably see where this is going - my cross was one I had nailed to myself. I created my own cross of embarrassment and pride and as the years went on, the heavier it became and the more hurt at God's choice for us I became. I felt abandoned and forgotten by Him.

And then I went to confession with the priest lovingly dubbed Fr. Mozzie by Mr. B and I. This priest knows how to grow in holiness and his secret sources aren't so secret - he studies, he reads, he prays, and he knows Church teaching. He puts it in words that touch the souls of pretty much everyone he's met. We visited his parish and I quickly got in line for Confession because I'm addicted and I need the grace.

I confessed and Father said that he felt my soul was still not at peace. He asked me a few questions and I told him that I really didn't think I had anything else to confess. He gently asked me a few more and then finally asked how long I'd been married and how many children I have. When that topic opened up, he got to the heart of the matter - that I struggled with the cross of a small family and how I felt. Though this confession was during Holy Mass, I stayed in there for probably ten minutes (sorry, folks behind me; I'll never get frustrated in line for Confession again!) while he gave me counsel that finally, finally gave me peace.

He reminded me that, though most husbands and wives are called to sanctity through a large family, some aren't. He reminded me that God is calling me to holiness right here, right now, with our struggles with fertility. I could either gain grace and sainthood through our small family, or I could lose it.

Two things to note:

1. I'm pretty sure Fr. Moz can read souls. I went in not intending to discuss anything of the sort. I'm an in-and-out kind of gal when it comes to Confession. I leave the in-depth counsel for spiritual direction. But he told me a few times that he felt an unrest in my soul and couldn't, under pain of sin, let me leave the Confessional until my soul was at peace. After talking about this and receiving his gentle counsel, my soul, for the first time in three years, was finally at peace in regard to my fertility.

Don't mind me, just reading your soul.

{{Sidenote to the sidenote: did you know priests do penance for the penitents they hear? So when you go to confession for the first time in five years and only get a Rosary for your penance - that priest is doing penance on your behalf. I don't know if this is an obligation or not, but I do know that the priest who heard my confession does it because he was the one who told me about it!}}

2. I could either gain Heaven through what God's put in front of me - my inability to have more babies right now - or I could earn damnation. I left sobbing. Sooooobbbbing. It all makes sense when it's laid out in front of you. How dare I think myself better than the cross I've been given?


That's where the sermon I posted above comes in. It was actually given by the same priest who heard my confession and gave me such gentle counsel. It reminded me that though God may never bless us with more biological children, I can still be a mother. I am a mother, but I can be a mother to more than just M and E.

I realized (read: Fr. Moz did) that I had been wasting away these last few years, spiritually. I had been so focused on myself that I wasted the moments I could have been offering up my merits for someone else - I could have been a spiritual mother to the unborn in danger of abortion; to the priest struggling with loneliness; to the single mother fighting to make ends meet; to the new mother at home who is desperate for sleep and company; to the father trudging to a job he hates each day just to put food on the table; to the child who doesn't feel the love of a parent. My prayers and merits can change someone's life.

The vocation of motherhood is to help souls gain Heaven and perhaps that is what God is calling me to do for other people, outside of my own biological children. Of course my focus will be on raising our little girls to grow into holy young women, but I can and will offer a spiritual motherhood to some struggling soul out there that I will probably never meet, except, please God, in Heaven.

And did I forget to mention that in spite of all my sins and human failings about losing our child, that God saw fit to give us parenthood during that time, albeit godparenthood? Remember that little life that was given to my sister-in-law and her husband? We're her godparents. And she was born at the same time that our child would have been. All that love and all those prayers that would have been given to our miscarried child was able to be showered into our goddaughter. I cherish that little girl's life and I feel like our spiritual parenthood over her was God's healing grace. I watch that little girl and see where our child would have been and it's a blessing. You'd think that spiritual motherhood would have hit me over the head with that glarlingly obvious little signal grace of being godparents a child the same age as what our baby would have been, but I'm a slow learner.

From this (PS. You'd think that I'd get the message...)

To this - the newest fb photo of Goddaughter #1

I still struggle sometimes. I still mourn a little, each month, the loss of a life that wasn't conceived. But I'm much more peaceful than I have been. I finally accepted the grace to have clarity in regard to our cross. I still fear the outcome of another pregnancy, so much so, that it might be my worst fear (I know, I know, after this post you're shocked to find that I still have fears on my list), but I'm a work in progress. And until God sees fit to expand our family, I'm really, really enjoying being a mom to just these little girls and our little baby in Heaven.

A family portrait created by our three-year old. I've learned more about myself than just spiritual motherhood - I've also learned I have large ears and no pupils.