"Space Which Remains in You"

Space Which Remains in You
by Pope John Paul the Great
(from the perspective of John, the beloved disciple)

I often return
to the space which is Your Son, your first Son.
Then thought takes on His form
but the eyes remain empty--
and to the lips words return, the same words
which he put on
when he wanted to stay with us.

These self-same words enfold his space
better than sight,
better than memory and heart--oh, Mother,
then you are with Him again.

Bow down with me and take--
Your Son is the taste of bread,
and beyond taste, ineffable substance.

And now--more real than in my lips' whisper,
than in thought, sight and memory--
in the space also more really in bread?
Your arms now remember His space, the little head
snuggling to your shoulder,

for the space has remained in You,
for it was taken from You.

And shining never empty. So very present in You.
When with my trembling hands I broke the bread
to give it to you, Mother,
I stood for a moment amazed as I saw
the whole truth through one single tear
in your eye.



and now some not so profound words from me...

My husband got me the book "The Place Within: The Poetry of Pope John Paul II" for Mother's Day in 2005.  This poem is my favorite of the ones I've read.  It touches a place in my heart which was broken, that place that misses my sweet baby girls whom I lost in miscarriage.  Mary, too, lost her baby.  The memories she must have had as He died, the moment when she proclaimed herself the handmaid of the Lord and the Holy Spirit came upon her to conceive the Savior, carrying Him within her womb those 9 months, His Holy Birth, nursing Him to sleep at night, snuggling with her precious One, His childhood, and beyond.  Her Sorrow must have been tremendous watching Him there upon the Cross.  With St. John beside her, he must have seen all of this great Sorrow and wanted to return her to those happier times.  And he can, through the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, he, a priest, can bring her sweet Jesus back to her and fill that space which remains in her.  Jesus, in this Holy Eucharist, longs to fill that space which remains in us in the same way.  He remains with us in the Blessed Sacrament to be the One who heals and fulfills us, and so, we run to Him!

"And you yourself a sword will pierce"

Simeon's prophecy to Mary, our Blessed Mother, from the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2, vs. 35.

It feels a little like a sword has pierced my own heart, hearing of the death of my dear friend's baby (see post below). All the pain of losing a child wells up within me as I see her go through it. If I could take any of her pain away, I would; God, give it to me. My emotions are raw, as if my own had just died, and I remember the prophecy of Simeon to Mary, "And you yourself a sword will pierce" foretelling the death of her Son, our Lord. Oh how great a Mother's grief at having to bury her child!!!!!!

And yet, hope remains. For we women are all called to be icons of Mary, our Blessed Mother, and how much greater a depth of understanding we have of her, whom we are called to emulate in our Christian living, when one of our own children dies. How much more we grasp just what the cost of our salvation is, and how much our lives are worth! If you ever doubted your worth, go to our Blessed Mother, who watched her only Son die on a cross, held His body in her arms after they took Him down from the cross, was there when He was laid in the tomb, and rejoice with her in the glory of the resurrection.

Elizabeth has done all this. Elizabeth is an icon of Mary...she, like Mary, gave up her body to grow this precious baby; she gave birth to her child; suffered through the Agony in the Garden; seen her child living one hour, gone the next; held her child in her arms after her beautiful child had passed from this life; and laid her baby in the grave; And she did all of this with great faith in God. Elizabeth, my dear friend, rejoice now with Mary in the joy of the resurrection, the cause for our hope. You are beautiful and I love you.

From the Diary of St. Faustina

"Everything that exists is enclosed in the bowels of My Mercy, more deeply than an infant in its Mother's womb." Paragraph 1076

"One Thing is Necessary"

"One thing is necessary: to be near Jesus. You know well that at the birth of our Lord the shepherds heard the angelic and divine chants of the heavenly spirits. The Scriptures say so. But they do not say that his Virgin Mother and St. Joseph, who were nearer to the Child, heard the voices of angels or saw those miracles of splendor. On the contrary, they heard the Child weeping and saw by the light of a poor lantern the eyes of the Divine Child all bathed in tears, in sighs and shivering with cold. Now I ask you: would you not have preferred to be in the dark stable filled with the cries of the little Child, than with the shepherds, beside yourself with joy over those sweet melodies from heaven and the beauties of this wonderful splendor!" St. Pio of Pietrelcina

This quote has often given me so much peace in times of suffering and trial. As much as I would love to hear the angels singing and see "those miracles or splendor," how much greater it would be to be at the side of the Christchild...to be like Mary, seeing His every affliction from birth to death, and joyfully loving through all their sufferings. As much as I would like to have my children here to hold and care for, I would rather be close to Christ, which means I must graciously accept all that God wills for my life, including their death. As much as I would love to hear my childrens' first cries, and warm them when they are cold, instead I must embrace the suffering Christ, just as Mary, our Mother, did and have great hope for the eternal joys of heaven.

With a big smile...

“The easiest way and the simplest way of belonging is this: the Holy Spirit makes us do that giving of self, that total surrender to God without any reflection without any counting the cost, we call that blind surrender. We allow God to take from us whatever He wants and we accept whatever He gives with a big smile.“ Mother Theresa

Barbara McGuigan, a host of EWTN's Open Line, read this quote last week on Open Line when she was doing a show on helping others heal from the loss of a child. She emphasized the last sentence, "we allow God to take from us whatever He wants and we accept whatever He gives with a big smile." It sounds difficult, if not impossible, to do...accepting a miscarriage with a big smile. How can this be done? The key is the first sentence..."the Holy Spirit makes us do that giving of self, that total surrender to God without any reflection without any counting the cost;" this takes openness to the Spirit, and at times, especially after our first miscarriage, all I could offer was a prayer that I could be open to the Spirit. But God accepts us wherever we're at and if we but give Him the opening into our hearts, He can use that. Pray and pray to be open to Him, to His healing, to His will for your miscarriage, that He will use you as He wills to bring about the good He longs to bring forth from your suffering. He is a good God, a perfect Father, and He comes to us, holds us, and accepts us with a big smile. Let us in turn do the same for all the He wills for us, and most especially, for the crosses He gives us to bear with Christ.

The Saints embrace our children

Our children our in perfect company, the company of the Saints and angels in heaven. And the Saints embrace our children! (We always want our children to have good, holy friends don't we??)

With our first miscarriage, we named our daughter Ariana Faustina. We chose "Faustina" after St. Faustina Kowalska, who brought us the devotion of the Divine Mercy. Our priest offered a holy Mass in rememberance of our daughter in the chapel at our parish. When we entered the chapel for the Mass, there was a beautiful Divine Mercy image to the right of the altar. My husband, thinking Father had placed the image there since our daughter was named for St. Faustina, went up to thank Father after the Mass. He told Father "thank you for putting the image there, it meant a lot to us" and Father said he had not even thought about our daughter being named for St. Faustina, and that he had not put it there for the Mass. The image, he explained, was an apostolic Divine Mercy image that had been blessed by Pope John Paul II, and it was the only one of its type in the United States. It travelled from parish to parish around the U.S. and it was only at our church for one day and when we set the date for the Mass, no one had any idea it would be there.

Coincidence? The world may tell us this is just a crazy coincidence...but we know better. We believe Christ and St. Faustina were comforting us, showing us God's Divine Mercy, and that our little daughter was there with them, embraced by St. Faustina and all the Saints, embraced by her Mother, Mary, embraced by Christ Himself.

Remember O Most Gracious Virgin Mary

Remember, O Most Gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known that anyone
who fled to they protection,
implored thy help,
or sought thine intercession
was left unaided.

Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee,
O Virgin of virgins, my mother,
to thee I com, before thee I stand,
sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
despise not my petitions,
but in they mercy hear and answer me.

Amen

How can I speak of healing from miscarriage without mentioning our Blessed Mother, who also lost her Son because of God's perfect will? Because of her "fiat," her perfect openness to God's holy will, salvation came to all of man. She said "be it done unto me according to Thy will" and she knew God's will was perfect. She heard that a sword would pierce her heart, and she did not waiver, only trusted in God. What a model of perfect submission to God's holy will we have!

After both miscarriages, I have thought about our Blessed Mother and the suffering she must have endured seeing Jesus through His Passion and Death; the pain I felt after losing Ariana and Gianna having only held them in my womb for a few weeks was so immense...it is impossible for me to imagine what it must have been like carrying Him for 9 months, and then caring for Him for 33 years before He endured such a death, and she endured such a loss. How beautiful that she would endure this burden for our salvation and the salvation of our children! How horrible that it was my sinfulness that necessitated her Son's death, but they also gave reason for His becoming man...reason for His becoming hers. Not that I plan to continue in sin, nor am I grateful for sin, but it goes to show God can work all things for good. And so He does with us...He works all things for good. Perhaps by losing our children, we will turn our hearts all the more to Him and thus be aided on our path to salvation. We pray that the good done from losing our little ones in this life bears fruit for our eternal life!

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pray for us.
Mary, Comforter of the Afflicted, pray for us.
Mary, Mother of Divine Grace, pray for us.
Mary, Refuge of Sinners, pray for us.
Mary, Most Holy, pray for us.

See the Litany of Loreto