REJOICE AND BE GLAD
We would like to thank Elizabeth Foss for allowing us to use the article she wrote for the "Arlington Catholic Herald" 23rd November 2006.
We felt it would help all those who have suffered the loss of a baby as its so positive in outlook.
Thank you also to the Arlington Catholic Herald for allowing us to use the article by their Columnist,Elizabeth Foss.
Check out their website by copying and pasting the URL below in your browser:
http://www.catholicherald.com
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http://macbethsopinion.com/book.html
Check out her excellent book:REAL LEARNING:EDUCATION IN THE HEART OF THE HOME:
As a devout Catholic family, we are open to life. We've always been open to life. Because of God's great grace, I will never look back on our years of fertility and wonder if God had more children in mind for us. We greedily accepted all those that were offered.
But it has certainly gotten more difficult. Oh, not that we want them less. If anything, I want them more. My prayers for the blessing of children have reached a fevered pitch of desperation as I confront the reality of my 40s. Please, Lord, send me more before it's too late!
What has become more difficult is the recognition that this is a fallen world and that all our joy is bittersweet. I offered my labor for my friend Donna, who had recently confided that she was pregnant again, two years after a heartbreaking stillbirth. Throughout labor, I was painfully aware that life and death are but a breath apart. And I was overcome with fear. It was a fear that my friend knew all too well and one that she had faced when she embraced life once again.
A few weeks later came the heartbreaking news that her newest baby would also be born into heaven before she ever held him. As I cradled my newborn and wept for my friend, I wept for myself as well. Gone was the nonchalant innocence, the notion that if we want a baby, we can have a baby. In its place is the awe-filled recognition that life on this earth is very precious indeed. And that openness to life — conception, pregnancy and childbirth — is also openness to exquisite pain.
My phone rang several times that night and the next day. The news of this latest loss rocked the worlds of some very steady, faithful women. We needed each other — we needed to sort the feelings of loss and pain and hopelessness. And we need to be reminded by each other of faith. Like so many candles lit from a single flame, we consoled each other, we held each other up, even as we mourned the light that had been snuffed too soon.
I talked with my pastor about it all the following Sunday. And he said to me, in his forthright way, "It's not about you. It's not about your friend. It's about the baby. Sometimes women forget that the whole idea is getting a new soul to heaven. That baby's there. That baby is happier than we can imagine. Mission accomplished." He went on to say that I might not want to be so blunt when I spread the message, but that that really is the bottom line. New souls for heaven.
And with that reality ringing in my ears, I had the holy privilege of bringing another baby before God to be baptized last week. Choosing a date for Karoline's baptism was tedious. My husband's travel schedule and the priest's schedule and the Holy Day schedules all bumped up against each other. I ended up with a date two weeks later than I wanted. I ended up with All Soul's Day. And I wasn't thrilled with it. Seemed sort of morbid for a baptism.
But on that day in that church, I prayed for those women whose lives and whose stories were so much a part of my pregnancy — for Missey, the homeschooling mother of five who died in childbirth last winter and for Nicole, a dear friend who learned she was dying of cancer as she gave birth to her third baby and lived less than a year after that. I prayed for Donna, who gave another baby to God. And then, there was Betsy, barely 5 years old, who on All Soul’s Day was standing on the threshold of heaven, just hours from death. I prayed especially for Betsy’s mother and for the new life growing within her, even as she kissed her dear Betsy goodbye. Birth and death, saints and souls, truly life in the Catholic Church. So much pain mingled with such utter joy. And that water, that holy water, looked to my eyes to be the tears of those mothers who so loved their children. Please God, just grant us the grace sufficient to do your will with these precious souls.
I listened as the priest who has baptized all my children reminded my husband and me again that the goal is heaven and that we were solemnly promising to pass on the faith and to educate our children for heaven. Heaven. No matter whether we hold them for a lifetime or hold them not at all, the goal is to return them to God.
And so, my precious, precious baby girl became what she is, a child of God. Please Lord, let me always remember that she was created for heaven.
Foss is a freelance writer from Northern Virginia.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE APPEARED HERE:
http://www.catholicherald.com/foss/06ef/ef061123.htm
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MISCARRIAGE ARTICLE BY MARY ELLEN BARRETT
of 8.She lost one of her babies due to miscarriage.She lives in the United States and home schools her children.She is an active member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church,Lindenhurst,New York.
Mary Ellen Barrett Website
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The Newspaper for the Diocese of Rockville Center.
http://www.licatholic.org/index.htm
The article on this page was originally printed in the above paper issue 2nd January 2008
by MARY ELLEN BARRETT
Nearly three years ago I was happily pregnant with my sixth child when I went to the doctor’s office for my first ultrasound. I was 10 weeks along, and I was so looking forward to my first glimpse of this wee one within. I love ultrasound technology and greedily anticipate every appointment so that, like a big goofball, I can blow kisses and wave at the little wiggle-puss in my womb.
When, after a good 30 minutes of trying, the technician told me that she just could not get a good look at the baby, I was not overly concerned. The doctor said that when they are so little it is not uncommon to not get a good look, and he asked me to return the following week. He took some blood, and off I went.
As I said, I wasn’t concerned. I had healthy pregnancies. I had five totally normal, uncomfortable, boringly average pregnancies.
Imagine my shock and horror the following week when I was told my baby had died at about eight weeks’ gestation. It took a full minute for me to figure out what they were saying. Then the doctor and the technician gave me a moment alone. I remember thinking that they would come back in a minute and explain the mistake to me. You see, I have healthy babies. I do not have miscarriages. After a minute, a nurse, who had been with the practice a very long time and had seen me through those previous five pregnancies, burst through the door and took me in her arms. The floodgates opened.
They remain open. After three years and a beautiful set of twins, I am still so sad about the child that I never was able to hold.
One thing I found helpful was to enter my child in the Book of Life at the Shrine of the Holy Innocents in New York City (http://www.innocents.com/shrine.asp). You can name your baby, and the name is inscribed in the Book of Life, where there is a candle always lit and the 12:30 Mass on the first Monday of every month is offered in honor of the babies and for the comfort of the families that grieve. After a while, I received a beautiful letter from the pastor of the church as well as a certificate with my baby’s name. This made an enormous difference to me. My baby mattered, she had been important, and there was now a record of the life that had meant the world to my husband and me.
Four women I know have, over the past month, experienced the trauma of a miscarriage. When you surround yourself with pro-life Catholic families who regard babies as gifts and not burdens, then you are going to hear this kind of news on occasion and sometimes frequently. Why does this happen? God calls us to be open to life; and when we are, it sometimes goes inexplicably wrong. The fact is, we are never likely to know this side of heaven the reason for the passing of these beautiful children, and it is not for us to question the plan of the Almighty. What we do know is that that child that we mourn now sits at the throne of Christ. That child is now a mighty intercessor for the family he left behind, and he is privy to all of the wonders of heaven that we cannot even imagine. That child loves God and those he left behind perfectly — a love we cannot imitate here bound on earth.
Mothers of these lost babies should know that they have done their job and fulfilled their mission to obtain heaven for their children. They have given freely of themselves and allowed God to create life and to claim that life for heaven. Parents who cooperate with God’s grace in this way can be assured that their sadness leads to joy as another voice joins the heavenly choir and sings their praises for all eternity.
Resources for women who have suffered a miscarriage:
Church of the Holy Innocents (place your baby’s name at the Shrine), 128 West 37 St., NY, NY 10018.
“Life Giving Love, Embracing God’s Beautiful Design for Marriage” by Kimberly Hahn; there is a chapter on losing a baby that is very helpful.
The Order of the Blessing of Parents after a Miscarriage can be found at: www.catholicculture.org/liturgicalyear/prayers/view.cfm?id=711.
A prayer written by Mother Angelica: www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/prayers/miscarriage.htm.
Mercy Medical Center, Bereavement Support Services, 516-705-1414.
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Limbo and the Hope of Salvation
May 12, 2005
In a recent website review, we were compelled to list the site’s views on limbo as a weakness. Some Catholics are under the impression that the Church has formally taught that unbaptized infants cannot be saved but must inevitably be consigned to a marginal abode known as limbo, where no supernatural happiness is possible. But this is not what the Church teaches.
The Questions Raised by Baptism
The Church does teach that the enjoyment of the presence of God in heaven is not ours by right. It is a free gift. With Scripture, the Church further teaches that we must be reborn by water and the Holy Spirit before we can enjoy the Beatific Vision, and that the means of this rebirth is ordinarily the sacrament of baptism. Thus, the Church formally taught at the Councils of Florence and Trent that those who die without sacramental baptism, and for whom the want of baptism has not been supplied in some other way, cannot enter heaven.
But we need to be careful about what this means. From the beginning, the Church’s very proper emphasis on baptism raised thorny questions about the possibility of salvation for certain persons—unbaptized through no fault of their own—who were otherwise thought to be saved. The most obvious case was that of catechumens who suffered martyrdom before they were baptized. Very early on, the Church recognized in these martyrs a different kind of baptism, that of blood.
Later, theologians began wondering about the case of men and women of good will who did their best to seek God but who never had an opportunity to be exposed (or effectively exposed) to the Gospel. The Catholic belief that it was possible for such a person to be saved was partially explained by Pius XII in Mystici Corporis Christi, which taught that one could be joined to the Church inscio quodam desiderio ac voto (“by a certain desire and wish of which he is not aware”), commonly called baptism of desire. This was further developed in Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium, which clearly stated that even non-Christians who sincerely seek God “can attain eternal salvation”.
The Theory of Limbo
Perhaps the earliest case of all was that of the holy men and women of ancient Israel who died before the coming of Our Lord, including such critical figures in salvation history as Moses, David, Elijah and Ruth. Since the gates of heaven were closed when they died, Catholic theology generally holds that they went to a place on the border (limbus means the border or hem of a garment) between heaven and hell—an extension of the Hebrew concept of Sheol—where they awaited the coming of the Savior. The Creed’s statement that Christ “descended into hell” is traditionally held to refer to this limbo, from which He freed their souls and led them into Paradise.
It was a short conceptual jump from a temporary Limbo of the Fathers to a permanent Limbo of Infants. Clearly, the one thing the unbaptized groups we have discussed have in common is a desire to be with God. The presumption has generally been that infants cannot have this desire. Therefore, when the Council of Trent said that passing from our original state into “the state of grace and adoption as sons of God” cannot take place “without the water of regeneration or the desire for it”, it seemed to confirm a widespread medieval belief that limbo must be the final destination for unbaptized infants, who could not be damned because they had no personal sin.
Later, Pope Pius VI condemned the Jansenists as teaching something “false, rash and injurious to Catholic education” because they claimed that a place “which the faithful generally designate by the name limbo of children” was a Pelagian fable. Still later, Pius XII wrote that “an act of love can suffice for an adult to acquire sanctifying grace and supply for the lack of baptism; to the unborn or newly born infant this way is not open” (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, XLIII, 84). The theory of limbo was solidified within these strictures.
Problems with the Theory
But it remained a theory because the Church has never formally defined the existence of limbo for unbaptized infants. For the Church to condemn as rash those who call limbo a fable is simply for the Church to point out that the idea of limbo is not some fabulous creation of unschooled or heretical minds but a legitimate attempt to answer a very real and serious question. And for the Church to note that certain non-sacramental ways to salvation are not open to infants is simply for the Church to assert that unbaptized infants are not saved by these specific means.
On the other hand, we have the interesting case of the Holy Innocents. It has always been inconceivable to Christians that these infants, who were murdered because they might be the Son of God, could be denied the Beatific Vision by God the Father. One can argue that the Holy Innocents were not martyrs in the strict sense. They neither had an opportunity to practice the Faith nor to renounce it. They had no opportunity to perform an act of love, and no greater ability than other infants to express a desire for God. Yet they have always been included in the baptism of blood and the Church celebrates a feast in their honor.
In addition, we must never forget St. Paul’s great teaching that God desires all to be saved (Timothy 2:4). The very core of Catholic theology is that Christ died for the salvation of all. The Church teaches that we cannot earn our salvation, which is always a free gift, but we can either work with grace to grow in union with God or resist grace, turn our backs on God, and choose to live apart from Him. This leads to one of the most vexing theological questions of our own time: Is it reasonable to suppose that God refuses supernatural happiness to those who have no personal fault, who have not turned away? Is the theory of limbo adequate?
Countless Efforts at Resolution
Some of the most famous (and faithful) theologians have settled this question quite differently over the centuries. St. Augustine denied the concept of limbo (which was indeed held by the Pelagians) and taught that unbaptized children were consigned to hell but in a way that involved the least possible punishment. St. Thomas Aquinas argued that their souls lacked grace and the beatific vision but enjoyed a natural happiness in keeping with their capacity. St. Bernard and, later, Cardinal Cajetan (Aquinas’ greatest commentator) suggested that the prayer and desire of the child’s parents might supply a sort of baptism, just as it supplied the necessary assent to sacramental baptism.
Still later theologians have wondered whether the soul’s faculties of intellect and will, quite apart from neurological development, are not sufficient to express an interior desire for God. A similar question has been asked about how God “gets through” to those with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia, as He sometimes seems to do. The point is that the Church does not claim to have settled every question; moreover, she has specifically left the fate of unbaptized infants unsettled. At present, she freely admits in that she simply does not know.
The official Catechism of the Catholic Church, while not failing to stress the paramount importance of baptism amid all these uncertainties, teaches that, “As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: ‘Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,’ allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism.” (1261)
This is a legitimate hope of salvation that must not be denied.
© Trinity Communications 2005.
UPDATE 30TH MAY 2005
Limbo Again: Clarifying Evangelium Vitae No. 99
May 30, 2005
I am indebted to Chris Lane who, in response to my previous Note on the question of Limbo as treated by John Paul II in Evangelium vitae, alerted me to the fact that none of the modern language translations of section 99 of the encyclical match the official Latin text.
It turns out that this discrepancy has been noted by several commentators. For example, information about it is included in the Catholic Doctrine classes at Christendom College. While I have not been able to locate a copy of the official Latin text as published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Msgr. William B. Smith, an unimpeachable source, cites it in his Q&A column in Homiletic & Pastoral Review (July 2001), and a web search turned up other references as well.
In English, the sentence in question (addressed to women who have had abortions) reads: “You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord.” Presumably this sentence was in the original text from which all the translations were made, because all the translations I have seen contain it in the same form—including all those on the Vatican website.
But it was apparently deleted from the official Latin text as finally published in AAS. Instead, the AAS text substitutes: “Infantum autem vestrum potestis Eidem Patri Eiusque misericordiae cum spe committere,” which in English reads: “Moreover, you are able to entrust with hope your infant to the same Father and His mercy.”
It is therefore no wonder that the Catechism was not revised based on Evangelium vitae 99, for the official text of the encyclical is precisely consistent with the Catechism No. 1261. It is astonishing that even the official Vatican translations have never been corrected to show this change in the Latin benchmark text.
© Trinity Communications 2005.
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by Ed Lowe
We thank Ed Lowe for giving us permission to reprint the article below.
Ed Lowe had a 28-year career writing for Newsday.In 2004 he joined the Long Island Press,which is America´s third largest weekly. Ed refers to himself as, "a recovering Irish Catholic"
Names mean a lot to Mia Vogt.
Her husband’s name is Jerry; so is his father’s. Her father’s name is Joseph; so is her brother’s. When the Vogts had a son, they named him Jerry Joseph. They call him “JJ.”
Mia, of Massapequa, a reading specialist in the Brentwood School District, learned last October that she was pregnant with a second child. JJ was 2 1/2 at the time. Routine testing on Dec. 1, when she was 12 weeks pregnant, revealed that the baby she was carrying had a cystic hygroma, a congenital abnormality, wherein a saclike structure filled with fluid appears under the skin, in this baby’s case, in the neck. Tests at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset showed that the baby was otherwise fine. The Vogts would have to wait for a Level 2 sonogram at 20 weeks’ gestation to learn more.
During the torturous wait, a friend of Mia’s, Tara Benvin, gave Mia an angel pin with the word “Hope” engraved on it. Mia began to think of and refer to the child she was carrying as Hope, or Baby Hope.
Examination results continued to be positive. Doctors described the hygroma as “resolving.” The Vogts remained anxious. Mia determined that, whichever the sex, the child’s middle name would be Hope.
By May, newer tests revealed a condition called “hydrops fetalis.” Fluid accumulating abnormally was compressing the baby’s lungs. Doctors performed an emergency C-section on May 18 and immediately listed the newborn girl as being in critical condition. They inserted chest tubes to drain the fluid and placed the child on a respirator.
The Vogts asked their parish priest and friend, Monsignor Dan Hurley, pastor of St. Rose of Lima Parish Roman Catholic Church in Massapequa, to baptize the baby in the hospital, which he did the next day. Since the Vogts had not decided on a first name yet, he called her Baby Hope.
Days later, the Vogts combined the first names of their respective mothers and named their daughter Lyndee Hope. At 10 days, Lyndee Hope developed an infection. She died six days later.
Crushed, Mia sought therapy. Her mother Dee Cali, of Sayville, also recommended a support group for parents who have suffered perinatal and infant loss. The group was called Guardian Angels and met on the first Friday of each month in the basement of St. Kilian Roman Catholic Church in Farmingdale. Mia waited until September, when she e-mailed the group’s coordinator, Martha Weiss, who informed her that the October meeting included an annual Remembrance Ceremony, and that she should bring a memento to place on a table with those of other bereaved parents.
Mia complied. She entered tentatively, placed a photograph of Lyndee Hope on the remembrance table, and, noting that the tablecloths were either pink or blue, selected a seat at a round pink table. Another couple took seats there, as well.
Behind her, slightly late for the meeting, an energetic woman from Douglaston entered the room. Mia did not see her.
The woman, a second grade teacher in Ridgewood, had not been to a meeting since the previous Remembrance Ceremony, her first. Now 38, she had delivered a healthy baby boy in August, her second child. Her first, a daughter, had been stillborn, vaginally, on May 31, 2005, 10 days before her due date. The woman and her husband, New York City Police Department Detective Sgt. Michael Fogarty, had known the child would be a girl and had deliberated over names.
“We wanted something a little less mainstream,” the woman said recently, “but not as bizarre a name as mine. We named our daughter Mia. Mia Faith.
“After Mia passed,” the woman said recently, “I knew I was fragile, and I knew I needed to talk to someone. People at North Shore Hospital in Manhasset said they knew of a Guardian Angel group. I was nervous and skeptical. I had been talking about it, but my husband didn’t seem to have an outlet. I thought he needed at least to hear other people talking about it.
“We went, on a hot night in June. My husband got to tell the story of what
happened, and I felt a healing starting. We went to three other meetings. October was the Remembrance Meeting, and I said I wanted to go to that every year. I wanted to remember Mia with love and respect. She was very real to me, living in my mind and in my body.
“I rush into this year’s Remembrance Meeting, thinking I’m late. I’m pretty hyper. I rush to the front of the room and put down my daughter’s footprints and her name, and I go back to the entrance and look around at the tables, deciding where to sit. One table was filled. A woman was crying at another. One had nobody. There was a girl alone with three seats next to her and then another couple. I could sit between them, pay my respects and go home and breast-feed my son, Ethan Michael.”
The woman chose to sit near Mia, who looked up and said, “Oh, I love your necklace.” The woman said, “I just got it. I’ll give you the number where to get it after the meeting. Oh. Hello, by the way, my name is Hope Fogarty.”
“Hi,” said Vogt. “My name is Mia.”
“What?” asked Fogarty, starting to cry. “Mia?”’
“What’s the matter?”
“That’s why I’m here tonight—my daughter, Mia.”
“Wait. Your name is Hope? My daughter was Baby Hope. Her middle name is Hope.”
They embraced, sobbing together.
At the end of the meeting, they found Mia Faith Fogarty’s footprints next to
Lyndee Hope Vogt’s photograph.
E-mail Ed Lowe at edlowe1@optonline.net
BOOKS
"Pregnancy Journeys after Loss" by Amy L. Abbey
Mother and Author Amy L Abbey
Find Out More About Solomon
"Tears, Tragedy and Triumph," by Millie Hutton
Most women suffer the pain and heartache of 1 or 2 miscarriages in their lives.Some maybe 5 or 6,but can you imagine suffering 23 miscarriages in your life?
One woman doesn`t have to imagine it.Millie Hutton has just spent 16 years of her life writing about her losses.
LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR
Dear Miriam & Myke,
Thank you so very much for putting the information about my website and book, Tears, Tragedy and Triumph on both of your websites. Many thanks to you also for making your support group members aware of it.
I fought very hard to preserve life as I suffered through 23 miscarriages, and that is the reason I wrote my story. I want others to know they are not alone in their suffering, and that there is light at the end of the tunnel of grief. But, only if you pray many prayers and keep your faith in our Lord strong.
Another reason I wrote my book is to show people the value of human life, and hopefully stop some abortions.
One thing I am very proud of is the fact that I have already saved one baby from the abortion clinic. A young girl I worked with became pregnant at the age of 22. She was unmarried and had just broken up with her boyfriend. She came into my office and hugged me with tears in her eyes and said, "Millie, I'm pregnant and I'm scared and I thought about aborting this baby. But, after reading your book I value life too much to destroy it."
Today that girl has a beautiful 3 year old daughter. The fact that I helped to save that baby's life, means more to me than anything in the world. I don't want to stop there though. My prayer is that many women will change their minds about having an abortion, and either choose to keep their babies, or put them up for adoption, after reading my story.
Sorry, I didn't mean to babble here. I just wanted to give you some insight as to why I wrote Tears, Tragedy and Triumph. I'm sorry for the loss that you sustained, and my prayers are with you. God bless you for creating such beautiful websites that have and will continue to help so many people. And, thank you again so much for including my website and book ordering information on your sites.
Blessings,
Millie
Book Ordering Information
If you would like to order a copy of "Tears, Tragedy and Triumph," please copy & paste one of the links below to order. If you prefer an autographed copy from the author, please email me at
Mhutton422@aol.com
and I will send you instructions for ordering an autographed copy.
Soft cover
204 pages
Retail: $19.95
To order a copy of Tears, Tragedy and Triumph,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1413713068/qid=1085354746/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-5328247-2471157?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
http://www.publishamerica.com/shopping/shopdisplayproducts.asp?catalogid=4729
www.barnes&noble.com
For barnes & noble enter either the title of the book, the
ISBN# 1-4137-1306-8 or the authors name: M.J. Hutton
http://www.powells.com/search/DTSearch/search?kw=m j hutton&Search.x=71&Search.y=19
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