Waiting is hard. Waiting for pain that you know is coming is the sweat of the Agony of the Garden. Waiting for a joy that you hope for is the extended, held breath of Holy Saturday. Right now, I’m waiting for a new baby to arrive, and each day past my due date is an exercise in patience, hope, trust and acceptance.
A dear friend called me the other day and in a message of encouragement rattled off several blessings that she anticipates this new life will bring to our family. It was exactly what I needed to hear. Even as I very much anticipate a new profile and personality fully revealing himself to our family, I needed to pray in thanksgiving to prepare for the spiritual changes that take place with a new baby. St. John Paul II recognized that stress and a cultural worry about the toll of infancy can sometimes “eclipse” the “value of life,” even though that life also is inseparable from a “sacred and inviolable value.” So, while I am not a theologian, I am a mother of four souls on earth, one in heaven and one overly comfortable infant in utero, and I have learned a few things over the years.
First of all, every child adds a layer of love to our family. Love is neither quantifiable nor a limited resource. I have discovered that even when I feel that my own time to invest in a child is limited, their siblings will often fill that gap in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. My youngest girl brings out a certain playfulness in her big brother that her sisters do not. Her birth prompted a new maternal instinct in one older sister and a greater maturity and helpfulness in another. Each member of our family adds to the colorful interactions of love that fill our daily moments.
Secondly, the utter dependency of a newborn (and sometimes the continual dependency of children who are differently abled) calls each family member out of complacency and into the dynamic realm of self-gift. We hear over and over that our world needs more kindness, more understanding and more generosity. How better to learn these virtues of total selflessness that root out pride and teach the joy of service than within the safety of the family? In fact, in Matt 18:1-3, Christ says that we will best understand how to please Him by looking toward the purity of these children we serve.
The family is a garden where we have the privilege not only to prepare the soil of our children’s hearts but also to plant those seeds of virtue and watch them flourish and bear fruit. In many forms of ministry, we can only participate in one part of that process with those we serve. Parents and children are encouraged to greater work in the larger vineyard of the world when we see the long-term results of investment in the humble tasks of daily family life.
A baby also calls us – especially parents – into silence and prayer. We cannot respond well to unspoken needs, bond with a new person and contemplate a child with the gaze of love when we are distracted and noisy. Particularly in the nighttime vigils we keep with a young infant, we have a unique opportunity for prayer and companionship with Our Lord. This entrance into silence and disruption of our natural rhythms challenges our attachments to comfort and rest. But many of the saints say that prayer in the silence of the night carries great efficacy because of the combination of prayer with bodily mortification.
Finally, this participation in God’s creative act, as we welcome new life, teaches us both something of our worth and of our dependency on God. Every child is a mystery, and the reality that God chooses broken and frail human beings to entrust with these precious ones is even more astonishing. I have days when I hardly feel that I am capable of caring well for a child’s bodily well-being, never mind his eternal soul. This is the other half of that gift of self-knowledge that God grants parents. He gives us a responsibility that often feels beyond our abilities because He loves us and knows there is no greater impetus for change and growth in holiness than love. But, He also gives us supernatural grace to assist us in that task.
God alone can supply for our omissions and imperfections in a child’s development and memories. Honestly, I find it somewhat comforting to know that many great saints had imperfect or deeply flawed parents. St. Augustine’s mother became a saint but had to be redirected from several minor heresies she had been taught. Blessed Margaret of Castello’s parents abandoned her, a blind girl, in an unfamiliar city. And St. Catherine was misunderstood by her parents and had 24 siblings, many of whom died at a young age. God can do much with our “loaves and fishes” that we offer Him as we do our best to raise these beautiful young souls to love Him.
If you know a mother who is welcoming a new child – her first or her 10th – please remind her during this Respect Life Month of the many blessings that come with a child. Every news article and blog wants to warn her of the medical, physical, emotional, ecological and economical risk that her sweet baby imposes on her life and on society as a whole. When we welcome a child into our lives, we welcome Christ Himself (Mk 9:37). There is no social statistic that can encompass that sort of blessing.
Kelly Henson is a Catholic writer and speaker who explores the art of integrating faith into daily life. She and her family are parishioners of Our Lady of Grace Parish in Greensboro, and she has worked for more than 15 years with teens, children and families as a missionary, youth minister and teacher. She blogs at www.kellyjhenson.com.