WORDS FROM AN UNBORN DAUGHTER

June 12, 2007 by Father Joe

Month One

Mommy,
I am only 4 inches long but I have all my organs.
I love the sound of your voice.
The sound of your heart beat is my favorite lullaby.

Month Two

Mommy,
Today I learned how to suck my thumb.
If you could see me you could definitely tell that I am a baby.
I’m not big enough to survive outside my home though.
It is so nice and warm in here.

Month Three

You know what, Mommy?
I’m a girl!
I hope that makes you happy.
I always want you to be happy.
I don’t like it when you cry.
You sound so sad.
It makes me sad too and I cry with you even though you can’t hear me.

Month Four

Mommy,
My hair is starting to grow.
It is very short and fine but I will have a lot of it.
I spend a lot of my time exercising.
I can turn my head and curl my fingers and toes and stretch my arms and legs.
I am becoming quite good at it too.

Month Five

You went to the doctor today.
Mommy, he lied to you.
He said that I’m not a baby.
I am a baby, Mommy, your baby!
I think and feel.
Mommy, what’s abortion?

Month Six

I can hear that doctor again.
I don’t like him.
He seems cold and heartless.
Something is intruding my home.
The doctor called it a needle.
Mommy, what is it? It burns!
Please make him stop!
I can’t get away from it!
Mommy! HELP me!

Month Seven

Mommy,
I am ok.
I am in Jesus’ arms.
He is holding me.
He told me about abortion.
Why didn’t you want me, Mommy?

Every abortion is . . .

One more heart that was stopped.
Two more eyes that will never see.
Two more hands that will never touch.
Two more legs that will never run.
One more mouth that will never speak.

Posted in Family, Politics, Religion, Right to Life, Sexuality, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

9 Responses to “WORDS FROM AN UNBORN DAUGHTER”

on June 12, 2007 at 8:25 pm1 helenl

Month Seven

Mommy,
I am ok.
I am in Jesus’ arms.
He is holding me.
Are you ok?
He wants to hold you, too.
He will forgive even for an abortion.

Why didn’t you let Him, Mommy?

FATHER JOE: Maybe she will…if moved by the truth, and by a mother’s heart?
on June 12, 2007 at 9:10 pm2 paramedecgirl

Father Joe, I tagged you in a meme. If you want to play, there’s a post on my blog with the theme.
on June 13, 2007 at 7:11 am3 Tom S.

Maybe the most sickening and upsetting thing I have ever read. How could anyone do that? I’m nauseous right now - and crying.
on June 13, 2007 at 11:09 am4 zeebus

Especially after having two kids of my own, I just can NOT comprehend how anyone would ever kill a baby. They are totally dependent on their parents.

Abortion is selfishness. You want the sexual pleasure without the consequences. Or, as Mother Teresa said, “it’s a poverty that a child must die so that you may live as you wish”.
on July 21, 2007 at 12:09 pm5 Amie Koberlein

its a shame that a Man of the Cloth, a “Father” would push his agenda in such an incredibly hurful manner. Do you not realize that your words, the hurtful words, exaggerations, and twisting of the TRUTH of the pro life movement is what sends many women, men, and families into deep depressions, states of shame, and despair? Shame on YOU.

GUEST EDITOR: The murder of unborn children is hurtful. Sometimes the truth hurts.

On the flip side of the same token, the Pro-Choice movement serves their own agenda by denying these very women issues like Post Abortion Stress Syndrome. The very private reproductive decision a family needs to make without other people butting into their business is just as serious and medical as a plethora of other medical issues and decisions.

GUEST EDITOR: It is not a private decision. Murder is murder and it is a violation of the common good. Abortion is a crime and it should be punished as such.

The point here has been completely lost— this isnt about SIDES. this isnt about AGENDAS. Afterall, these are human beings we are talking about, last time I checked. Shame on you for pushing a 20 year old post abortive girl closer to that suicidal edge. Shame on you for making a 37 year old post abortive mother die inside, becuase the abortion she had was not her choice, and now she has to live with out the child she wanted so badly. you do not know the many many circumstances that surround the people of the world. No sir, you do not. Not everyone feels regret; not everyone feels relief.

GUEST EDITOR: The point is about sides, as the late Pope told us. We are fighting a culture of death with the Gospel of Life. Both the parents and the unborn children are ALL human beings with a right to life. Shame on you for advertising a false compassion that might result in a young woman killing her child. Shame on you for dismissing a sin that needs true repentance before there can be real healing.

I believe, heavenly Father, that you have your heart in the right place, however it is plain ignorant of you believe that you are not causing more harm to the 1 out of every 2.5 women in the United States who have had at least one abortion by the age 45!*

GUEST EDITOR: Pleeease, Father Joe is not and never has claimed to be a “heavenly” Father! It is important that people feel guilt or remorse for murder, not that they would dispair, but rather they would recognize their wrong, ask God for mercy, and then urge other women to avoid the same tragic mistake.

Who are these women? They are single women, married women and divorced women. They are your sisters, your cousins, your aunts, your mothers, your neighbors, your co-workers, your schoolmates, they are women you see every day when you go out into the world. These women come from all different age groups, races, socio-economic levels and religions.

GUEST EDITOR: These unborn children are also men and women…my kin, neighbors, and friends in the human family. Their souls are now in the hands of God. You compromise the pro-life message.

Maybe you should try to be more helpful than hurtful. You seem to be so worried about stopping other spirits from dieing, well, you and your pro-life movement are causing more mass spiritual murders across the board than anything else.

GUEST EDITOR: Father Joe has marched for life, preached the Gospel of Life, protested outside of abortuaries, lobbied as a citizen, worked for a pregnancy center and was on the board for a center. What have you done to help mothers to keep their babies and to give counsel and comfort to women with abortions? Father Joe has counseled women before and after abortions. Have you? You do not know what you are talking about. Maybe you need healing about this issue?
on July 22, 2007 at 8:29 am6 Amie Koberlein

yes, i do know what i am talking about, thank you for assuming i do not, and saying so. what a very “religious” thing to say. and yes, i have councelled women, in a much more productive way, however. even pro-life women are hurt by your words. God would be ashamed of you.

perhaps you should at least learn about the reproductive truth. out of curiousity, would i be right in assuming you are a man? I am assuming you’ve never been pregnant? Pick up a biology book.

Thank you for suggesting i need healing, but I am all set.

GUEST EDITOR: I cannot speak about what counseling you have given women, although your attitude here speaks volumes. If you are pro-life, that is indeed good. As for God being ashamed of me or Father Joe, I was not aware that you spoke for God. In any case, I acknowledge my sinfulness and always throw myself upon the mercy of Jesus. You do not need healing? That probably makes you rather unique in the human race. But given your response, I have trouble buying it. Thank you for your comments.
on July 23, 2007 at 11:44 am7 Lauren

Dear Guest Editor,

As a Catholic, I was under the (obviously) naive impression that people who were created in His likeness and image could also have the power to speak His message, should he decide to use them for His will - isn’t that what you, “Father”/Editor, are doing? Guiding in the ways you feel Christ would feel best? Is that not what priests and nuns and other spiritual leaders in many, many vastly different religions do? Interpret the message? Attempt to spread a message of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness?

Are you a Catholic? You say some things that make me wonder if you really appreciate your faith as you should. We are all created in the image of God but because of sin we forfeited our likeness to him. This likeness is restored by the redemptive work of Jesus Christ and we take avail of it in the sacraments, particularly in faith and baptism. We are all called to participate in the mission of the Church, but our vocations and particular roles vary in the work of building up the kingdom. The Pope and bishops, and those priests who preach and teach as extensions of their bishops, have a particular teaching role to play that is not shared by the laity. The Magisterium has spoken very clearly and plainly about the Gospel of Life. The Church has compassion for women who make poor choices, and operates initiatives like Project Rachel. However, we cannot be silent about the evil of abortion. It is not a legitimate choice. It is murder. Only a false compassion would disguise this terrible fact from women, suffering and guilty or not. Further, I would not subscribe to any kind of religious relativism that would equate what other religious leaders say and do with the truths espoused by Catholic ministers.

Unfortunately, no one can be taken literally in translating Spiritual Words, because none of us ARE God, not even close.

The Catholic Church imposes the censure of automatic excommunication upon people who knowingly procure an abortion or who formally assist another in doing so. The Church speaks for God and the Pope is the Vicar of Christ. Thus, a document like EVANGELIUM VITAE is an expression of both the mind of the Church as well as of Christ. All I did was post a cute little aside that reminded us that the unborn child might not have a voice, but was still alive and a person with rights. I want to help both the mother and child. The only way a woman can know genuine healing after an abortion is to face the facts about what she has done and to seek God’s mercy. For a Catholic this means that she MUST go to a priest, confess her sin, do penance, make a firm amendment, and receive the priest’s absolution and the removal of the Church censure. Outside the sacrament, he and others can give her further support and counseling.

From my limited understanding of Catholocism and also from my vast knowlegde of human suffering, I can tell you this:

Pointing fingers, black and white rules on things, intollerence - it only divides us where we should otherwise be woven together. Human suffering, no matter what the source, is our one very human connection with one another.

Every priest stands in the role of Christ. He is “another Christ” at the altar when he says THIS IS MY BODY and THIS IS THE CUP OF MY BLOOD. He is “another Christ” when he gives the absolution associated with the sacrament of penance. He says, “I absolve you….” This role requires that the priest stands before men as a judge and his measure is divine positive law, natural law and ecclesiastical law. Christianity preaches mercy but has always been intolerant of sin and error. Such is one of the reasons why pagan Rome persecuted the early Christians. They refused to compromise their faith and so they paid a heavy price. The Church cannot show tolerance to the murder of children and she cannot show a false compassion that fails to deliver real and lasting healing. We do point the finger and echo the cry of John the Baptist who had his head chopped off for speaking out, “Repent and believe!” Guilt is not such a bad thing if we really are guilty! It calls us to repentance and to a “metanoia” or change of heart and life.

By speaking so plainly about something as sensitive as abortion, by drawing such clear lines between “right” and “wrong”, you are pushing people away. You are hurting them. Instead of a seemingly obvious WWJD response of open arms, understanding, compassion - you are pointing fingers. You are condemning. You are all right and powerful and wise, and we are just the stupid lambs straying from the flock.

The lines are drawn clearly between right and wrong when it comes to abortion. But these lines are not drawn by me but by almighty God. What good would false compassion be if my passivity and silence should cost someone their immortal soul? Remember, murder is a capital sin. It leads to the loss of heaven and the pains of hell. The priest wants to bring healing and charity to this life, but his main goal is to work for the salvation of his people. He wants them to go to heaven, not simply that they feel okay in the present or like him. I am not condemning anyone. No names are given in the post. But if the shoe fits….

And Father, Editor, or whomever you are, how dare you accuse someone (referencing Amie and her comments above) whom you don’t know of needing “healing”? How close-minded of you to assume that

We all need healing, although you are right that I do not know the particular areas where the one offering comment needs such help. That assertion is not closed-minded. Unless one is perpetually sinless and beyond defect in mind and body, we all need healing.

1. She is not “healed” (to YOUR specifications, might I add), and

I have no clue about her identity. If she is a Catholic, spiritual healing requires recourse to Confession and the sacraments.

2. That you, someone who DOES NOT KNOW her, would condescendingly tell her she is unique for saying she does not need something. Ms. Koberlein would have a lot more personal insight to what she instinctively and spiritually needs that you or anyone else would. You are not spreading peace and kindness with your words, you are flinging stones.

No, my comment about healing and the personal prayers that accompanied that remark were meant to be assistance to her. As a director of souls I find that many people do not have any instinctive awareness of what they spiritually need. Indeed, what I usually observe is self-deception. Oddly enough, others who are similarly confused often come to the aid of such people to insure that a shared deception is not shattered.

Furthermore - you suggest that it is productive, better, for women to feel regret, remose, even guilt? You would put the burdon of guilt upon the shoulders of women who have already been to hell and back? Good one, very God-like. So very kind of you. Once again - you assume what is “needed” by people, and that you, in all your human faults, have THE answer.

I would only suggest that neither you nor I know the full depths of what hell is like. I suspect that mothers and fathers will encounter the souls of their aborted children at the time of their judgment before God. “Why did you not want me? Why did you have me killed? Did you remember me? Could you not have given me a name?” I do not claim to have all the answers, but I do trust the Church and the protection of the Holy Spirit over her. She makes very clear that abortion is a sin and that no one has the right to take innocent human life. Every child, even in the womb, is a reflection of the Christ-child. In potency, every child—embryo, zygote, fetus—could have been the Messiah and Savior. If a woman made the wrong choice, she needs healing, but not at the cost of these truths.

You may have YOUR answer, and for that I have great respecta nd admiration for and of you. I am happy that there is something in which you can feel so passionately, and that seeking a life with God is what is working the best for you.

If you are a Catholic, then you have the answer, too. But I suspect there are elements of the answer to which you dissent.

Did you know, however, that there is ONE you, ONE you who can think the things you do, feel the way you do, with no one else in the world able to REALLY know how or what any of that is like? Only you can know the steps you took from your bedside to the kitchen sink, for lack of a better analogy, just as a woman who has chosen abortion can really be the only one who knows all the things that have lead her to that very moment and situation. No one path is “right” for anyone - we are not drones, not robots, and not all things that help YOu or hurt YOU do the same for others!!

Individuality is not absolute. Catholics have both a personal and a corporate faith in Jesus. We are saved within the context of a faith society, and God himself has established the parameters of that society. We are also human and nothing must be done that trespasses upon natural law and the value of creation from a good God. Abortion is always and everywhere wrong. There are no extenuating circumstances. The burden of a child might take a person to the Cross; but Jesus tells us to take up our crosses and to follow him. A woman has no more right to destroy her child than I have to kill you or you to kill me. You “seem to” place a heavier value upon a person outside the womb than one still within it. What about the unborn man or woman? You say that I have no right to tell a person that abortion is wrong and sinful. Nevertheless, you would restrict my counsel because you judge it hurtful.

Yes, Father/Editor/Moron-in-General, the truth does hurt. And the truth here is that even in the supposed light of God and forgiveness, you and YOUR side can’t help but gleefully point the finger of “we told you so” and “oh, how sad…you obviously need the healing light of our good Lord jesus Christ, because only that could be at the root of your anger.” You assume you know where I stand, why I stand there, and what I have been through because you don’t like the words that I am speaking here. They challenge you, they question your very existance. They frighten you. Have you considered that men are hurt just as much, if not more than some women, by the effects of Abortion? I’m not going to be rude, as you have chose to be, in assuming one way or another. But it is not fair to only place the burdons of abortion on the shoulders of women alone. They are not the only ones responsible and they are not the only ones who hurt.

And here you lower yourself to insult me as a “moron”. How am I to respect you or anything you say, now? But, what is more, you blaspheme against the healing light of God and our Lord Jesus Christ. I do not have to presume where you stand. You have told me and everyone who reads this blog. I am not my own man. I belong to the Church. I stand for life and against the culture of death because it is my particular vocation to do so, both by baptism and by ordination. In return, you are presumptuous that I do not know the pain of abortion. I have held a young girl who wept because her mother forced her to abort her child. I have baptized a baby that the abortionists failed to properly kill. I have given absolution to women and we have named and prayed for the children they lost to abortion. I have wept with fathers who lost their children to abortion and have argued with some who wanted their girlfriends to kill their children. I know people who have had five, six and seven abortions and now they grieve because they can have no more children. I have also mourned and wept for those babies lost through miscarriage, where no one is at fault.

Your words, your judgements, do not frighten me. I know for myself what I need, and whether or not those needs bring me to the feet of Allah, Buddah, Jesus, or Satan, that is my decision alone. Call me selfish, call me evil - I could care less. I face my God when I die, and thankfully not you.

I agree with you that it is best that you appear before the judgment seat of God than before me. The mercy of God makes a sham of the so-called mercy of men. However, I would still stress that the name above every other name, the name that saves, is JESUS CHRIST!

On the previous comment of “abortion is selfishness” - let me ask you this:

Failure to properly know 100% of the facts surrounding a persons decision and yet deciding what they must have thought, felt, and gone through at the time, is the most selfish action ANYONE could take. You are allowing human suffereng to exisit without trying to understand it - only stop it. You are allowing your preconcieved notions of all things surrounding abortions and the men AND women who have them to guide your decison on right and wrong.

Human suffering will exist no matter whether you or I understand it or not. Indeed, it is imbued with a character of mystery. We are all called to do what we can to relieve unnecessary suffering, but always with the insight that we do not make the rules and are not totally in control. The matter of human life and dignity is authored by God and all the Church tries to do is to understand this message and to maintain a harmony with it. It is not simply a peculiar or odd teaching of an aging cleric. When suffering is inescapable, we are to associate it with the passion of Christ and offer ourselves grafted to him as an acceptable sacrifice to the Father. God does reveal to us that which is objectively right and wrong. The role of the creature is to obey God.

I strongly encourage all of you to gently pull your heads out of the sand and stop being so caught up in the petty details of “who and what and where and she said, we did, he should have” [expletive deleted]. Wake up and see that the underlying problem is people not taking the time to try and understand something outside of them…even if it seems so very senseless to you, even if you could never in a million years place yourself in what you think to be the shoes of a woman considering abortion, you are truly doing a disservice to the world and your own movement by being so close-minded, and you are missing a great oppurtunity to see into the True hearts of men and women.

Please watch your bad language! But I suppose you became caught up in the heat of your response. Can you grasp the possibility that some people have taken the time and have come to a very different understanding than you have? There are women in the Archdiocese who witness to other women for life by admitting the wrong they committed in abortion and in urging others not to make the same tragic mistake. You can believe what you want to believe. I have no control over you. If I am closed-minded, you might be just as closed-minded in thinking my position is wrong. All I am saying is that the pro-abortion and pro-Choice position is incompatible with the Gospel of Life preached and taught by Catholic Christianity. I believe in healing for everyone— women, men and babies!

A greater understanding of ALL people would be much better spent time than all of this pointless bickering. I agree with Amie K above in all that she has said - Shame on YOU. Just because you can seek comfort and relief at the feet of Jesus does NOT mean that others ned to, should, or will be broken without. Faith is Faith - Kindness of heart and compassion are so much more important than who is on who’s team.

Shame on me, you say?

Shame on me— if I should ever betray my calling and the Gospel of Life!

Shame on me— if I should offer a false compassion that costs another his or her eternal life!

Shame on me— if I should ease feelings at the cost of truth and genuine healing!

Shame on me— if I should ever become silent about the holocaust of innocents!

Shame on me— if I should deny the saving relevance of Christ for all men and women!

Shame on me— if I should betray the Church established by Jesus and substitute human folly!

sincerely,
Lauren, a Post-Abortive Woman

I will keep you in prayer and I will also pray Archbishop Sheen’s prayer for spiritual adoption in regard to your aborted child.
on July 24, 2007 at 8:13 am8 Peter

I pray for Lauren that she will find the healing power that she so needs. You may not admit it to yourself, but you are hurting deeply inside. Seek forgiveness of yourself. Often it is very hard for us to forgive ourselves. I find it true for myself as well.
on July 27, 2007 at 10:21 pm9 spiritedmistress

Father, what a conviction and inspiration this post and your replies to the comments are.

God bless you, and your efforts too.