Her dad had been an OB-GYN. He had performed abortions. In an interview with her own community’s magazine, she recounted a drive home from a hike with her dad, her senior year of high school.
I found myself asking if he had ever performed abortions. He answered, “Yes.” I swallowed hard. “How many?” “At least a dozen in residency…” he answered. “Something happened, though, that made me stop. After performing an abortion one day, I went out to tell the sister of the patient that the surgery was over. Before I could walk away, the sister asked me, ‘Was it alive?’ I didn’t know how to respond to her…That was the last abortion I ever performed.”
He went on to practice in rural Maine and delivered more than 2,500 babies before he retired.
But that grappling with an uncomfortable truth didn’t just change how he practiced medicine. It’s what ultimately drew him from being a self-described agnostic to the Catholic Church.
Sr. Mariae became a Sister of Life—a BOOMING religious community devoted especially to helping pregnant women in need. But she’s not the only one. Her big Sister — Mother Mary Concepta — joined as well, and is the Superior General of the Community.
Their father died on December 28, 2012…the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Those are the babies Herod killed while trying to snuff out the Messiah, who are celebrated by the Church as martyrs who died witnessing to Christ.
Sister didn’t see that as God settling a score. She told me,“I think the aborted children and the Holy Innocents welcomed him into heaven.”
I have no doubt that they did just that.
…I’m dumbstruck by the beauty and power of mercy as I write those words…
When all is said and done, there’s only one real enemy — and he isn’t “flesh and blood”(Ephesians 6:12). Everyone else is just lost sheep, gone astray. And God and all the saints are hoping for the chance to welcome them home.
Lord, help us see the world that way. Amen.
