FAITH I N FOCUS

A Hidden SorrowPraying through reproductive lossBY CHRISTOPHER PRAMUK

•

Before I formed you in the womb I knewyou, and bifore you were born I conse­crated you Ger 1:5).

Several years ago my younger sis­ter gave birth to a three-poundbaby boy stricken with severe

genetic anomalies. With sophisticatedprenatal testing, she and her husbandwere about as well prepared for thebirth as possible. Their single hopeand prayer was that the infant, Jerry,might live long enough-a few sec­onds, a few minutes-to say hello, as itwere, and say goodbye. They wantedto hold him and look into his eyes,however briefly, so that the child mightfeel and know their love for him. Godwilling, they would have long enoughto introduce him to his two sisters,ages 2 and 4. God willing-the phrasestill catches in my throat.

The day came, and we gathered inthe delivery room to welcome the baby.With his limbs badly deformed, hisbreathing labored, Jerry gazed into mysister's beaming face as she held himagainst her, crying and smiling. He wasbeautiful, and for more than eighthours he fought to stay alive. Everyonearound the hospital bed held him inturn: parents, grandparents, aunts,uncles and his two big sisters, beamingwith delight. At last, lying on hismother's breast, with his father's handresting gently on his head, Jerry gave

CHRISTOPHER PRAMUK lives with his fami­ly in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he teaches theolo­gy at Xavier University. He is the author ofSophia: The Hidden Christ of ThomasMerton (Liturgical Press, 2009).

his last labored breath and lay motion­less. God, it seemed, had been willing,and a family's humble prayer had beenanswered.

Four days later, we prayed at thegraveside where Jerry's body, in a tinycoffin, would be laid in the earth nextto his older brother, Jack. Delivered at

full-term nine years earlier, Jack wasstillborn, the victim of an umbilicalcord accident.

Stumbling Toward LanguageJerry's.death awakened painful mem­ories. My wife and I have suffered twomiscarriages. For years I have strug­gled to reflect prayerfully on theseand on my sister's losses, experiencesthat have struck me to the core; large­ly, I have failed. What disarms me stillis not just the pain of those losses but

the revelation of how many othershave been ,through this. After bothour miscarriages it seemed thatwhenever we shared our news with aclose friend or family member, a kindof hidden door opened behind theireyes and words would tumble forth,''I'm so, so sorry:' Long pause. "You

know, we had a miscarriage two yearsago. It was awful:'

Another long pause, "No, we didn'tknow:'

And the unspoken question arises,"Why didn't you tell us:"'"

In Christian and Catholic circles, astrange kind of silence, an existentialand theological loneliness, surroundsthese more hidden deaths. Somesilences are good, healthy and holy,pregnant with hope and expectation,Something new, something beautiful

April 11, 2011 America 19

•

New Introductions to Islam and HinduismIntroducing the Qur'anFor loday's ReaderJOHN KALTNERKaltner surveys the origin, structure, contents, study.and use of Islam's sacred text. Offering selectiverather than comprehensive coverage, the workallows for discussion and analysis of specific themesand issues of interest to modern readers. "Accessible,timely, informative-a valuable introduction to Islam."

-JOAN E. COOK. Georgetown University9780800696665 256 pp pbk $25.00

war or disease. Closer to home, Imight better understand the wisdomof my grandmother, second of 13children, just eight of whom reachedadulthood. At 103, she shared thememory of those lost siblings, includ­ing a 14-year-old sister she adored, agreat aunt I would never know.

How do we survive such losses,much less make sense of them? Canthe church, our faith communities,help us grieve, protest and heal? In allof this, where is God, the one whoknows every child even before we areformed in the womb?

Stumbling Toward ImagesSerene Jones, president of UnionTheological Seminary in New York,recently published a collection ofessays, Trauma and Grace, in whichshe tells the stories of women whohave shared their experiences of mis­carriage and stillbirth. "My womb is adeathbed, my body a grave;' a womansays. And, Jones writes, "She holds inher womb the dead, imagined personwhose future she has conjured. Whyhad her body rejected and killed the'other' whose life she so passionatelydesired to nurture?"

Jones asks whether the Christiancommunity does not hold some story,some image or memory that mightrelate to women's experiences of repro­ductive loss and bring some healing.And she suggests that the Christiancommunity might remember the storyof "a death that happens deep withinGod... in the very heart-perhaps thewomb-of God:' This is, of course,the death ofJesus.

"When Christ is crucified, God'sown child dies; ...and yet by letting ithappen, God also bears guilt for it;'writes Jones. This image must not"encourage women to imagine theirown suffering as redemptive;' she cau­tions. Rather, "the poetic move here isto suggest a morphological space with­in which [women] might imagineGod's solidarity with them as those

At bookstores or call1-800-328-4648 • fortresspress.com

12, he treats our newly adopted son,10 years his junior, like the LittlePrince.

I know that as a man my experi­ences are very different from those ofmy wife or sister or of any womanwho has felt the anguish of life's per­ishing deep in her body. We hur't indifferent ways. Following our secondmiscarriage, I anguished above all formy wife, for her bleeding body, herbroken spirit; I anguished for mysel£too, for my inability to understand orto help. We had already discussednames, and the nursery was nearlyready. This pregnancy had felt like agift, a persistent prayer answered. YetGod, it seemed, was not willing.

Why?The best I could manage was a

forced acceptance and a dawning real­ization that I might now begin to

understand the suffering of so manyother parents who had lost a child orof countless people across the worldwho see life snuffed out by poverty,

waits to be born here. The silence fol­lowing our miscarriages, however, wasnothing like this. It felt like loneliness,death, crucifixion. It seemed to mockmy wife and me and our desire for life,our trust in its elemental goodness.

I will not soon forget gazing at theultrasound monitor, our excitementpassing quickly into desperation asthe technician gently pressed thewand, now here, now there, into mywife's exposed belly. Our son, then 4,sat close by my side, eager to see hislittle brother or sister "on TV;' as wehad described it. He soon picked upour nervous cues-the fidgeting, theexpressions of disbelief-and knewsomething was wrong. Silence, ques­tions, tears. Had we the slightestnotion there was a problem, I neverwould have let my son experiencethat. Yet something of that painfulmoment, I am sure, still lives in him,something about the fragility andpreciousness of life, a memory I amnot sure I would take from him. Now

~ The Hindu TraditionsA Concise IntroductionMARK W. MUESSE"Properly focused on Hinduism's widely shared beliefsand practices, Muesse is also attentive to matters ofcontemporary controversy. This book should work wellin courses and is a fine addition to introductory texts,"

-ANANTANAND RAMBACHAN, Chair of Religion,Philosophy, and Asian Studies, Saint Olaf College

9780800697907 240 pp pbk $29.00

20 America April 11,2011

The Intellectual Tasks of the New Evangelization

dren and like a twin with whom Ishared my mother's womb. Gazingdeeper into the glass, I see the childrenof the South Bronx, Haiti, Iraq,Darfur, once buried in the rubble ofneglect or violence now raised up andplaying joyfully before the gates ofheaven.

It is by no means easy to rise to suchfaith when we feelforsaken by the veryFather who haspromised to remainnear. But even therewe must have the

courage to remember and tell the storyof a God who, like Mary, enfolds thesuffering world in her fiercely protectivearms and urges us to do the same. In thewomb of such faith, perhaps we canbring our longings and unrequitedhopes back to the one who consecratesus even before we are born. And inhumble prayer, we might ask not onlyfor renewed strength but for the graceand the wisdom to forgive. m

Msgr. Kevin IN. IrwinFr. Frank MateraDr. Janet E. Smith

ON THE WEBChristopher Pramuk answers

questions and offers resources.americamagazine.org

Other presenters:Dr. John CavadiniDr. Ralph Del ColleArchbishop J. A. Di Noia, O.P.

This event is open to non-tenured faculty in the departments of theology orreligious studies who have received Doctoral degrees within the past five years.

Keynote speaker: Daniel Cardinal Di Nardo

Fifty participants will be chosen from the applications received. All applications mustbe submitted by May 15, 2011.

For further information contact: apartida @usccb.org

Where: Washington Court HotelWhen: Sept. 15 - 17, 2011

Thursday 6 pm through Saturday noon

To apply for participation in this event, go to USCCB.ORG/doctrine. Follow the linkto 'Intellectual Tasks' for application form.

Travel, room, and board to be provided by a generous grant fromthe Knights of Columbus.

A conference sponsored by the USCCB Committee on Doctrine and the Schoolof Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America

however, doggedly remains. LikeKushner, I have more or less learnednot to blame God for "moral evil" oreven for "natural evil" like earthquakes,disease, miscarriage. Yet like Kushner Ireserve my unquenchable need to cryout in protest, grief and lamentation.Kushner asks, "Can you forgive Godfor creating a world in which thewrong things hap-pen to the peopleyou lovd" My headabsolves God ofresponsibility; myheart does not. Andyet I want to forgive.

Something else, though, steals insometimes during my prayer. Theprayers and rituals of Catholicism,especially its pregnant silences, showme something of that promise hiddenbehind the veil, even if seen "through aglass darkly": rumors of resurrection,of lives not lost forever but resting,turning, flowering forth again in thearms of Christ-like my sister's chil-

who lose a future they had hoped for:'Telling the story of God's sharedmourning will not end women's sor­row, but it might "lessen their sense ofisolation:'

The image of the world resting,turning and flowering forth in thewomb of God has long been deeplyconsoling and beautiful for me. Toimagine the womb of God as a gravefor the body of Jesus evokes a widerrange of disarming but powerful asso­ciations. Mary holding her son's bro­ken body is Christianity's classic "mor­phological" icon of God's maternal sol­idarity. And I carry with me the imageof my mother, as she described it manyyears later, alone and bending over thesink as she "baptizes" with water andtears a mass of tissue dispelled by herwomb during the course of a difficultpregnancy. That tissue, her doctorexplained, was likely my twin, a lifetethered to mine for a while but nowreabsorbed-dare we imagind-intothe healing womb of God.

Stumbling Toward CommunityThese very personal imaginings arecrucial for healing, but are theyenough? In his book When Bad ThingsHappen to Good People, HaroldKushner reflects on his son's death andasks what finally helps us survive suchcrippling grief. "Is it our theology;'Kushner asks, "or our friends?"

For Kushner, it is the latter: "Godcomes to us through the incarnation ofcaring people," friends, family andoften strangers who reach out to us.This was true for my wife and me afterour miscarriages. And it continues tobe true when we share our losses withothers. In the very act and risk of shar­ing our most difficult life passages,something that once seemed impossi­ble erupts: consolation, healing andgrace.

It has not been hard for us to dis­cover God's healing presence in thecompassion of others. The question ofGod's providence, power and will,

April 11,2011 America 21