The Christmas card I was most excited to receive this year was sent to me by a young couple that I came to know in their first months of marriage. As newlyweds, they moved across the country to Providence, Rhode Island, and were active in the parish where I served.
Not long after we met, I spotted at dinner that she had passed on the opportunity to have a drink. Joyfully, I hoped for news that she was pregnant. But in God’s providence, it was not to be. Not then anyways. Like many couples I’ve come to know as a priest, these dear friends would carry the crosses of bitter trial and loss as they struggled to conceive and welcome to their home the child for which they so deeply longed.
Then, in early December, I got their Christmas card. On one side was a beautiful picture of my friends. In the image, she was clearly pregnant. And on the back was an ultrasound image of their baby, along with the words, “We serve a God of miracles.” The Christmas card was a pregnancy announcement! I was so moved by the card that I kept it on my desk this Advent and Christmas season, staring at the beautiful image and the words they chose to accompany it.
“We serve a God of miracles.” Truly our God was at work! Against all odds, in the midst of sorrow and struggle, there was the hand of God, directing the lives of my friends. And what a way to share the blessing they received, with this great declaration of faith!
But that wasn’t all that God had in store for them. This child for which they prayed, due in early January, arrived a little bit early, on Dec. 20. They named him Benedict. But the little guy had some troubles. He had difficulty breathing — he had to be put on oxygen — and required a feeding tube to be inserted. He caught a cold. Not bad for you or me, but sure scary for a newborn baby. Imagine the fear of his parents, who had waited years for this little boy.
Then, on Dec. 30, the feast of the Holy Family, little Benedict got the all-clear to go home. He was weaned off oxygen and could eat. And so the day before the death of his namesake, Pope Benedict XVI, his parents took him home from the hospital.
Would that every child were longed for like little Benedict! Would that every mother and father could see God at work in their lives like my friends!
As we observe the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the now-reversed Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in our country, the day has a new meaning. It is a day of mourning, an anniversary that we should still mark. We should mourn the children whose lives are lost, those children who were never carried home in the loving arms of their families. We weep for the mothers and fathers whose lives have been scarred by this great evil, those who felt they had no other option.
But it is also a day of hope. People of faith across America have seen the extraordinary progress the pro-life movement has made this past year. And while much work remains to be done — supporting mothers directly and advocating for legal protections for the unborn locally, for example — we can see the hand of God at work. With him, all things are possible. Because in the end, my friends are right: We serve a God of miracles.
Father Patrick Briscoe, OP, is editor of Our Sunday Visitor. Follow him on Twitter @PatrickMaryOP.
