Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

Fatherhood recovered.  This could be the title of a retreat that I
assisted in.  It was a retreat for men
suffering from past abortions.  It is
easy to forget that men suffer just as easily from abortions as women do.  It may be more traumatic for the mother of
the aborted child because she experiences everything first hand.  However, the suffering that the father will
experience, especially if he willingly approved of, or participated in the
abortion, is no less real.  This was a very
powerful retreat.  For me, it helped me
to see with a clarity that I never had  before,
the beauty of God’s gift of repentance in a person’s life.  It also gave me a greater appreciation for
how God has led me from my own sinful past to my present life of freedom in
Him.

Often repentance sounds like a cold hard
word to our 21st century ears.  It raises
up images of John the Baptist standing on the rocky shore of a swiftly flowing stream,
wearing a dirty, smelly, coarse shirt of camel’s hair, his disheveled, matted hair
tossed in the wind, as he holds his hand in the air and cries, “Repent, for the
kingdom of God is at hand.” Instead of bringing us hope, these words, hidden behind
the coldness of the image, can cause us to fear and to despair.  The reality is that repentance is a gift
because it takes us from fear of ourselves and of our own sinful nature to a
state of being who we are made to be, that is, fully realizing our identity, as
it is in the eyes of our Creator.  The
truth about what is right and what is wrong, the truth about what mistakes
(sins) I have done and God’s invitation to repentance, only appear as fearful
things to those who are unwilling to change or to those who think they are
unable to change.  In my life I have met
very few who I would even suspect are in the first category.  Deep down everyone knows the mistakes they
have made and wishes they had never made them, and wishes that they could undo
them.  However, most people think that
there is no freedom from this weight of guilt and that there is no way to
change oneself.  This retreat was for the
second type (the category to which I once belonged) and is an invitation to move
from fear of the sinner within, to life as the man one is meant to be in Christ
Jesus, that is, a father.  

Repentance has three steps: Fear, Freedom
and Identity (which in this case is fatherhood).  The Holy Spirit moving in the sinner’s heart
moves him from fear to freedom and ultimately to fatherhood.  One of the feelings that seemed to be universal
among the men on this retreat, was the feeling of unworthiness.  They felt unworthy to be a father because
they carried the guilt of aiding in the killing of their previous child.  One man said that when he saw his first born
son, years after the abortion of this first conceived child, he did not want to
look at him because he thought, “But I killed my first child.” Imagine that, in
the back of your mind looms this tremendous guilt every time you see the
beautiful smiles on your own children’s faces. 
The devil uses this guilt to cause a fear that keeps us from God. 

He wishes us to believe that God cannot
or would not forgive us if we turn to him, because we did such a great wrong.  But Jesus said, “ I have come to save sinners
not the self righteous.” After turning us from God, fear will then turn us from
those whom we love.  This can lead to a
serious depression or it can lead to more serious sins and even a whole
lifestyle of sin.  This is the way in
which sin leads to slavery.  It keeps us
from loving and being who we are meant to be, in this case, a father and
husband.  Freedom, then, comes from
repentance.

Freedom is linked to repentance because
it is linked to the truth.  Jesus said,
“You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Repentance is
acknowledgment of the truth that I have sinned. 
This is the first step to freedom. 
To admit the truth, that I have sinned, and then give it to Christ, who
takes the burden off our shoulders, and carries it on his shoulders, sets us
free.  Then the process to become a
husband and a father in Christ Jesus can begin.

I noticed one other commonality, which
was the motivation that drove the men to seek this healing.  It was for the sake of those whom they loved,
so that they would not wound others through their own woundedness.  St.  John
tells us in his first letter, “perfect love casts out fear.” If this was the
case for them, that love for others led them to return to God in order to give
those whom they love that which is best, freedom in true love.  In this way we overcome our fears and move
through repentance to the freedom that is in Christ.  Some of the men on the retreat began this
process several years ago and some began it that same day.  But for all of them, and for all sinners, in
general, it is a journey that will take all of their lives.  God will bless not only those who have begun
to seek Him, but a multitude of others through them.  And they will know the truth and the truth
will set them free.

~Br. Felix Desilets, CFR