Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

I find I am feeling very emotional at the start of this Jubilee “Year of Mercy."  I think it is a result of a few different things.

First of all, it makes me so grateful for the mercy God has shown me. What an extraordinary grace. It invokes so many feeling I cannot adequately verbalize them except to say His mercy is real, it is living and freeing, and it surpasses all human understanding. 

It has made me realize so much. It has brought me to terms with my sinfulness. I was always terrified of this, to look at my sins honestly.  But, it was in looking at them embraced by His mercy and under the mantle of Our Lady, that freed me. It showed me my constant need for God and His love for me in spite of the many failings I have. It made me acutely aware that I am a sinner in need of His mercy and that will never change. It may sound crazy, but I am truly grateful to know this.

I recognize I am nothing without His grace, and if it were withdrawn, I would quickly be immersed in serious sin once again. I am well aware that any good I do comes from Him.

I am grateful for the freedom He has given me in relation to my abortion. Freedom from guilt, shame, and yes, stigma.  This freedom is not because abortion is not a sin, and society has made the stigma go away, but because I have faced what a terrible sin it is and asked for and received His love, forgiveness, and mercy which make guilt, shame, and stigma go away.

He has also blessed me by allowing me to spread this message of His mercy for many years, letting others who are feeling the depression, guilt, shame, anxiety, and a host of other things you deal with after abortion to know that He is just waiting for them in order to heal them through His grace, and the help of others who know the dynamics of post abortion healing.

I am amazed at God's goodness to me and I will always be amazed.  At the same time, I have come to expect it, knowing that mercy is there for each of us and will always be there no matter how things may look or how we may feel or how we may fail if we ask for forgiveness in the sacraments. That is our faith.

It is not the consolations we are blessed to receive, or the many gifts we “feel," which are wonderful too.  But, it is the fact that we continue to trust in His love and mercy no matter what we may see or feel. That too is our faith.

I am awaiting many miracles in this year of mercy. I feel the graces already as we begin this journey of this extraordinary jubilee. As we open the doors of mercy in our churches, I know He is pouring his mercy out, flooding our world with His love.

May we each, through His grace, sound the trumpet, inviting those who are lost back to His heart and the joy and peace that is found there.

Prayer for the Year of Mercy

Lord Jesus Christ who is Mercy Himself
We entrust ourselves and our children to Your care.
We believe in Your love for us and Your desire for our healing.
We pray in this "Year of Mercy" for the return
Of countless souls to Your heart.
We embrace our cross with Yours
knowing it is there we will find the love deep enough
to heal our wounds.
Jesus, we trust in You! 
©ROC/Entering Canaan