Carrots for Michaelmas

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A Mother’s Grief at the Stations of the Cross

April 1, 2019 By Haley 9 Comments

Welcome to Carrots! I'm so glad you're here. This is where I share thoughts on liturgical living, faith, parenting, culture, and an extra dose of Jane Austen. You can sign up for my email newsletter here to stay in touch, or look me up on Instagram!

Welcome to Carrots! I'm so glad you're back. You can sign up for my email newsletter here to stay in touch, or look me up on Instagram!

Trigger warning: stillbirth and infant loss. This post and the images included may be difficult to see for those who have suffered the loss of infant.

No matter how many times I pray the Stations of the Cross, the Holy Spirit shows me things I had never thought of before. This year going to Stations at our parish for Lent, one image almost knocked me to my knees.

The parish uses St. Alphonsus Liguori’s Way of the Cross and his words are so beautiful, challenging, and vivid. The 13th and 14th Stations depict what happens after Jesus has died on the Cross:

“Consider how, after Our Lord had died, He was taken down from the cross by two of His disciples, Joseph and Nicodemus, and placed in the arms of His afflicted Mother. She received Him with unutterable tenderness and pressed Him close to her bosom…Consider how the disciples carried the body of Jesus to its burial, while His holy Mother went with them and arranged it in the sepulcher with her own hands.”

The person who stood out to me was Mary, the grieving Mother. I have seen this moment of Our Lady receiving the body of Our Lord in sacred art over and over. As a mother who has never lost a child, I have tried to imagine Mary’s grief over losing her only son, what her face must have looked like in those hours of deepest agony and separation.

But on this night when the priest spoke St. Alphonsus Liguori’s description of the Stations, a different image came to my mind’s eye. One that is imprinted forever in my memory.

This past September, our very dear friends went to the hospital because their 38 week old baby in utero, Myra Lourdes, had stopped moving. They were told the terrible news that their daughter had passed away in the womb. The next day, my sweet, strong friend Helen labored to deliver her stillborn child. A cord accident had taken Myra away before she could say hello to her adoring family.

We had the great privilege to see sweet Myra at the visitation at their family home preceding the Requiem Mass. I will never forget how Helen looked as she sat with her perfect, tiny baby’s body. She looked so beautiful with her arms tenderly resting on Myra’s tiny casket. Her grief so fresh, eyes red from tears, no makeup, and yet her posture and face radiated love that made her stunning. Being in the room it was impossible not to feel the immeasurable love she had for her child filling the air. You could breathe it in as you walked into that holy space where the curtain between earth and Heaven was drawn back just an inch.

I will never forget the way Helen looked at her baby, adoringly, drinking in every detail of her little face. The curls of her hair, her dark eyelashes, the delicate baby bonnet that Helen had knit in anticipation of Myra’s arrival. You could feel the pain so deep it could simply not be borne. As we drove away I thought, “I know what Mary looked like when they brought Jesus down from the Cross and laid him in her arms. I’ve seen the Pieta”

Mary’s motherly love, oh so tender, but love so sharp she must have felt that she was being torn apart when she left her beloved Son’s body in the tomb.

And a sword shall pierce your heart.

Now when I think about Mary’s face, her posture as she tenderly prepared her son for burial, I see Helen’s face. The weight of grief and the weight of love–inseparable.

We have a God who was victorious over Death and has changed the end of our story from despair to hope. But we also have a God who suffers for us and with us and who gives us a Mother, his own Mother, who we cry out to from this our exile, this Valley of Tears. She will tenderly wrap her loving arms around us, her children, and will never abandon us. Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us. St. Myra Lourdes, pray for us.

Images of the Thompson family used by permission and taken by Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep and Rebecca Egger of Cast Iron Photography.

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Filed Under: Catholicism, Faith & Liturgical Living, Family & Homesteading, Lent, Our Lady Tagged With: grief, infant loss, lent, loss, mary, stillbirth

Comments

  1. Genevieve says

    April 1, 2019 at 11:00 am

    Beautifully written, and true. Having endured the very same, I can attest to the veil being withdrawn in some mysterious way at such a time. All of creation was magnified in a subtle yet profound way, and as the moment passed, the veil was reestablished. Colours returned to normal, interactions became mundane once again, and we carried on as before—and yet transformed.

    I wish all mothers and fathers this peace. Be not afraid to step out and embrace life, for even loss is gain.

    Reply
    • Haley says

      April 2, 2019 at 11:46 am

      I am so sorry for the loss of your child, Genevieve. Thank you for sharing your story. <3

      Reply
  2. Katie says

    April 2, 2019 at 10:18 am

    So beautiful, Haley. I’m praying for your friends and their sweet baby. Suffering can be so painfully awakening… “The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater” – Tolkien.

    Reply
    • Haley says

      April 2, 2019 at 11:47 am

      Thank you for the prayers!

      Reply
  3. MariaE says

    April 2, 2019 at 7:01 pm

    Beautiful. I have not suffered a loss of a close relative yet, but the way you write this makes me see how this can be transformative and offer insight into the Passion.

    Reply
    • Haley says

      April 3, 2019 at 9:41 am

      <3

      Reply
  4. Laura says

    April 2, 2019 at 8:09 pm

    Stunning. The way you have witnessed to your own grief at Myra’s death and shared your love for her parents has been such a gift to me. This is a portrait of compassion: what it truly means to suffer-with. Grateful for your heart, your faith, and your words.

    Reply
    • Haley says

      April 3, 2019 at 9:41 am

      Grateful for you and your vulnerability in sharing Maggie and Abby’s story. Love you.

      Reply
  5. Alessia says

    April 8, 2019 at 7:14 am

    You made her pain so vivid and still showing it’s redemptive quality, so I’m now crying and I’m someone who can’t relate to any part of the motherhood experience.

    Reply

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Welcome! I’m Haley Stewart, a bookish mama of four and wife to a beekeeper. Writer, speaker, podcaster, and Catholic convert. Homeschooling, bacon-eating, and bright red lipstick-wearing Jane Austen aficionado. My first book, The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture is available now!

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