The womb is the Genesis of all compassion
“Acknowledged in its fullness, this is the hour in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment when the human race is undergoing a deep transformation, women imbued with a spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid humanity in not falling” (Council’s message to women at closing of Vatican II).
As a response to the societal debate over the ongoing deconstruction of the human person via gender and identity confusion, the Vatican, citing Pope Francis has released a beautiful document “Male and Female he created them” A teaching by the Catholic Church. A teaching about the design of the male and female and its original purpose. To continue His work. Male and female united and fruitful.
“Mother love” is a mysterious love written deep within the heart of a woman. Deep within the essence of her feminine, her “I.” “Mother love” is the effect of that mysterious union between her “I” and the “I” of another, her child. A union which society and modern woman have attempted to place a distance between them or even to weaken that bond. The grief which follows the loss of an infant (even one in the womb) is the truth of the very existence of “mother love” which ensures that no baby will pass by unnoticed and which is the way by which our Creator God has devised that woman would participate in the redemption of the human being. Into every womb is inscribed the compassion of God. Into every womb is imprinted the word “compassion” and love and is the way by which He Himself would experience and redeem male and female. She with her blessed womb which would carry all life and he in his vivifying and care for life.
Many reasons are given for the grief experienced because of the loss of life in her womb, (miscarriage, abortion, death) but the most fundamental reason is that woman has written within her being a connection, a primordial attachment to her infant, from its earliest moment of conception. From its first cell division, there is love. This, because her body knows it has co-operated with God and man to bring to birth a new creation. “Motherhood involves a special communion with the mystery of life as it develops in the woman’s womb.” There is no error in this knowledge except perhaps in the matter of a defective affective where her understanding is distorted e.g., deeply wounded. “Each and every time that motherhood is repeated in human history, it’s always related to the covenant which God established with the human race through the Motherhood of the mother of God”. And indeed the covenant is strengthened every time motherhood is repeated making the birth of every child a salvific moment for woman. Every child brings into humanity a new grace, a new work which participates in the overall redemption and is beloved of Jesus.
The unexpected death of her baby either through misadventure, or through the intentional, that is, through an abortion, and whether acknowledged or not woman cannot allow the dying of her baby to be unremembered and unmourned. Her being, cannot tolerate this violence and indignity done to it without the resulting anguish at this loss. Her anguish is the recognition or even belief that it was her own failure which failed to protect the word spoken into her feminine by God. That word “Life.”
The moral awareness or “knowing” that to abort her child is wrong and harmful to both of them, and to humanity, is the intuitive knowing deeply written within her feminine essence, “the dignity which is joined in the closest possible way to the vocation of every person.” And her child’s dignity as an authentic human being is indelibly imprinted in her conscience, that private sanctuary, where God has communed His desires to her.
1.- John Paul II, On the Dignity & Vocation of Women.
2.-
3.– Ibid 20
Abortion grief, loss in the womb grief, is the response to the death of one whose dignity, irrespective of gestational age, is the dignity accorded to it by God in His template and originating design which was in the image of His son Jesus, and continued throughout with each new conception. A dignity which no one may violate without suffering. This grief is experienced by the Spirit in recognition of the violence committed against another in a determined deliberate action. It’s the law written on the human heart (Jer. 31:31-33, Rms 2:15) which demands the grief and it’s a right and just grief.
Authentic awareness of the deeper realities of the human being is strengthened when actions and experiences activate the primordial imprint to “do good and avoid evil.” These actions and experiences resonate with the innermost instructions written on the human heart (Jer. 31:31-33, Rms 2:15) and lived out in a manner visible to all. Loss of womb guest either through unintentional loss (stillbirth/miscarriage) or through intentional loss (abortion) does not resonate with these inner realities and indeed beckons evil (abortion) where prior none existed.
The memory of the loss of her baby remains as a salvific moment which deepens the understanding of the individual’s personal history, action and then salvation. Indeed, Mercy Love and Mother Love mirror one another. How beautiful it is to say of Mary “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb” because God had designed all wombs to be blessed with the same mystery and blessing. It’s in this mystery which God nears intimately and closely and “overshadows” the woman and placing a new soul into her womb. When pregnant, woman carries two souls, her own and her child (or at times multiple) within her body. What an enormous honour it is that God has entrusted to her, especially after her refusal to honour His request (not to eat of fruit in the garden). This makes it interesting to remember that God never reneges on His intentions and promises and His desire was always for woman to be His co-worker in the continuation of humanity. Into her hands he entrusted the future. Whilst it is the male seed which excites and sparks the cloudburst with its power to pass on life, it’s the woman who receives and accepts the gift which is life.
The man breathes into the new creation thus passing on the breath which was breathed into him and as the divine breath vivified his inanimate form so too man performs the same task, and sparks and vivifies the new creation an image of himself, passing on the same breath he himself received.
It’s no surprise then that the “serpent” chose to tempt woman (Gen 3:5) because it’s she who is his enemy and he knew it. And it’s she, woman, who was designed to carry forward “life” and so it’s she who must crush his head and bring him to heel to honour her God, her own feminine self and her fruit, the child. The very aspect of her which cooperates with God and man to bring forth a new child, the serpent set out to corrupt.
The war against the infant, abortion, is a war against life, maternity, femininity and innocence and this war against the woman and her baby is one which throughout time has been attempted through various means including child sacrifice, infanticide, abandonment and abortion. In this modern era the serpent is more virulent and has again convinced woman to reject her child and she again is listening to his voice.
The elements of the earth are used to form “man” while “woman” is drawn out more refined because God had already “breathed” into Adam when He removed the “rib.” He is the heaviness of earth she is the hidden mystery which carries “life” and together they form the new creation (earthly and spiritually) heading through time and waiting for the new “Adam” Jesus, who in his humanity and divinity would lead the human species towards eternity to fill the paradise left bereft by the fall of some of the angels. How ingenious of God. To enter into the territory of the enemy and lead His own back home.
Woman’s genius is tied to the male role which is to enhance, refine and make whole his own role of continuing the generative act with her, because without her, he again resorts to the company of beasts (Gn:2:20-24), ones not of his “kind” and who are unable to share and generate life with him.
The beast cannot be his “helpmate” but only one “like” himself can fulfil this role.
They together understand the God who created them male and female and who designed her to be the one who would be able to unite herself to him and be in communion with him. To complete him as he can only complete her. Very unlike the beast who can only unite with one of its own species.
Understanding the fecundity of woman is important because even beasts and nature are designed to reproduce and continue generation, but woman is different. She hears and understands that within her that new creation which she carries, begins a new tree of life, a new history, the same as the one begun when love overflowed from God and began the eternal generation of “Adam,” humanity.
While woman in turn would also be recipient of something special from man (his generative spark) in his role as “man,” it is she who returns time and again to unite with him in order that the “rib” (Gen.2:22) forms again the “whole man.” Not “rib-less” man, but when the “rib” (woman) is reunited with the “man” he and she (humanity) is whole. Male and female create a whole.
The man of the first creation, without the “rib” (woman) is helpless and alone but drawn out from him she then returns the love with which he gave her of himself for her to have life. She returns this love in the form of another like him and in his image. However, whilst woman needs to return Adam so as to re-create, it was always in her design that she would be the one to carry forward in her body that creation. Just as it was always in his body the generative seed that would search for her seed begin the new creation. Her receptive nature implies this. Her design implies this. So does the curse after the sin (Gen.3:16). So always woman was to be the one who would co-operate with Adam and God so that spiritual and physical generation of a new creature could happen. God placed the humanity into her hands and into her womb and into her care. To her He entrusted “life” The same life He had created in the beginning.
John Paul II on the Dignity & Vocation of Women
Anne Lastman, Clinical Counsellor,
B.A. (Psy/ Rel Stds) Dip. Ed., MRed. MA (theol. Stds)
Memb Aust Couns Assoc., Memb Fed. Victoria Counsellors.,
Memb Assoc. Psychotherapists and Couns. (Singapore).
Founder Victims of Abortion Trauma Counselling and Info Services
P O Box 6561 Hay Street, East Perth. Western Australia 6892
+61 408175033
