Mother Angelica once said that she wished many years in purgatory to those biographers’ who sugarcoat the lives of the saints. Often, when we read about the saints, we hear only about their joys and spiritual feats. We read about their daring adventures to convert souls in distant lands, their lengthy hours of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and their courage to face death with peace and joy. The list goes on.
I will never forget the time when I was in college visiting the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFRs), which I nearly joined. I was on a New York City subway with one of the friars when he accidentally hit a fellow passenger with his backpack. The passenger’s face turned hot red, and he said in a very loud voice to the friar, “Watch it.”
Now, I was expecting the friar to apologize. But instead, the Friar raised his voice and said to the angry man, “Why don’t you go find an empty subway and ride it by yourself?”
I was shocked. I had put this friar and so many of the religious on a pedestal without realizing how human they were. They were sinners just like you and me. Their religious habits hid more than their bellies for some of them; their habits hid their sins.
For years, I too had put the saints on a pedestal. I had made them out to be superheroes (which I still believe they are—superheroes of sanctifying grace). I often thought the saints were always cheerful. I often thought they never complained. I often thought they resigned themselves perfectly to suffering. But I was wrong.
No, the saints experienced everything we have experienced in life, and many were not so perfect. I remember the late Fr. Andrew Apostoli, CFR, saying “a saint is a sinner who keeps trying.” The saints never gave up, especially in the face of life’s greatest tragedies, one being child loss.
Biographers of the saints are quick to point out their holiness, their ecstasies, their extended fasts, but often buried in their story or perhaps intentionally overlooked is the theme of child loss for those married saints.
Often authors will steer the reader to what is on their heart or perhaps what they are struggling with at the time of the book’s writings. Truth be told, when I wrote my 500-page book Parents of the Saints, my wife and I had lost two children from miscarriage. Hence the chapter on suffering was filled with stories of child loss from the saints.
I remember reading the biography of St. Gianna Molla, only to find one line about her two miscarriages. I thought to myself: If only the biographer could have went deeper on this matter. If only a witness could have shared how these miscarriages affected St. Gianna Molla and her husband. Did she bounce back right away or did these tragedies impact her and her husband greatly? What did she do to heal?
Thanks be to God, I was able to find a witness, a living relic, in St. Gianna’s daughter Gianna Emmanuela, with whom I have since become close friends. In my new book Nursery of Heaven: Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss from the Lives of the Saints and Today’s Parents, which I co-authored with Cassie Everts, I was able to interview Gianna Emmanuela about her parents’ loss.
“My Mom and my Dad accepted these sufferings, but it was not easy,” Gianna Emanuela said. “Throughout their lives, they always accepted God’s holy will, even when it was very difficult to accept, even when it was not immediately understandable. They always recognized that God’s plan was the best plan. Despite their sorrows, they always completely trusted in Divine Providence.”1
Although several saints have lost children at all ages, Nursery of Heaven focuses on miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss. Saints and future saints such as St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, Bl. Catalina de María Rodríguez, Bl. Frédéric Ozanam, St. Louis and St. Zélie Martin, Servants of God Cyprien and Daphrose Rugumba, and Servant of God Chiara Corbella Petrillo all experienced the tragedy of burying a young child.
Saints also lost siblings. St. Catherine of Siena lost her twin sister at birth. St. Josemaría Escrivá lost three siblings.
Child loss is a travesty that wounds the entire family from grandparents down to siblings.
I knew a priest once who was crippled by the loss of a young child from his parish. The child less than three years-old died in a horrific accident.
Losing a child is unnatural—a consequence of original sin. Child loss is a cross no parent or sibling should have to carry, and one none of us is prepared for. And yet, Our Lady of Kibeho reminds us that “no one will reach heaven without suffering.”2
The saints’ lives were not filled with only happiness and heroic acts, contrary to many biographers. The saints experienced the greatest sufferings, which often included the loss of a child—the most devasting sorrow any parent will experience in this life. They experienced grief that ripped them to the core.
But the saints are now fully alive in Heaven. In times when we feel alone and isolated after losing a child, because few understand our pain, let us turn our gaze heavenward to God and His saints. This heavenly army—the communion of saints—fought the good fight, and they want to help us. They are only one prayer away. They beckon us to keep trying and to never lose the Faith. They long for us to join them in our true celestial homeland where there will be no more weeping and mourning. In Heaven, God willing should we make it, we will be reunited with our loved ones and gaze forever on the face of God.
Editor’s Note: The author’s book, co-authored with Cassie Everts, is entitled Nursery of Heaven: Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss from the Lives of the Saints and Today’s Parents and is available from Sophia Institute Press.
Photo courtesy of Gianna Emanuela Molla. Retrieved from National Catholic Register.
1Cassie Everts and Patrick O’Hearn, Nursery of Heaven, 26.
2“Elements of the Message of Kibeho,” Kibeho Sanctuary.
