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prayers for childbirth: Christ as companion

7 Comments

prayers for birth 2

The prayer that got me through the toughest part of my labor with my first baby was – quite unexpectedly – part of the prayer of the breastplate of St. Patrick.

I say unexpectedly for two reasons. First, it entered the delivery room via a text from a mother, which is a modern marvel in itself (both texting and the fact that my mom has been converted to its ways; only LOL can capture this completely).

Second, it was a prayer that I was familiar with but never felt any particular affinity for. Yes, it was a lovely prayer; yes, it came from my Irish heritage.

But I was blown away by how perfectly it spoke to me in that moment of helplessness, of needing to know I was being held by something – by Someone – stronger than myself.

I discovered a beautiful video that the Jesuits created with the complete prayer of St. Patrick’s Breastplate, but below are the words that I made my husband read and reread to me during my labor.

The surroundness of Christ has perhaps never been as real or as strong as it was for me in that moment.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

Recently I happened upon a passage in John’s Gospel that stopped me in my tracks: again, a familiar passage that I had never read so personally or poignantly. Jesus speaks of the pain of childbirth in a real and intimate way. He even compares the laboring woman to his wondering followers – probably to the shock of more than a few men in his company!

But what struck me most about this passage was what it says about Incarnation: that Jesus knew and experienced the fullness of what it means to be human. Somehow, mysteriously, that could have included the experience of birth and the pains of labor. The closeness of God and the knowingness of Christ remain mysteries to us all.

So I read these words today as yet another reminder that Christ is our closest companion, whether we are male or female, whether we labor in delivery rooms or at office desks or under the hot summer sun.

Behind us, before us, beside us, beneath us. We will have pain, but our pain will turn to joy.

And no one will take our joy from us.

Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, ‘
Are you discussing among yourselves what I meant when I said,
“A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me”?’

Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice;
you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.
When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come.
But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish
because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.

So you have pain now; but I will see you again,
and you hearts will rejoice, 
and no one will take your joy from you.”
(John 16: 19-22)

Check out the other posts in this series:

  • Prayers for Childbirth: God as Midwife
  • Prayers for Childbirth: Spirit as Intercessor and Groaner

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Amy B says

    12 July 2011 at 3:49 pm

    Beautiful again! How quickly we forget the pain (before and after birth) and long for another sweet child!:). I can’t even imagine what heaven must be like after the toils on earth! It is good to be reminded to keep our eyes pointed heavenward.

    Reply
  2. Sherry says

    14 July 2011 at 1:26 pm

    This is gorgeous, both in spirit and in word. May I link to it?

    Reply
  3. mothering spirit says

    14 July 2011 at 1:38 pm

    Absolutely – thank you, Sherry!

    Reply
    • Sherry says

      18 July 2011 at 11:57 am

      Done! Also tipped you to Creative Minority Report, they’ve linked to your next post, this is beautiful writing. You have a real gift!

      Reply
      • mothering spirit says

        18 July 2011 at 1:58 pm

        Thanks, Sherry – I really appreciate your kind words!

        Reply

Trackbacks

  1. prayers for childbirth: Spirit as intercessor and groaner « mothering spirit says:
    15 July 2011 at 7:28 am

    […] big on the Trinity around here. So once I started this series on prayers for childbirth (here and here), I couldn’t neglect the Third Person […]

    Reply
  2. prayers for childbirth: God as midwife « mothering spirit says:
    1 August 2011 at 9:52 am

    […] prayer, pregnancy, spirituality, theology « watch what you say in front of this kid prayers for childbirth: Christ as companion » LikeBe the first to like this […]

    Reply

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I’m Laura Kelly Fanucci. Mother, writer, wonderer. This space is where I explore mothering through writing. It’s where I celebrate how God shows up in the chaos of raising children. It’s where I love to build community with readers like you. Read More…

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thismessygrace

thismessygrace
Nearly 20 years ago (!) these crazy kids graduated Nearly 20 years ago (!) these crazy kids graduated from Notre Dame. Now we’re thick in the midst of life-with-kids, celebrating middle school & preschool & everything in between. 
 
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Rules: Open to the U.S. only. Entries will be accepted until 6/11/22 at 11:59 pm CT. The 2 winners will be chosen at random and announced on 6/12/22. Per Instagram rules, this promotion is in no way sponsored, administered, or associated with Instagram, Inc. By entering, entrants confirm that they are 13+ years of age, release Instagram of responsibility, and agree to Instagram's terms of use.
“How did you do this?” I want to ask her. “H “How did you do this?” I want to ask her. “How did you let your heart break a thousand times?”

I want to call my mother and ask her impossible questions, to probe her heart that held five children and let each of us go in the hardest ways. But I know what she will say, “It’s hard. But you’re doing a beautiful job.” She can’t give words to the deepest yearnings and groanings. None of us can.

I wish I could ask my grandmothers, each of them gone for decades now, each of them matriarchs who raised big broods of their own. I never got to know them as an adult, but I have heaps of questions: How did you do it? How did you not lose yourself or your way? Or did you, and that was precisely the point?

I want a whole book of answers to impossible questions, and none exists. So I send my thoughts to the mothers of faith whose short stories, mere snippets on pages, have sparked small lights to guide me along. To Sarah and Ruth, Hagar and Rachel, Mary and Elizabeth. Every unnamed anguish the holy ones carried, every treasure of love they held in their heart.

Is it any coincidence that birth often brings both cries and screams, laughter and joy?

We hold it all within us. We cannot give words to the enormity of what it means to mother.

I sit outside a coffee shop two blocks from my children’s school on a sunny afternoon, the last day of the year. I wipe away tears for the natural nostalgia, but I also feel the gutting grief welling up from my own wounds of motherhood to know a deeper truth: marking milestones with love and longing is nothing compared to the gaping loss of not having your child here to break your heart in a thousand tiny ways.

So I resolve again, a hundred times again, to let this vulnerability become the strength that keeps me fighting for all children to have what I want for my own: life, love, health, safety, support, opportunity, community, hope. This is how parenting asks us to change. To let the particulars of our lives stretch us to love more widely.

I once thought “to mother” meant to have and to hold.

Now I know it also means to let go.
Many of you asked me to save these suggestions I s Many of you asked me to save these suggestions I shared after the school shooting in Uvalde.

Remember: we can’t do everything, but we can each do something.

Just because we can’t eradicate evil overnight doesn’t mean we can’t take small strong steps toward change.

Any work for justice and peace is long and hard. But we can build this work into our daily lives in concrete ways.

Look at the children in your life. What would you do to keep them safe and alive?

Start there. Let your life and love lead you.
When women meet, the world changes. Today is the When women meet, the world changes.

Today is the Feast of the Visitation. A day when we remember the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth.

Two women pregnant with new life, blooming with prophetic power.
Two mothers called to change the world.

What would happen if we gathered together like this today?
How could the world change if we made Mary’s song our own?

“He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.”
(Luke 1:51-53)

Imagine if we stayed in this holy space—not for a moment’s meeting, but for months together—to gestate the dreams God was waiting to birth through us.

Imagine if we let ourselves be filled with the Holy Spirit to shout out with loud cries.
Imagine if we lifted our souls with prayers of justice and joy.

Imagine if we gave each other strength and service, courage and compassion, as we kept asking how to answer God’s call in our ordinary lives.

When women meet, the world changes.

If you want to know how to fight for justice for your children, for your people, for this world, look to the Visitation.

The mothers will show us the way. They already have.

(Image from the “Windsock Visitation” by Br. Mickey McGrath, OSFS, commissioned for the Monastery of the Visitation in north Minneapolis.)
Here’s what I wish I would have heard preached t Here’s what I wish I would have heard preached today on the Ascension.

Right now is a time to be prophetic and pastoral, a time for each of us to ask how God is calling us to act.
I am writing this to us next week. When our right I am writing this to us next week.

When our righteous anger will have quieted down. When the white-hot fury pulsing through our veins will have subsided. When the news cycle will have moved on.

Do not forget how we felt tonight.
Stay angry. Flip tables.

We cannot live like this. Literally—our children are dying. Our elders are being murdered. We have accepted violence as—a way of life? An unfortunate side effect of freedom? A helpless shrug?

No. I am not resigned.
Stay angry. Flip tables.

Remember how it felt today to hear the news and feel the world crack open—again, for we have heard it a hundred times now. Remember how you felt sick to your stomach. How the children around you glowed, alive and fragile, miraculous and vulnerable.

Remember how you wanted to do something, anything, how you wanted to act, how you wanted to stop and scream for it to end, how every cell in your body cried out that this was evil and unjust and horrific and cannot continue.

Press into that memory like a bruise.
Stay angry. Flip tables.

The only way anything changes is if we change. Change what we believe. Change who we support. Change how we vote. Change where we give. Change how we act. Change how we speak. Change how we pray.

There are no easy answers to terrible, complex problems—which is what gun violence in the US has become. But the lack of easy answers makes it all the more urgent and vital that we press into our righteous anger and say NO MORE.

Stay angry. Flip tables.

I am writing this for us, for tonight, for next week. And I never want to write it again.
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