Denver Catholic

CATHOLIC LIFE I 3 DENVER CATHOLIC REGISTER I NOVEMBER 6, 2013 Couples find healing in praying for their miscarried children BERNADETTE and Matt Prochaska pray together during a special Mass on All Souls' Day, Nov. 2 at Queen of Peace Church in Aurora, to honor miscarried and stillborn babies. BY JULIE FILBY Losing a child to miscarriage is a painful experience. "Miscarriage is not something that people talk about," Bernadette Prochaska told a congregation of about 400 gathered at Queen of Peace Church in Aurora Nov. 2. "And until I had mine I didn't realize how complicated they were." Prochaska shared her powerful testimony during a special Mass on All Souls' Day to honor and pray for miscarried and stillborn children, and help comfort and support their grieving families. "My husband Matt and I have lost two babies in the last two years," she continued, pausing to collect herself while speaking of the painful losses. "We both want to have a large family and have been looking forward to being parents since the day we got married." While each loss was devastating, she said, there are practical things they did that have brought them healing and recognized the children's God-given dignity: the first was to name the baby. Their first, lost at 12 weeks, they believed was a boy and they named him Samuel Gerard; the second, Clare Gianna. "Naming them made them so much more real to us," she said. "We speak of them by name; we also ask them to pray for us." The other thing they did was have a memorial Mass and burial for each, something they hadn't considered previously for a miscarried baby. After losing Clare at five weeks and six days gestation, Prochaska was in the hospital preparing for necessary follow-up surgery. While signing document after document, she was appalled when she came across one of the forms provided by the nurse: the document authorized disposing of "the product" as medical waste. "The thought of throwing her away as 'medical waste...,'" she struggled as she relayed the story; PHOTO BY JULIE FILBY/DENVER CATHOLIC REGISTER many in the congregation joining her in tears. "It broke my heart." She refused to sign it, and asked for the baby's remains for a proper burial. "We had to fight to be able to treat Clare with the dignity she deserved," she said. Ultimately, they were able to bury their daughter at Sacred Heart of Mary Cemetery in Boulder, and they take comfort in visiting the site. "There's a lot of uncertainty about how to handle the reality of miscarriage," Prochaska said. "I think this is due to the fact that most miscarriages happen so early in pregnancy: before you can see the baby on the ultrasound, before you can feel it move, and before you look pregnant." She encouraged those parents to not be tempted to just "move on" because not dealing with the loss of the child can prevent them from getting the healing they need. This was the case for the family of Father John Nepil, parochial vicar at Queen of Peace, who celebrated the Mass—a Mass he organized prompted by his family's grief over the loss of his two older siblings to miscarriage many years ago. Their grief has come to the surface in the last 12 years or so, he said, as their faith has deepened, prompting a "deeper recognition of life." "As it looks, I'm the oldest of three," Father Nepil said in his homily. "But my brother reminds me I'm the middle child." His older siblings are "completely unique and beautiful in the eyes of God," he said. "Because they're with Christ, they're more real than I am." While it is difficult and often messy to deal with the grief, it is important to recognize these real children, with real souls. "To live a life recognizing life, and recognizing the fullness of our family life, is a profound freedom," he said. "The pain of it is worth it ... you have to trust that they are with the Lord." Julie Filby: 303-715-3123; julie. filby@archden.org; www.twitter. com/DCRegisterJulie Saintly friends SECOND-GRADE students at St. Thomas More School in Centennial venerate a firstclass relic of their school's patron following Mass on All Saints' Day, Nov. 1. The parish displayed 42 relics for veneration that day. PHOTO BY JULIE FILBY/DENVER CATHOLIC REGISTER REAL LIFE CATHOLIC CHRISTOPHER STEFANICK Our messaging problem, and the solution If you stand too close to Niagara Falls, a wall of the Grand Canyon, or a Van Gogh, all you'll see is rushing water, a slab of red rock and some thick paint that could have been slapped onto a canvas by a kindergartener. With some things you can't capture the beauty unless you step back and see the big picture. Marriage is like that. What if you could only see one aspect of what marriage is all about: the sacrifices you have to make? You get to give up all your closet space. You get to never keep your money to yourself ever again. You get to report your whereabouts to someone else ... at all times. If that's all there was, few things would be as unattractive as marriage. But if you take a step back and see marriage in the context of love: That you get to give your life to a beautiful woman who gives hers in exchange, and the result is an explosion of more life that forever changes the universe; suddenly all those sacrifices seem small, or at least worth making! The same is true with faith. When we forget "the big picture," Christianity usually strikes people as no more than disjointed doctrines to learn, repressive rules to follow, and if you're a Catholic, you'll top that off with a few irrational rituals. There's no doubt that the world caricaturizes Christianity, and Christians in this way. If you don't know how we Christians, who are engaged in pro-life or pro-"traditional" marriage, are seen by the world, just turn on your TV. Media often depicts us as unloving, angry moralists who are out-of-touch with the needs of people in the "real" world. It's an inaccurate and unfair portrayal, no doubt. I know plenty of pro-lifers who are devoting their lives to proclaiming the gospel of life, and the only motive they bring to the abortion clinics they pray outside of is love. They are ever ready to show the compassion of Jesus to the women being lied to by abortionists who care more about "cash or credit?" than they do about walking with them through their fear and offering them positive alternatives. But regardless, perception is reality, and the world's caricaturization is a very real obstacle to the Gospel being proclaimed to the western world today. When the average non-Christian looks at a cross and sees a sign of intolerance or repression, it's safe to say we have a serious messaging problem. I think our pope has made it his central mission to address that problem. That's why, in his recent interview with America Magazine, he said, "We (as a Church) cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods.... When we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context." So what's the context of which he speaks? In a word: Love. God IS Love. The good news of the Gospel is that Love created us to be one with him forever. When we wandered from Love, he sought us out through the prophets. When we still rejected him, he became one of us and laid down his body and his life to win us back. The Bible is a love story! When we fail to grasp the context of love, there's nothing more unattractive than things like marriage ... and Christianity. They make all the demands of love and offer none of the rewards. That's why Blessed John Paul II said that "Religion itself, without the experience of the wondrous discovery of the Son of God and communion with him who became our brother, becomes a mere set of principles which are increasingly difficult to understand, and rules which are increasingly hard to accept." And Pope Benedict XVI said that the Church can't become "identified with certain commandments or prohibitions." That's because if Christianity is only identified with these issues, "we give the impression that we are moralists with a few somewhat antiquated convictions, and not even a hint of the true greatness of the faith appears." You see, despite the crazy headlines from secular news agencies about Pope Francis' interview marking a radical See Stefanick, Page 4

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