Respect for Life, one healed heart at a time

By Susan Gliko
Rachel’s Hope Coordinator

With the Incarnation, the Son of God assumed human nature and became a man in order to accomplish our salvation in that same human nature. Every moment of Christ’s existence on earth teaches us the meaning, value and dignity of life. The joyful mysteries of the rosary are the perfect meditations to pray and reflect on, especially the Annunciation together with the Visitation. Contemplating Christ’s conception and first moments of his life ultimately lead us to respect life.
At the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel appears to the Blessed Virgin Mary greeting her, “Hail, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.” He tells her she is favored with God and will conceive in her womb, the Son of God, Jesus. Mary says yes, “Let it be done to me according to Thy word.” Immediately the Holy Spirit overshadows her and she conceives Christ.
Mary then takes a hasty trip into the hill country to visit her cousin Elizabeth who is in her sixth month with John the Baptist. When Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting, the infant John leaps in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cries out in a loud voice and says, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.”
Let us unpack what these two meditations reveal to us about life at its earliest moments.
A just-fertilized ovum is called a zygote. It will divide and re-divide repeatedly and develop into a solid, shapeless mass of cells called a morula. Later it becomes a blastocyst. Twelve days after conception, it will implant into the wall of the womb, and is then an embryo.
Mary’s hasty trip may have taken no more than six days. Christ is a blastocyst moving toward implantation in the womb. He is not yet considered an embryo, yet he sanctifies John the Baptist in the womb of Elizabeth and at the same time, he sanctifies each moment of life, from conception to natural death.
However awesome it is to contemplate Christ before he was an embryo already accomplishing God’s plan for our salvation, this reality is heartbreaking for the post-abortive person. Especially when the walls of denial start to crumble, realizing that the dehumanizing terms to describe the unborn, such as blob of tissue, blood clots and “it’s not a baby yet” does not change the fact that what is aborted is a human made in the image and likeness of God.
The post-abortive person comes to a depth of the reality of the loss of the child to abortion that many cannot comprehend. The abortion wound is intimate, personal and deep. It is only in turning to Christ and his salvation, mercy and forgiveness that the post-abortive person can come to reconciliation with God, the child, themselves and the others involved in the abortion.
Individuals who find healing from the wound of abortion then become signposts to others seeking healing. They point the way to hope, they point the way to Christ. They also become signposts to those contemplating abortion, urging them to choose life. After healing, the post-abortive person truly does become “among the most eloquent defenders of everyone’s right to life.”
Respect for ife is becoming a reality one healed heart at a time.

If you or someone you know is hurting from a past abortion, there is hope for healing. Rachel’s Hope will host a Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat Oct. 12-14 in the Helena area. For more information check out www.rachelsvineyard.org or for registration call Susan at 1-888-456-HOPE (4673) or SusanMTRV@msn.com.

Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 23, No. 9, September 21, 2007.