Seeking Tranquility Amid Pregnancy

Are the pangs of pregnancy a curse? Is there merit to this kind of suffering? Are we allowed to complain to God? These are among the many questions that are addressed in our latest chat installment. Life is full of complications and questions regarding the hardships we face and the suffering we must endure. We need good pastors to guide us as we navigate these harsh realities of life, and we need faith to discover that our suffering is not without meaning and benefit. We have only this one life to offer to God, and that is what we must do with it if we are to make any sense of it.

Our latest chat installment stems from a letter by St Francis de Sales addressed to a woman who is enduring the difficulties of pregnancy. Discover with our chatters the beauty and value of having a good pastor to comfort us, and learn the utmost importance of being real with God and surrendering to God..

A Pastor’s Heart

Visitation Sister: In this letter St Francis is giving spiritual advice to a pregnant woman and it seems like sensible advice to me.

Sherry: So so “sweet.” I was so touched when I read the grace he extended as a Spiritual Advisor. It must have set this woman so free to be “herself” in front of GOD – in this trying time.

Visitation Sister: St Francis knew how to talk to anyone.

Sherry: I think St. Francis truly carried God’s love in him. And God can talk to anyone. This love in St. Francis is so utterly attractive and always always wants me to get to know GOD and His love better.

Rebecca: I suspect that maybe except for the superior, life is simpler and more clearly oriented toward becoming holy, and there are helps like the Blessed Sacrament more readily available.

Visitation Sister: I think he means challenges by contradictions. Probably that and more.

Sherry: So, does anyone else sometimes fantasize having a life as a religious where you are allowed to pray anytime you want? I sure did in the past. Until I talked to some religious sisters and saw that even amongst religious there is sometimes a desire to have more time for GOD and less work by hand. I so long to have access to a chapel during the day.

Bethany: Jesus said I am the bread of life, just come to me and never get hungry and thirsty.

Visitation Sister: And yes, unless one is a hermit there is lots to do in a monastery.

Lucy: I would presume that there will always be personality conflicts, but it must be helpful to live with people with the common goal of loving and serving God which is not always the case for the laity.

Sherry: I think as a laity you usually choose the people you live with. In a religious setting you have to live together without your initial choice. I can imagine major personality clashes sometimes.

Caroline: I think it’s safe to say that people in monasteries have the same faults and failings we all do but are still set apart for God.

Sherry: I always underestimated the work in a monastery, I think. Just because it looks so tranquil from the outside does not mean there is no work going on.

Rebecca: So do I. I moved into a house within walking distance of a Catholic Church, but that church was closed, locked practically all the time. Now it is open for just an hour on Sundays, in the summertime anyway, when there are many vacation guests and the “snowbirds.”

Sherry: Same here, Rebecca. I literally live 2 minutes away from a Catholic Church, but it is never open. Only on Sunday for Mass.

Caroline: A locked church just seems so wrong.

Visitation Sister: I think we all have our individual challenges gauged by God as to what we can handle.

Bethany: There is a Catholic Church closed by my home in Kansas City called Holy Cross.

Visitation Sister: His Presence makes all the difference in each of our lives.

Lucy: For any who have locked churches, sometimes you can speak to the priest or the office that cares for it and get a key and permission to enter.

Sherry: Thanks Lucy. Not a bad idea.

The Curse of Eve?

Visitation Sister: Anyone ready for this next question: Discuss the effects of original sin as seen in the struggles of pregnancy and the pangs of labor.

Sherry: What a great question, Rebecca. When I read this question in the newsletter, I thought: “what can one discuss on that? It is a curse,” but then I thought… Hmmm… Struggle to give life. I wonder if there is a parallel thought.

Rebecca: Does God curse anyone, Sherry?

Sherry: What a great question, Rebecca. Well, I thought that “removing” the blessing of eternal life – is considered a curse. Not sure. Am I wrong? Please help me out here.

Caroline: We are struggling to give birth to eternal life?

Sherry: Yes, Caroline, same thought here. Also, for me pregnancy always means to lay one’s life down so someone else can live. In some ways it is not the full life, but we enter significant pain during pregnancy and birth.

Rebecca: Hmmm. I’ve seen a woman actually enjoying giving birth. She compared it to paddling a canoe! And it was her first pregnancy in her thirties!

Sherry: I am really glad for this woman who so joyfully could give birth, sure not my story.

Redemptive Suffering, aka “Offer it up”

Visitation Sister: How can we make proper use of occasions of mortification, or particular difficulties, as shown in this letter?

Caroline: Mortifications are a source of grace if united to Jesus.

Sherry: “Dispose yourself to meet your suffering with love.” – is that what St. Francis answers here?

Visitation Sister: Yes, I think so.

Sherry: Caroline, can you explain a little bit more on that? Sorry, do not want to put you on the spot, so just pass if you want, OK?

Bethany: God is the greatest helper. We must trust him. Nothing is greater than God’s help. Sometimes our love needs management and control, but God always helps us when we need his help.

Rebecca: Sherry, I have one poem that I wrote in German, and when I saw it just recently I thought of you and your course. Wanna find a way to get it to you, that is “I want to” (slang, I think, or a common contraction).

Caroline: If we do not give our mortifications to Jesus then we are just suffering. If we do surrender them, then He transforms them and us.

Rebecca: I agree, Caroline.

Sherry: Well said, Caroline, thanks, great thought. And, Rebecca, I would LOVE to read your poem. I sent you my email in the private chat here.

Lucy: I am still a bit shaky on “mortifications,” but if they are basically any occasion which we would have preferred to be different, but accept them as being at least the permitted will of God and offer at least our willingness to accept this, then God’s grace can enter into the occasion….

Sherry: Love the way you define “mortifications,” Lucy.

Visitation Sister: You can also look at it like discipline with love of God as motive.

Sherry: I love that too. The Holy Spirit is giving everyone such great thoughts tonight.

Lucy: Discipline as in correction? Or as in exercise or practice?

Sherry: I thought as in exercise or practice originally – but I can also see it in the other way.

Caroline: Both.

Rebecca: There are blessings even in suffering.

Sherry: Yes, on some days we might need a magnifying glass to find them, but they are always there.

Rebecca: At least that is so when we offer them up they are a kind of prayer FOR OTHERS, for people who have asked us to pray for them and even some — God knows who they are – who do not even realize that they need prayer.

Sherry: I am making progress in understanding the “offering up,” but there are still some corners of this teaching where I stumble.

Complaining to God

Visitation Sister: What does it mean to complain to God in a spirit of dependence? How can we find tranquility in times of complaint?

Bethany: Sister, what does that mean complain, can you explain to us so we can understand?

Visitation Sister: Sometimes Bethany we complain to God about things that happen like in the psalms.

Lucy: Even with our human friends, some simply incite more discontent while others provide good counsel – God is always the best.

Caroline: God also can solve what we cannot.

Rebecca: It is ok to cry out to God about what one finds disturbing or what hurts seemingly beyond the bearable. Even Jesus in his human person did and felt abandoned by the Father.

Visitation Sister: I think it is so unless God gives extra grace.

What Can You Give?

Visitation Sister: Last question. Discuss this line: “You can only give what you have got.” I think it is so unless God gives extra grace.

Caroline: If we don’t go to Him first, we will have nothing to give.

Lucy: As a single mom, I was very aware of this reality. If I did not take the time to take care of myself, there was nothing left to give to others. This is true spiritually as well as physically. We need to take the time to renew and refresh ourselves with God and be gentle with ourselves to understand when we simply have less ability to give.

If you liked the chat above, check out the Living Jesus Chat Room of the Visitation Sisters. Join us at 7:30 p.m. ET each Sunday!