ARTICLES

Prodigal Daughter

Post-Abortion Sacraments

by Allyson Smith

This is the second part of of a two-part article, taken from Prodigal Daughters, by Donna Steichen. The first part appeared in last month's issue. Published by Ignatius Press, San Francisco. Used with permission. To order, call 1-800-651-1531 or visit website, www.ignatius.com.

In 1988, when I was offered an open-ended contract as a consultant in Honolulu, I didn't think twice before accepting. My mother and my darling Nanna, now 74 years old, helped me pack my belongings for storage, and they watched with tears as my plane took off across the Pacific Ocean. As I waved goodbye to them, I did not guess that I would never see Nanna alive again.

In the fragrant beauty of my new environment, my heart began to heal. I felt happier, and started to regain the weight I had lost. Occasionally, at the invitation of my client, Sulea, I even attended Sunday worship services. But those evangelical services, in an auditorium-like setting with a preacher dressed in street clothes, didn't feel right to me.

It was late September when I arrived in Hawaii. Uncertain how long I would be there, I decided not to go home for the holidays, but to stay in Honolulu to experience a Hawaiian Christmas. Once more, kind Sulea invited me to attend evangelical services with her on Christmas Day, but I politely declined. Instead, for first time in many years, I located a nearby Catholic Church and went alone to Midnight Mass.

My decision to attend was not the result of a recognizable flash of inspiration, but I believe the Holy Spirit planted the idea in my mind. During that Mass, a tiny light started to flicker again in my soul where darkness had ruled for so long. The priest in his vestments, the incense, the moment of Consecration: suddenly all of it felt right. Though there were few other Caucasian faces in the congregation, I knew I belonged here. Surprised, I thought "I've really missed this!" I was further surprised to find myself returning to Mass at that church the Sunday after Christmas, and the Sunday after that. And the Sunday after that.

I wasn't fully back in the Church yet, but the spark of faith rekindled in me that Christmas night marked an important turn off the road of destruction that I'd been traveling. God had seen this prodigal daughter while she was yet far off.

A month later, I called my mother one Friday afternoon, and the moment she answered the phone, I knew by her voice that something was dreadfully wrong.

"Nanna died today," she said. Death had come during the afternoon, with a cardiac arrest, while Nanna was at home alone.

I flew from Honolulu to San Diego the next morning and stayed with my mother as she arranged for Nanna's body to be flown to Pennsylvania for burial. On Sunday, when we knelt at Mass together at Holy Trinity Church, where Nanna had held me when I was baptized nearly 30 years earlier, both Mom and I wept in grief, but we were also comforted. Because Nanna was a faithful Catholic, I felt assured that she was with Jesus. Aware that she had always prayed for me, I also hoped she knew, now, that I was edging my way back into the Church.

The next day, we flew to Pennsylvania, on the same plane with Nanna's body. The weather in the east was brutally cold, in contrast to the Hawaiian warmth I had left only days previously. The atmosphere could not have been more funereal. While staying at my uncle's house, waiting for the funeral, I picked up a book of Catholic prayers, and flipped it open. The first thing my eye fell on was the Salve Regina, my favorite childhood prayer. "Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope . . ." As I read it, I could hear in my memory my mother's voice, as I had heard it when I was a tiny girl.

At that moment, the little flicker of light brightened in my soul. It was like a gift from Nanna, that reminder of those days of lost security. I knew with certainty that the Catholic faith that my mother had tried to teach me, despite the worst of circumstances, was real and alive. In the midst of sorrow, there was a promise of eternal life for Nanna, and strong hope even for me.

We buried Nanna in a pink dress, with a Rosary in her hands. When I touched her hands and kissed her lips, her body was icy cold, but the expression on her face was peaceful, and I too felt a new sense of peace.

A new job opportunity took me to Chicago the following summer. The transition was not easy that first year, as I sought to learn my way around, adjust to the unfamiliar climate, find a parish and make new friends. Soon after I arrived, I met Maureen Malone, an Irish Catholic high school teacher who haled from Detroit, and she quickly became my best friend. It was she who introduced me to my new parish, in Naperville, Illinois.

The moment I saw Saints Peter and Paul Church, I knew it was the place for me. I loved the beauty of its Gothic architecture, its stained glass windows and carved wooden reredos, the gold tabernacle in the marble sanctuary, the kneelers and Communion rail, as well as the choir that performed at the 9:30 Mass every Sunday. I was conscious that some things had changed in the decades I had been away. But the parishioners were friendly and welcoming, and the general atmosphere was far more relaxed than the strictly disciplined Catholicism I recalled from Sacred Heart Convent School. I was also drawn to one of the associate pastors there, Father Doug Hauber.

Fr. Doug gave new meaning to my definition of a priest. Thirty years old and only recently ordained, he was handsome, engaging, and a wonderful homilist. Before meeting him, I had always pictured priests as stern and elderly, the way they had seemed when I was a child. Not only was Fr. Doug near my own age, he was always smiling and vivacious. The "joy of the Lord" was written all over his face, and on many occasions over the next several years, I was to find in it the face of Jesus Christ.

As months passed, the fact that I had never confessed my abortion weighed ever more heavily on my mind. I knew that if I was serious about practicing my Catholic faith again, I would have to go to Confession. I had not been to Confession for twenty years. After fretting about it for weeks, I finally gathered up the courage to go one Saturday. First I called the parish office and learned that Fr. Doug would be hearing confessions that afternoon.

Sweating profusely, I stood in his line, and when my turn came, I opened the confessional door with trembling hands. What I saw next surprised me; there was an inviting chair beyond the screen. "Wow, is this ever different from the last time," I thought, as I sat down awkwardly.

Fr. Doug turned to face me as I settled into the chair. I told him he had to help me, as I had not been to confession in so very long. Everything came pouring out: my affairs, my abortion, and more. Father treated me gently, yet he probed my conscience thoroughly. When I was finished, he took my hands and asked if I needed post-abortion counseling. As he pronounced the words of absolution, my Heavenly Father welcomed His prodigal daughter all the way home at last.

I walked out of the confessional feeling lighter than air. All the pain of those years of sin was lifted from me, and my heart was filled with the joy of Resurrection. From that day on, instead of dreading the Sacrament of Penance as I had when I was a child, I have loved it, because now I understand its healing power.

Over the next few years in Chicago, God blessed my life in many wonderful ways. I began working toward my master's degree, bought a small townhouse, and made friends my own age through a Catholic singles group. Meeting friends through the Church was a new experience. Often we would attend Mass together at different churches around the diocese, and afterwards gather for brunch. Sometimes we helped out at a local food pantry. Those were happy times for me. As I enjoyed wholesome fun with people who shared my religious convictions, I realized that Ray Murphy, my old music teacher, had been right when he told me that the Church was a good place to meet good people. I was sorry it had taken me so long to see it.

By mid-1993, I had been going to Mass regularly for almost five years, and living in Chicago for four. The greatest fruit of my conversion was the interior peace of knowing that God loves me. It had really been His love that I sought so fruitlessly from my father and so destructively from other men for many years. I felt God's love in the blessings of my new friendships, and in the fullness and contentment of my life. It was the secure center around which everything else now revolved: my Sunday Mass attendance, my work, my academic studies, the company I kept and my general outlook. For about a year, I had a chaste dating relationship with one man, and after it ended, I didn't try to date anymore. Gradually the urgent longing to be married had faded, and I was content.

I was unaware that a great battle was raging all around me. But that was soon to change.

That July, for the first time in my life, I was laid off from my job. As I looked for new work over the next six weeks, I had a lot of free time, but no money. Looking for inexpensive ways to fill my days, I discovered that the parish had Mass at 5:30 every afternoon. I had never gone to daily Mass before, but soon I realized that I loved it even more than Sunday Mass.

When Mass was over, I would check the book rack at the back of the Church for reading material others had left. One day, I found six copies of The Wanderer newspaper. I had never seen it before, so I took them home and started reading one. Within several hours I had devoured all six copies. As soon as I could afford to do so, I took out a subscription of my own.

Also in the book rack were copies of HLI Reports, a newsletter published by Human Life International. I was fascinated by what I read in them about the slippery slope of contraception and "the culture of death." I had never understood before the connections between contraception, fornication, marital infidelity, divorce and abortion. But after reading a few issues, I recognized the good sense in their commentary. My own life provided all the evidence needed to show where contraception and illicit sexual behavior could lead.

God used those weeks of unemployment to instruct me in the basic teachings of the Catholic faith. Stirred by my new understanding of Church doctrine, and shocked by what I was learning about attacks on the Catholic Church in America, I began to see more clearly what had gone on in the years following the Second Vatican Council. The beautiful Catholicism I had known as a little girl had been watered down in many places to fit contemporary tastes.

Thus in a period of personal and financial hardship, the Lord blessed me with more light than I could ever have expected. As I studied Church teachings, and as I contemplated the crucifix, I gained new insight into the infinite depth of God's love. I began to see that His laws and doctrines express His great love for us, His desire for our highest good. I was overwhelmed to realize that He loved me so much that He sent His Son to die on a cross for me. My love for him grew deeper, and I began to long for ways to show Him my love and gratitude in return.

The quiet little flame that had been burning in my heart these past few years blazed up like lightning as I finally understood the tragic condition of our world. Through His Church, the Son of God offers us the salvation He purchased at such terrible cost, yet the world rejects Him, defames His Church and persecutes His defenders. Suddenly I recognized the great spiritual conflict St. Paul speaks of in Ephesians 6:12, "we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."

It was a transforming experience, the kind you can never forget or turn back from. The five years since I began that spiritual journey into deepened conversion have brought a series of adventures, amazing coincidences, and answered prayers. The Holy Spirit, Who had already changed me from a non-practicing Catholic to a practicing one, began to change me from a relaxed, Sunday-only Catholic to a fully committed soldier on active duty in the Church Militant.

Conscious that God's army travels on its knees, rather than its stomach, I first added a daily Rosary to daily Mass, and started making frequent Holy Hours before the Blessed Sacrament, asking to know God's will. Then, fired by a sense of sacred responsibility, I moved into an entirely new level of activism. I attended lectures and took courses in the faith, wrote letters and did telephone surveys in defense of the right to life, prayed and witnessed in front of abortion clinics, sponsored a little girl in a Chilean mission, visited convents, seminaries and shrines, and considered whether God might want me to enter the religious life.

First, I remembered that I had never received the Sacrament of Confirmation. This put me in an unsuitable position; as a would-be defender of the faith, I would always need to stay as close as possible to the Holy Spirit. So the following fall, I enrolled in the RCIA program at Saints Peter and Paul's and tardily began the process that would make me an adult Catholic.

I expected to enjoy the weekly class sessions. Certainly I did not expect to publicly challenge statements made by the Sister who led the group. But almost all the others in the class were converts from other faith traditions, who did not know enough of the Catholic faith to question anything she taught. So when Sister said that Scripture does not make clear the existence of Hell, and asserted, repeatedly, that traditional Catholics were "unenlightened" and "spiritually immature," I felt reluctantly obliged to challenge her, even if it made me look like the class black sheep.

A richer, more powerful preparation for this great sacrament was the pilgrimage I made with my mother to the Holy Land in February. During Mass at the Shepherd's Cave in Bethlehem, I recognized a description of my own life when I read from Isaiah 9:2-4: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined," Walking in the footsteps of Jesus for those fourteen days made the Lenten Scripture readings truly come alive for me when I came back home, just a few weeks before Easter.

My Confirmation, during the 1995 Easter Vigil, was a day of exaltation. There, in my beautiful parish church, in the presence of my mother and close friends, as well as all the priests, nuns and parishioners who had helped me along so generously in my faith journey, I received the Holy Spirit from my pastor, Fr. James Burnett, and, at nearly 35, became at last a full member of the Catholic Church.

In succeeding months, the thought of returning to San Diego was often on my mind and in my prayers. When I was laid off my job a second time the following winter, I decided this was the right occasion to go. I said reluctant good-byes to the close friends and parish family I had come to love, listed my house for sale, and made shipping arrangements for my household goods.

It was early July when I arrived in California, but my household goods never came. Nearly all of them were destroyed in a flood during the move. As I struggled in those first few months to find work, and at the same time to salvage what remained of my property and to replace what had been destroyed, I learned how disconcerting it is to be unexpectedly stripped of one's possessions. Yet I also found that God still kept me in His Providence, as He has in every stage of my spiritual journey. When He takes away, He never fails to give back far more than He has taken. With my loss, He taught me a new compassion for the displaced, and showed me that I don't need great possessions to live a happy and fruitful life.

Living close to my family again brought the unexpected joy of getting to know my sister, Alyssa, better than I had before. She often joins us for the weekend, full of laughter and love, and with her patience, humility and generosity, she has taught all of us valuable lessons in living.

A "fruitful life" for me still means Catholic activism, which has given me frequent occasion to recall Jesus' words about rejoicing when men speak evil against you for His sake. These days, for example, my primary activity is writing. A scurrilous morning radio show in San Diego features a weekly parody of the Sacrament of Penance, called "Lash Wednesday." One disc jockey pretends to be a priest in a "radio confessional," while listeners call in to compete for prizes by "confessing," on the air, their "worst" sins, usually sexual in nature. When my article condemning the show's sacrilegious anti-Catholicism was published, the disc jockeys mocked me on the air by reading it, with scornful hoots, to their audience of commuters.

Listening to their vicious insults stung, and I didn't feel any better when friends and family members criticized me for writing the story and "stirring up controversy." But I also found people who think as I do, and now I serve on the advisory board of the local Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

In these times, when there is such grave disorder within the Church, I sometimes understand the emotions of those who do not stay. But the feeling never lasts long enough to become a temptation. Where else would I go? In my own life, these past ten years, I have seen more than enough evidence of God's loving Providence to keep me in the fold. Despite her current problems, I know with total conviction that the Church was founded by Jesus Christ Himself and she alone is heir to the deposit of faith given by Our Lord to the Apostles and handed down in an unbroken line of apostolic succession from then to now. No institution could survive as she has, if it were guided by mere human wisdom alone.

I know that Our Lord is performing in me some work as yet unfinished, a work that I will not fully understand until I join Him in Heaven. He forgave me for leaving Him, and reached out in tender mercy to bring me back. My hope is that I can show His face to someone else who is as lost as I once was. For I am home at last, and I will never leave again.

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