By Sr. Angela Marie, RGS

“She stunned us with her perfection. Fresh from another galaxy, she radiated an untarnished glory. Everything about her was an intimation of the divine images. We took turns holding her greedily absorbing her baby scent, and nearly falling over from giddiness and joy.”
(Gloria Hutchinson, Praying The Rosary)

The above quote from Gloria Hutchinson who describes her first encounter with her first grandchild is a perfect description of every newborn baby, girl or boy, brown, black or white. When we celebrated the bi-centennial anniversary of our foundress, St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, and he special gift to our gift to our community, we celebrated this unique ministry to new born babies and their mothers and Grace Maternity Hospital. It is a very and privilege ministry to yawning, crying, feeding, sleeping, “grace –full” babies, radiant mothers glowing with joy, pride, beaming daddies, smiling grandparents, some excited siblings and happy visitors.

Amazing Grace

These tiny and precious gifts of god to our world, I call “Amazing Grace” To look at them is a prayer, a beautiful prayer in thanksgiving for life! There is something extraordinary about these newborn babies – they radiate a special glow that fills one with awe, peace and a quiet joy.

Perfect Miracles

Once in a while, there are anxious parents like the parents of the triplets who were born pre-mature and were underweight. We baptized them right away; they are now doing fine and consuming gallons of milk. There are also babies born with holes in the heart or who need a liver transplant. Their mothers need comforting and prayers. There are also mothers who need someone to listen to their joys, their anxieties and their dreams for their children. For the most part, it is always nearly falling over from giddiness and joy welcoming God’s perfect miracles!

Heart Attack

To be with the children is to have one’s heart soar and dance when bones knit and heal, and surgical wounds disappear; when legs and limbs grow strong, and smiling faces wave “good bye” and God Bless” it is also to have one’s heart broken over and over again when teary-eyed nurses inform you that the surgery was not successful; the doctor gave pretty three-year old Lizzie only four months to live, and baby Gabriel has gone home to God!

Courage

“I thank God everyday – each day my son is alive... and recovering from pneumonia,” one mother told me the first time I met her and her twelve-year old son who has been at this hospitals for several weeks. She is young and vulnerable-looking but she is cheerful, strong and brave. Her love for her son makes me think mothers are among God’s most beautiful creature. Her son has cerebral palsy.

Sad, No Dad

At the hospital, their is a very little sign of pain except on the parent s’ anxious faces as they talk with the doctors or watch the children. Their toys surrounding them, there are patients with broken arms or legs, toes or fingers caught in an accident, in casts; burns on skins, stitches on surgical cuts that they display to me to me with pried, they are a happy group, playing together or alone, there may be a lonely child, like the little blonde girl who was sad and confused because no one ever came to see her after she was admitted. She told me she has “no dad” but she has a “variety of fathers”.

Also Pain

The intensive care unit is quiet, almost like a chapel, the babies in their incubators, sleeping peacefully, breathing gently. There are rooms with patients stuck with needless all over their bodies, wires all over their beds. There are babies who have not yet celebrated their first birthdays but have had major surgeries to fix their heart with holes, or receive organ transplants. There in much pain in this ministry: a ministry of encouragement, companionship and friendship, healing and prayers, of waiting and hoping and giving comfort, with the children, their families, the doctors and nurses and other volunteers.

All a Prayer

To be with God’s children and share their pain and suffering, their hopes and their dreams is a form of prayer. I thank God that each difficulty, every illness is an opportunity to see Jesus at work to strengthen our faith, I thank God for bringing these people into my life – a life enriched with God’s amazing grace