The Lord Gives and The Lord Takes Away...

“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!”
Job 1:21

Anthony Francis,
Your dad and I took a chance and God created you. Your conception was a gift and your death too is a gift because now you are truly home. You came forth from His hand and in just 11 weeks He called you back to His heart. How you must have leapt with joy to know that you were to return so soon to the one who created you. In the words of St. Augustine "You have made us and directed us toward yourself and our heart is restless until we rest in you." After suffering a short passion where you were bathed and drowned in blood you will now rest for eternity in God. Your life has just begun. The quote I read the day you died was “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life” – St. Basil, Adversus Eunomium III.
We baptized you, Anthony Francis, after St. Anthony of Padua and St. Francis de Sales, two very gentle, simple and humble saints. Two of my favorite quotes from St. Francis are “Nothing is as strong gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength” and “Give me souls and take away everything else”. St. Francis is responsible for the Salesian order while St. Anthony joined the Franciscan order. While I was pregnant with you I often found myself praying the later quote of St. Francis and you, dear Anthony Francis, are an answer to that prayer. After your death, I even told God that if He wanted me to be a vessel for souls to be created and then ascend to heaven I would do it and even if He took all my children I would still love Him. When I was laboring to deliver you, my main thought was to recover your body so that we could baptize you. In both the loss of you and your brother, David Mary, God has given us the incredible consolation of recovering your bodies and baptizing you. In your death He even granted me the grace to recover your body intact and to hold and kiss your tiny body. Anthony Francis, you are incredibly beautiful and it was amazing to hold your tiny 1.5 inch body and see how perfectly you were made, calling to mind Psalm 139:13-14, “You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are your works! My very self you knew”.
(Click on a picture to see full image)

My gentle Anthony, perhaps you were too gentle for this world and God called you quickly to Himself to preserve your perfect love and innocence. I chose Wisdom 4:7-15 for the first reading at your funeral mass. Verses 10-11, 13-14 read “He who pleased God was loved; he who lived among sinners was transported, snatched away, lest wickedness pervert his mind or deceit beguile his soul; Having become perfect in a short while, he reached the fullness of a long career, for his soul was pleasing to the Lord, therefore he sped him out of the midst of wickedness.” I then chose Psalm 27 because versus 4 reads “One thing I ask of the Lord this I seek; to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, That I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate his temple.” It seems to me that this prayer must have welled up from your heart and God answered you. In your death there even appears to be a smile on your face. I chose Revelation 21:1-5a, 6b-7 as the second reading for my sake as much as yours because verses 4-5 read “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away. The one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” For anyone who has seen the movie “The Passion” you may remember when Jesus meets his mother and says to her “Behold, I make all things new”. I guess I feel as if you too would remind me of these words of Christ as a promise that one day I will grieve no more and be in the holy city with you. I chose Matthew 11:25-30 as the gospel because it begins “Jesus spoke thus: ‘I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and learned you have revealed them to the childlike’” Little Anthony, God opened the gates of heaven with all it mystery and majesty to you and you in your simplicity and love accepted. I thank God for the gift of your unstained soul that flew up to heaven!

Anthony, you are my second child that God has asked for and this time I was able to send you without anger but not without sorrow. In the weeks preceding your death I could feel the spiritual battle surrounding your life and the life of every child from the moment they are created. We truly have an enemy who hates us and wants to destroy the image of God in us. When we saw ultrasounds of you, there you were a beautiful white, living, moving image but next to you was a dark mass threatening to pollute your pure, life giving environment. We tried to help you fight by enlisting the prayers of everyone around you and following the doctor’s advice but still on Wednesday the blood began to flow. The night I delivered you I experience a small agony in the garden. I felt very alone accept for the image of the cross in my mind to which I was grasping allowing the blood of Christ to flow over me as I felt the blood flowing out of my body. That night both blood and water in the form of tears flowed freely. The next day an awful emptiness set in when an ultrasound showed a vast nothingness where only two days early had been an active, living beautiful baby boy. Since then things have been up and down. The days are easier and full of distraction but with the night comes the emptiness and the doubts and worries. Did I do everything I could? Did I not pray enough? Will I ever have another child?

But God in His mercy and goodness sends many comforts as well through our friends and family and through His word. A friend sent me the scripture Matthew 6:20-21 which reads “Store up treasures in heaven,, where neither moth nor decay destroy, nor thieves beak in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” God knows that my heart is always with my children so by taking them He has stolen my heart and I will not rest until I rest in Him. Having already lost a child I also know what a blessing a heavenly baby is. David Mary has sent done showers of graces on our family and I know Anthony Francis will do the same. I’m sure he will get Francis de Sales to mentor him in the salesian spirituality so that he can teach it to me. I know God is using this child to lead us out into the deep. Anthony will help us to “be not afraid” in the words of John Paul II. God also sent me consolation through another quote of St. Augustine “For almighty God…, because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.” Death is the result of sin and evil but through death we are born to eternal life. The cross leads us to the resurrection. “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, o death, is your victory? Where, o death, is your sting?” I Corinthians 15:55.

Love,
Mom