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MAMA!
WHY DID YOU KILL US?
(Fr. D. Mondrone)
This is the true story of a Catholic woman who was haunted by the
souls of the seven infants she had aborted during her married life. But
it is also the story of her contrition and atonement and of the mercy of
God shown to her afterwards.
The woman who wrote down these experiences, addressed her narrative
to "all mothers", saying:
"I would not want the same thing to happen to
any mother. "
The story also focuses on the question of the destiny of the souls
of unbaptized babies, a spiritual aspect of abortion which is often
overlooked today.
Exactly ten years later, the time set by the person who entrusted me
with her last will, I undertook to fulfill an obligation with the same
trepidation with which I accepted it one icy evening in December, 1945.
For obvious reasons, due to the delicacy of the matter, I am forced to
withhold the exact location and any hint that might identify the people
involved in the events narrated.
D. M. Rome, 1955.
December, 1945.
Returning earlier than usual from a short walk, I received a phone
call from someone who would not give his name. To identify himself, the
caller mentioned meeting me years before.
"Mother is critically ill, "
he said. "Someone spoke to her about you. She says she would appreciate
it very much if you could come and see her."
I couldn't figure out the reason for the caution and secrecy, but
twenty minutes later I was at the bedside of the
sick woman.
She made a dreadful impression on me. She was very pale and worn. Her
eyes were large, still charming but heavy with suffering. She wore a
white woollen cap on her head. Her movements were slow and tired. She
greeted me in a low but grateful voice. Then the family withdrew and I
was left alone with her.
"Father, do you recognizes me?"
"Of course. Why do you ask?"
"I think I have changed a great deal. "
"Not as much as you think, so as to be unrecognizable. Now tell me,
what's on your mind? I am here to help you. "
"Can you give me all the time I need?"
"My one wish is to help you in any way I can. "
"I know, but you are a priest and have a schedule. "
"My schedule is the least of my worries. "
"Thank you, Father. As you see, I am approaching the end. I would
like to go to Confession. "
"I shall be glad to hear you. Don't tire yourself, however. I'll do
my best to help you. "
I drew closer, murmured a brief prayer from the Ritual, made a Sign
of the Cross over her and listened attentively. Her mind was perfectly
clear and orderly.
After a short time she paused. "Father, may I interrupt for a
moment?"
"Surely. Do you need something?"
She nodded and touched a small pear-shaped electric bell close to her hand. A nun, who was a nurse,
came immediately with a hypodermic needle prepared for a necessary
injection.
"I waited for a few minutes in an adjoining sitting room and
then returned. My task would soon be completed.
After the Confession the patient asked: "And now, what else should be
done?"
"I am glad you ask. I would suggest that you be anointed and receive
Holy Viaticum tomorrow. If you prefer your Pastor for this, I can stop
and see him on my way home. "
"No, I would rather have you. But why should we wait until tomorrow
morning? Couldn't it be done this evening?"
"Certainty. "
Again she touched the bell, and this time, with the Sister came a
young woman carrying a baby girl. Then her husband and a boy of five or
six entered the room.
"Sister, I have told Father to do everything this evening. What do
you say ? What do you all say?"
The daughter and her husband looked at
each other. Then their eyes filled with tears and they could not speak.
But the Sister spoke up. "I think this is God's inspiration. Do so by
all means. Besides, it will help you to have a quiet night. "
"So, Father, I am in your hands."
I went to the nearby church which
the pastor was preparing to close for the night. There I procured a
surplice, a two-sided stole, the holy oils, holy water, a Ritual and a
burse with the Blessed Sacrament. Again I put on my overcoat and in a
few minutes I was back at the bedside.
Meanwhile the Sister had
converted the chest of drawers near the bed into a little altar, neat
and devotional, even with flowers, which seemed to me like a miracle of
beauty.
Before receiving the Last Sacraments, the sick woman expressed a
desire to speak to me again in private. When all had withdrawn, from a
small plastic bag she drew a stiff, bulky envelope, handed it to me, and
said: "This is the last favor I am asking of you. Will you promise me
to do what I am going to ask you?"
"What is it?"
"My last wishes are here. "
"But we are not supposed to be executors of wills. "
"It is not that," she assured me with a slight smile. "It is the
story of my wretched life, from the time I was a bride up to the
present. I want you to publish it ten years from now. Only be as careful
as possible that no one may recognize the people mentioned in it. "
"Did you write it?"
"Of course. "
"Someone may recognize your style. "
"Then make it unrecognizable. "
"How?"
"Re-write it yourself. Perhaps I am asking too much, but it will be a
work of charity. Will you promise me? I have great confidence in you. "
She could see the strange hesitation on my face.
"I assure you," she continued, "there is nothing compromising. I have
been thinking of doing this for years; and the more I thought about it,
the more peaceful I felt. Please don't say no. You may read it tonight
if you wish. And let me repeat: there is nothing compromising in it for
anyone. It is something seen in the light of God, after passing through
experiences and expiations which I wouldn't wish on any mother. It is
something that has shortened my life. I wouldn't want the like to
befall any other mother. "
"Well, I'll do my best. "
"Thank you. "
A slight touch of the bell brought everyone hack except the two
children, who had meanwhile been put to bed by their mother.
The Last Rites were administered in an atmosphere of perfect peace
and serenity.
It was nearly eight o'clock. A furtive glance at my watch made the
sick woman realize that I wished to leave. "You may go. Father. I have
no words sufficient to thank you. I won't keep you any longer; I feel
that I am at peace with God. "
"You may be sure of that, " I said as I arose. "Now I'll give you my
blessing and wish you good night. Should you need me tomorrow morning,
don't hesitate to have me called."
"Tomorrow morning? Shall I be able to see you ? " She took my hands,
held them for a moment in her fevered grasp with her eyes fixed on me in
wordless gratitude, kissed them and let them go with an expressive nod
of good-bye.
Down in the street, I stood at the car-stop waiting for the streetcar
and thanking God for having made me a priest, a link between Him and
souls.
The streetcar was already coming when the janitress rushed out
towards me. "Father, the people upstairs want you in a hurry; they beg
you to come back."
As soon as I arrived in the hall of the apartment, I saw that
everything had changed. The sick woman was screaming like a maniac. The
children in the next room had been awakened and were crying with terror.
Their mother was trying to quiet them, but she herself was weeping and
seemed inconsolable. The Sister and the sick woman's son-in-law were
doing their best to hold her in bed. She was struggling and crying to
get up, for she was burning in a dreadful way.
My appearance did not calm her. On the contrary, it made her more
furious. Those eyes which shortly before had been so kind and peaceful,
were now fixed on me with some kind of inexplicable hatred.
"There he is. He has been talking to me about mercy. What a liar! He
told me not to think of my past; and now he does not see that my past is
coming to meet me. They are there; they look at me one by one. They look
at me with hatred. Nobody sees them, but I do. I do see those faces,
those eyes, those looks as cold and hard as always. On a night as dark
as Hell they knocked at the door of my house. I rushed out to open it,
but as soon as I saw them I shut the door and wouldn't let them in. I
know the way they were looking at me...!"
"Calm yourself. Madam. You have done everything to merit the good
Lord's mercy. Be at peace. Trust my word as a priest. Come, make just
one act of trust and commit yourself to Him."
Saying this, I sprinkled the bed and the room with holy water and
started to sit down by the poor, sick woman.
"Oh, what have I done? Did you think they were devils? They are no
devils; they are not at all afraid of your water. They are standing over
there, steady, mocking, and as stern as ever."
"The hallucinations she used to have, "her son-in-law whispered to
me; but the sick woman heard him.
"You are the one who has hallucinations! This is no hallucination!
They never were hallucinations, but you could never understand. Oh, my!" At this she collapsed. Her pulse seemed to stop and she remained
motionless for some time, her eyes staring at the opposite wall. She
seemed without senses or mind except for her eyes, which were bright and
wide open as she gazed in that direction.
I took my Ritual and began to pray. Then something no one could have
foreseen happened. With a sudden movement she snatched the small book
from my hands and threw it onto the floor.
"What's the use? All this won't help. Don't you see that there is
nothing more that you can do? Don't you see that I've already been
damned?" She turned to the other side. But immediately afterwards she
turned back towards me as if compelled by some vision which had filled
her with horror.
At length she stared at me without recognition. Then it seemed as if
her lips assumed an expression of contempt, or perhaps of scorn. She
instinctively grabbed my arm like a drowning person trying to clutch
something to keep afloat. She remained like that, staring absently.
I didn't know what to think.
The son-in-law and Sister were on the other side of the bed; he was
holding the wrist of the sick woman's free hand while the Sister, Rosary
in hand, was praying.
I was watching her carefully. My eyes were on hers as life seemed to
reappear in them. I leaned forward and said: "My Jesus, mercy!"
She
seemed to understand. Her eyes first wandered uncertainly towards the
ceiling as if following - who knows?- some thread of her memory. Then,
somewhat mechanically, with neither understanding nor feeling, she
repeated: "My Jesus, mercy! My Mother, my trust. " Encouraged, I
pronounced once more the most holy invocation to Jesus, and she echoed
it after me, automatically as before.
"Perhaps she is in a coma," whispered her son-in-law to the Sister.
The Sister handed me the Crucifix of her Rosary, which I put to the
woman's lips. At its touch she was slightly startled. A movement of her
head gave me the impression that she was refusing it, and I trembled
with fear.
"It is Jesus, who wants to save you. Kiss it!" I said, and I
kissed it my self to show her how to do it.
As I did so the dying woman opened her eyes wide. She extended her
lips towards the holy symbol of Our Savoir as if to kiss it with evident
fervor. But suddenly
she compressed her lips again, and I couldn't understand whether the
gesture was that of a kiss or an expression of contempt. She
remained motionless.
Then, with a scarcely perceptible voice she
seemed to murmur: "Pray... have faith... leave it... " Again her lips
contracted.
Once more I brought the Crucifix to her lips. The reaction was a
sob.
A few moments later when I saw her son-in-law drop her lifeless
wrist, fall to his knees and weep, burying his face in the side of
the bed, I realized that she was dead.
What took place when his wife came in is easy to imagine. I saw
how much they had loved her. But I was thinking of something else.
"My God, what did that last gesture mean? Was it a kiss or a
refusal?" That question kept coming I to my mind all the way home like
the rhythm of a pendulum, I had to walk, for at that late hour there was
no public transportation.
The next morning at the "Memento" of the dead in Holy Mass, I felt
as if a sudden voice had spoken to me, not in my ear but in the very
depths of my soul, which was still severely shaken: "Modicae fidei, quare dubitasti?" (O you of little faith, why did you doubt?).
This
seemed to me a sign of such certainty that it would have been "rash to
ignore it.
A few day later, I held my mysterious envelope in my
hands: "Should I open it, or not?" I thought it over.
"It is a
will, " I said to myself, "that I must make public only after ten
years. Why open it now?"
I was about to hide it in the bottom of
a drawer when the question came: "What if I should die before that?"
And so I took a large envelope in which to enclose a sealed one and
wrote across it: "This is the will of a person at whose death I
assisted. This person wants it to he made known exactly ten years after
her death. It is to he opened and publicized in December, 1955.
Please carry this out with scrupulous exactitude and conceal the name of
the person. "
December, 1955
Today I began to carry out that poor woman's request.
This morning,
before proceeding to open the letter, I wished to celebrate the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass for her. "Oh you of little faith, why did you
doubt? "came back to my mind once more and brought back to me that same
sense of peace which it had given me at that time.
I slit the envelope
and drew out twelve handwritten sheets. The handwriting was small,
thick, and regular, manifesting perfect self control. The pages must have
been written at one time without interruption, because only towards the
end could very slight traces of weariness be seen.
Here was the work of a brave and determined hand which was aware that
it was tearing down a screen behind which were things which she was
eager to make known. "I would not want the same thing to happen to any
mother. "
Where the location was generally indicated, there were dots.
The date was that of January, 1945. The letter was addressed: "To all
mothers. " It was signed: "A mother. "
Here is the text of the "letter", since I saw that I should regard it
as such. I immediately typed it and destroyed the original, since this
also was another detail which had been suggested to me.
I was careful to
alter several secondary circumstances so as to destroy any clue to the
author's identity.
June, 1914
A few weeks before the outbreak of the First World War, I married a
man whom I had known since childhood. Our families lived in the same
apartment house and were united by a long-standing friendship. As we
grew up, we used to spend our vacations together, either at the beach or
in the mountains.
As I became older, I realised that the only difference between the
two families was that his was very religious, while mine wasn't. But
this did not cast a shadow on the friendliness of our relationship,
because the respect we had for each other united us in everything.
I remember once on my father's birthday, which happened to fall on a
Friday, that my mother served fish to us all because one of the other
family had been invited to dinner.
I am stressing this difference because, unfortunately, it was going
to affect the lives of the children of each family: three in mine and
eight in his. Anyone of discernment who came into our living rooms, could recognise
us by the paintings on the wall and the newspapers and magazines lying
around. Theirs were all, or nearly all, religious (as I used to so):
"Pious like you."), while ours were all worldly.
One August evening, when we were in the mountains, I suddenly fell ill
with deadly abdominal pains. I was bathed in a cold sweat and everyone
was alarmed.
It was already dark, and a heavy storm was brewing which was likely
to last through the night. The nearest doctor was over three miles away.
Between his place and ours there was no telephone or other means of
communication. As soon as my family decided to send for him, the one who
offered to go and who would not hear of letting anybody else do it, was
the man who later became my husband.
A few minutes after he left, the storm broke with dreadful violence.
I can still see the lightning flashes of that night and hear the crash
of thunder which seemed about to destroy the world.
I recall on that occasion that my friend's mother began to recite the
Rosary aloud and that all joined in and prayed together as they had
never prayed before and as I have never heard them pray since.
My condition was getting steadily worse. They were not sure that
the doctor would be found at home and whether he could be persuaded
to come in such a storm. One, two and three hours went by, yet no
one appeared. At one time I felt that my end had to come.
Then my dad, who had been almost all that time watching at the
window, said that he heard a whistle in the h distance and saw in the
darkness a waving flashlight in answer to his signals.
When the physician arrived I was ? almost completely unconscious and
I could not comprehend what he said or what he did to me. All I know
is that, at dawn, I woke up. The pain had disappeared and the doctor
was smiling down at me in a paternal - manner.
"Cheer up," he said, "It's all over. Tomorrow you'll be up and
around. Aren't you glad?"
In reply to my words of thanks he answered
quickly. "Don't thank me; thank him. He is the one who saved s your life.
Had he arrived just a little later...!"
Behind the doctor stood the young friend of the family, his eyes
sparkling. All at once I instinctively opened my arms to him to
hug him like a brother and to kiss him.
Such was the budding of a
love which perhaps was already there, though concealed. That episode
made it suddenly blossom and led to our marriage.
During the first two years our life together was full of happiness,
which reached its peak when a baby girl came to join us. But this joy
almost cost me my life because of the many hardships and acute pains
which I suffered in giving birth to this child. It was a miracle that my daughter and I lived.
Right after that
event, my husband was drafted; but due to his assignment we were
able to see each other at least every two months, sometimes even
oftener, throughout the whole war. One day, my husband and I came to
talk openly about children. "There is no limiting Divine Providence, my
dear!"
He said this with the firmness he used to show in all his
decisions. I immediately understood that to go against him could have
opened up a gap between us which might have widened into an abyss. So I
preferred to remain silent. But inside me a rebellion was kindled which
could never be put down: "Am I to play the brooding hen at home? Oh, no;
not I!"
By talking to a girl friend I had started to see often since my
marriage (she lived in the same building above us on the second floor),
reading the stuff she continuously fed me and remembering, besides,
all I had suffered when my first child was born, I was becoming
extremely frightened at the thought of having another.
Moreover, I must confess with deep regret that my love for parties
had a great deal to do with this repugnance for pregnancy. Besides, I
had a strange obsession for keeping my figure, so that I would rather
die than have it "ruined", as my faithful girl-friend would say.
Apart
from my grave sins, may God forgive me for the hours I spent alone
before a large mirror in our bedroom in silly self-admiration. - (to be
continued)
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