Eight middle-school students stare back at me in front of the open doorway of the multipurpose room. “On each of your index cards is written one stage of a human life,” I tell them, “As a group, you need to figure out how to put them in order.” The kids quickly and easily lay down cards reading “elderly adult,” ”teen,” and “infant.” However, as they encounter words like “zygote” and “blastocyte,” some nervous giggles erupt from the huddle. They attempt to rearrange the first four cards, but they can’t get them quite right, even after several tries. On the other hand, they readily grasp an essential biological truth that would stir up indignant protests from some adult reproductive rights advocates, if they had happened to be in the room.
“Is a zygote a human being?” I ask them. Yes, they answer me solemnly.
“Is a fetus a human being?” I inquire. Once again, yes.
These young people have attained the ripe old age of twelve, or thirteen, or fourteen, without having had their brains jumbled into scrambled eggs by popular media. In some cases, I know, it is because the parents have already introduced the difficult topic of abortion. In others, I expect, the kids haven’t received such straightforward knowledge, but much as Lieutenant Cable observed in South Pacific, “you’ve got to be carefully taught” to twist your mind into an instrument that reduces a living, growing child to “just a clump of cells.”
Our group is a bit smaller than usual today. Some of our families had other weekend commitments; some parents may have preferred to address this difficult topic at home; others, perhaps, harbor significant resistance to the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of life.
Though it is difficult to avoid speculating on the reasons, I have to remind myself that parents are the first teachers of their children, and that I am here to serve that mission. If my offer is rejected, my job is to grit my teeth, smile and say thank you. Even more difficult—if the opportunity arises, I have to be prepared to offer again. And be rejected again, perhaps. I hate rejection—have always hated it passionately—the polite “no” makes me want to slurp down half a container of ice cream and then curl up in a ball away from the world. However, if Jesus Himself met with resistance, who am I to think that I won’t encounter opposition?
In any case, I am glad to see that the majority of parents have allowed their children to take part in today’s lesson, especially given the serious nature of the topic. I have prepared very carefully for this day. We begin with a discussion of the science of embryology, aided by a set of fetal models generously loaned to the group by the head of a local grassroots pro-life organization.
For the last several decades, the president of this group has toted them around to local fairs and community events, spending countless hours in quiet witness to the shifting throngs that saunter by. Alongside a handful of faithful volunteers that have helped to staff the booth over the years, he’s seen it all—passersby of various ages and both sexes who doggedly avert their gazes, heading off “on the opposite side” like the priest and the Levite in the tale of the Good Samaritan; visibly pregnant moms who point out to their older children which model the baby “in mommy’s tummy” most looks like; irritated, aging women’s libbers who stop by long enough to excoriate an offending bumper sticker, insisting that “Abortion IS health care;” rambunctious children who attempt to squeeze and bend the heads of the polyurethane babies, necessitating the small printed card in front of the models that reminds visitors to “please handle very gently.” Occasionally, a young woman whose eyes may still bear the traces of a past hard-luck story will plant herself firmly in front of the man in the booth, indicate the small person standing gravely next to her, and announce that the little one is alive because of the worn and slightly tattered fetal models.
On the morning in mid-October when our Respect Life session is held, I watch these same models work their magic on a handful of younger girls who have trickled into the multipurpose room. Immediately seeing a new addition to the decor, these young ladies unabashedly make a beeline for the display table tucked into one corner of the room. Fascinated, they pore over the plastic babies, particularly intrigued by a pair of twins, four or five months from conception, nestled head to foot within the red outline of the uterine wall. I rejoice in their curiosity, anticipating the time when they will articulate the truth about human life to a world desperately in need of hearing it.
The reaction of the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, naturally, is quite different. When I lead them over to the table, they seem to recoil in embarrassment from the figures on the little green stands; they sidestep my invitation to pick up the polyurethane dolls. I search for signs that the display is igniting some genuine interest, any interest at all…but I don’t feel particularly reassured by the collective response. One student yodels, “Eww…gross!” at the sight of the umbilical cords on the molded figures. The more extroverted members of the class get wilder and louder, while the naturally quiet ones withdraw into themselves…a sure recipe for catechist panic.
I move on through the biology and the beautiful testimony of Jeremiah 1:5 before sitting the students down for the most challenging part of the lesson. “How many of you have heard the word ‘abortion?’” I ask them. I know that one or two of them, at least, have been taught about this subject; one student has even attended the National March for Life a few times. So I am expecting a few hands to go up…but no one moves. Crickets. Awkward.
I can keenly remember the anguish of middle school, though I’ve forgotten many events that happened to me much more recently. At the same time, I can’t help feeling a faint glimmer of surprise at this universal hesitation. As I attempt to offer a simple explanation that it is legal, in this country, to end the life of a baby in the womb, I suspect that I am babbling. Despite my oft-repeated petition to the Lord this week to help me surrender and let Him do his work, I feel myself squeezing in words to smother the uncomfortable silence.
It is Blessed Fulton Sheen, the newly beatified, who reaches out his hand to pull me back up onto solid ground. Picking up the bookmarks printed with Sheen’s Prayer of Spiritual Adoption. I instruct the students to choose a name for a mother and baby in crisis that they will be praying for over the next nine months. I explain that while the names they choose are not likely to be the actual names of the woman and child, the selection of names will help to remind them that the pair they are praying for are real people in great need of our support. The students dutifully join me in reciting the few short lines on the card. Then I dismiss them, and they filter quietly out of the room. Later, I find one of the bookmarks casually tossed on the floor of the hallway. I feel spiritually drained, wiped out.
Pushing down a nagging sensation that it could have been better, much better—I reflect that after three years of teaching this age group, we have finally broached a subject that is fraught with peril, even in some Catholic circles—the protection of the most vulnerable human beings on the planet. Next year, our oldest students will prepare for Confirmation, a milestone that is sometimes viewed by them as a welcome release from the weekly obligation of studying the Catholic faith and taking its tenets to heart. Today, we have placed one small buffering sandbag against the relentless press of pro-abortion indoctrination.
But will it hold? As I seem to do at the end of every class, I continue to fret about the possible consequences, immediate and long-term, of our catechetical striving. My co-teacher, however, is smiling as usual. In imitation of the Creator, he pronounces that our time here today has been good—very good. That confidence is a lesson I still need to learn. God give me the grace to seek His guidance, to bring my best, and then, to simply trust.
D.O., Mighty powerful work you are doing.
The unborn child models – without any words – present so much that the baby killers cannot deny. Once while standing outside an abortion business, an SUV pulled up and stopped near where I was standing rather than going all the way into the parking lot. A father was driving. A teenage girl was in the middle seat and multiple boys in the other seats. I could see they were MexicanAmerican, as were those in the overwhelming majority of cars that came there. The father and daughter were silent, staring straight ahead. The boys – boys make noise.
Their windows were down because it was a cool day. I had been told by some more experienced than me, some who knew me, that I should not speak to girls going in to the business; but I was the only one there. so I said the first thing that popped into my head: “Would you all like a free Lady of Guadalupe card?” The boys all said YES! and I handed them through the window. Without speaking the girl extended her hand. I gave her a card.
“How long have you been pregnant?” I still have no idea why I asked that question. The father turned around without saying anything and I handed him a card, which he took and studied. About four months,” said the girl. God works in strange ways. I remembered I had one, just one, 22 week unborn child model in my pocket. I took it out and said, “This is your baby right now.” I moved it toward the girl. She took it and held it tight in her hand. The boys asked to see it and she showed it to them, but she would not let them take it from her. The father too looked at it.
The girl looked at me and said “Thank You” then she turned to her father who was still turned around in his seat. “Papa, let’s go home.” I watched the SUV leave the parking lot. Some of the boys were looking at me through the back window and smiling , holding up their Our Lady cards.
Our thoughts are not God’s thoughts and God knows why I was there and why that day I had put that single model in my pocket. He knows why I was there alone.
Dorothy, You know some of the good you are accomplishing, but you don’t know all of it – but you will when St Peter brings out the book on your life and there is a chorus of kids behind him saying, “Peter, she’s our friend, let her come in and play with us.”
Guy, Texas