By Monica Chuda
Saint Monica in a Landscape, Alexandre Cabanel, c.1860
Mourning my children leaving the church.
Oh, what a great heartbreak and heartache it is to loose your children to the way of the world.
It feels like your whole world just fell into nothingness.
It feels like your heart just broke into million pieces and you think you won’t be able to function again – to live, to laugh, only cry.
Cry like Saint Monica did. All of a sudden you understand her and her fear for her son Augustine.
That fear, fear for their souls and their eternal life.
That fear is killing you. It’s taking everything from you, what you were sure you have.
That fear is from the evil one and is destroying you.
You feel like this is the end.
You feel like there is nothing else to live for.
You lost your children whom God gave you and you gave life to, raised them in faith, entrusted them your treasure, your faith, and now?
Now everything is lost.
Emptiness.
Grief.
Fear.
That’s what the evil one wants.
Despair.
He wants you to think where you went wrong.
Blame yourself – what a bad parent you are.
He wants you to think there is nothing else, no way out.
Remember he is the father of lies and the accuser.
Don’t listen to him.
Turn to the Heavenly Father and to His Son Jesus, our Brother.
Pray wholeheartedly to the Holy Spirit for advice.
Ask Blessed Mother, who cares very much for her children, for help and she will help.
Entrust your children fully and completely into her hands.
Abandon yourself and your children to her and to the Lord who loves them more than you, and you will win their souls back.
And then there are also the saints, especially Saint Monica patroness of mothers, wives and conversions.
Don’t despair, pray!
Don’t grieve that which is not lost yet.
Trust and love.
Love your children with all your heart.
Jesus I trust in You!
Have mercy on us.
Monica Chuda was born in communist Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s. She is a third order Franciscan, mother of four, and grandmother, working as a caregiver for veterans. She is the author of a book of poetry called Heavenly Pelican. Learn more about Monica by following her on Facebook.