“Dreams and Babies” – Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children – 1.22.24

North Catholic High School (Cranberry Twp, PA)

Mass Readings - https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/0122-memorial-legal-protection.cfm

“Dreams and Babies”

By: Fr. David Schmidt

One of the things that we are remembering at today’s Mass is that it is the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children. So in a special way we are remembering all the unborn, especially those who have been lost to abortion.

We pray in a special way for healing for the children aborted, the mothers of those children, as well as the fathers and all those involved. We pray for God’s healing and mercy as much brokenness and woundedness comes to those who have been affected by abortion.

This is of course a hotly debated topic in our culture, so I talk about this with great sensitivity and tenderness.

As we know the Church is very clear on their stance on this issue that all life is sacred and should be protected from the moment of conception until natural death.

My intent is not to dive deeply into this topic because it is too much to talk about with just one homily. But I do want to briefly touch on a lie that is infiltrating our culture.

The lie is that motherhood prevents a woman from pursuing her dreams.

There is this lie that the biological make-up of a woman’s body prevents her from having the freedom to pursue her dreams because the woman, unlike men, have to carry a baby in their womb for 9 months and then take close care of the baby right after they are born.

The belief is that this holds a woman back, so instead, of seeing motherhood as a precious gift, and their children as precious gifts, motherhood and children are seen as burdens to a woman’s life pursuits.

So the belief is that in order to empower women, we have to free her from her motherhood which severely limits her in pursuing her dreams.

This is the terrible lie that our culture has been telling us.

There is nothing empowering about this. There is nothing empowering about rejecting something that is so essential to who a woman is. Women are made for motherhood. As men are made for fatherhood. Men and women find their full maturity in fatherhood and motherhood. Whether it is physical motherhood or spiritual motherhood.

Women have a beautiful motherly nature about them. A maternal instinct that seeks to love and nurture and bring life wherever they go. They are so attentive to people’s needs, especially the needs of their children and family. We need a mother’s love to survive in this world.

For a woman to reject her maternal instincts. For her to reject her motherhood is incredibly harmful to women. To reject your motherhood to the point of getting an abortion causes great psychological and emotional damage because it wounds the very center of who a woman is.

One woman in our culture who speaks very well into this lie is a woman named Leah Darrow. She was on a hit reality TV show, called America’s Next Top Model, and had a career as a professional model.

She had a powerful conversion experience that led her back to the faith after living a very superficial lifestyle.

Leah Darrow is now a popular Catholic speaker and does a lot of great work in ministry and is the mother of 6 children.

She addresses this lie that babies prevent a woman from pursuing her dreams as she came up with the phrase on social media- “Dreams and Babies”

Leah Darrow states - “Embrace this truth, moms: You don't have to downsize your dreams or your family size to fit someone else's narrow vision of what life should look like. From the moment I was pregnant with my first baby, I chose to intertwine my dreams with my motherhood journey, taking my children with me to every event, every speaking engagement. The world must adapt to accommodate our dreams AND our children. Not the other way around. Let's live our lives unapologetically, making room for our dreams and our little ones. Because our lives aren't meant to be small.”

Children don’t prevent a woman from pursuing her dreams. There are many successful women who have great careers and are doing great things in the world that are mothers as well. Children become part of the journey as you pursue those dreams.

Part of this lie that has crept into the culture is this mentality that our careers are what brings us ultimate happiness in this life. There is an obsession with work in our culture today. Careers are good and we can gain a certain satisfaction out of them, but if our main goal in life is to have a successful career at the expense of our family then in the end, we will not be happy.

True happiness comes in relationships. Relationship with God. Relationship with family and friends. On our death bed, we won’t care so much about what we have accomplished, we will care more about the people who surround us in our final moments.

I’ve encountered many women who have believed this lie about children being a burden to their career, and weren’t planning on having any children, but then when they had a child they changed. I could see the difference in them as they fell in love with this new child that they had, and realized the incredible gift that it was.

I remember my sister-in-law, who is a P.A. at a hospital in Beaver, and my brother, weren’t too eager in having kids, but when they had my niece, I asked my sister-in-law what surprised her about motherhood, and she said, “I never knew I could love another human being so much.” Motherhood brought out a love in her that she didn’t realize she had. It was the same for my brother as well. There was a visible change in both of them as they love being parents, and they ended up having a 2nd child, my nephew, who I got to baptize two Sundays ago.

Many young Catholic women are pressured into thinking that motherhood is bad. So if they express a desire to be a mother, or even to be a stay at home mom, they are looked at as if they are weird, and they are questioned on why they would want to be a mother vs. being a career woman.

I bring this up today because I know each one of you in here is thinking about your future. You have dreams for what your life will look like. I encourage you to pursue your dreams whatever they may be. If you dream of becoming a lawyer, doctor, teacher, engineer, journalist, or something else, then go for it. I encourage you to pursue those dreams that God has put on your heart. Just don’t do it at the expense of your motherhood. Babies and dreams go together. Children can share in your dreams, and it will make your dreams that much more special.

If there are any women who dream to be a stay at home mom, then pursue that dream. Don’t let the lies of the culture make you doubt your dream. Being a stay at home mom is not repressive, but is a beautiful vocation and will be a source of great joy.

Babies don’t just share a part of our dreams, but I think you will come to discover that babies can be the dream themselves.

Let us always remember. Motherhood is good. Motherhood is beautiful. Motherhood is holy. Motherhood is not to be rejected, but it is too be embraced whether a woman is called to physical motherhood or spiritual motherhood.

We need to pray for all mothers. Especially those who have believed the lie that our culture has fed us about abortion. This lie that abortion is necessary for a woman to be able to pursue her dreams. We need to pray for those babies, and for the legal protection of all unborn children. May the Lord bring His healing and mercy to mothers everywhere. And may our culture come to believe the truth that babies and dreams go together.