Who, adult or child, has not gasped at the sight of a newborn: My God, how small! And it is small in more than size. It seems impossible that something so tiny could live, grow, learn to recognize, to smile. Yet what strikes everyone most is this: he knows how to cry, and does so quite well.
Some are moved to tears. Others are tender-hearted. Still others are astonished—minutes ago this child did not exist, and now, here he is.
What a mystery—one that leads us inevitably to another, equally profound: today he was here with me, and now he is gone.
Birth and death are the two moments that unite every woman and man on earth. They are the moments when we truly feel, when we touch with our own hands, the vast and troubling fragility of human life. We must reckon with it, whether we wish to or not.
Somehow—hesitantly, with effort, with the help of others—we manage. Almost always.
The child grows suddenly, becoming more present each day. The dying person, despite our care and attention, slips away and becomes absent.
But there is one period of life that leaves us today far more bewildered than in the past: the time when a child is forming in the womb.
I cannot approach the Christmas season without meditating deeply on the great mystery of Christ's descent into Mary, his mother—and with it, the anticipation of all the children waiting to enter this world.
I said that today, more than yesterday, the waiting for a child leaves us lost. Yes! When I was young, we simply waited. We took care to shield the unborn from trauma or danger. But the rest—the mystery, the unknown, the surprise—we left in silence.
Now, though medical science has brought immense benefits to unborn children, it has also brought unintended consequences alongside that knowledge. Many parents find themselves needlessly agitated, receiving premature and hasty reports about their child's fate (sometimes driven by the fear of litigation). With a kind of overconfidence, they are told the baby is malformed, gravely deficient, will not arrive healthy. And so begins one of the terrible anguishes for so many parents: What do we do? Whom do we believe? How do we live through these months of such agonizing uncertainty?
I dare not speak of the remedy so often proposed as the "lesser evil." It is not for me to judge, propose, or suggest.
What I do know—and it is both little and much—is that it is desperately hard to ask a mother (and a father) to carry a pregnancy forward when everything turns dark. And those who manage to do it—and there are many—deserve that all of us, at Christmas, as we adore the mystery of Christ's birth, stand beside these young heroes with our hearts and our prayers. We must not abandon those who struggle under such a grave burden.
Mariangela Bertolini, 2011
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