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On the Birth of Mary

My Belly is for Others

by Catherine Rose in Family on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 6:00 AM

The first time a stranger touched my newly pregnant belly, I wanted to politely take her fingers and peel them off one by one.

I was only eight weeks pregnant and, while my husband and I were thrilled about this unexpected gift of life, my pregnancy still felt very private. I certainly was not showing yet, and it felt strange to have my abdomen touched because my abdomen was not normally touched by strangers and what she was actually touching was my intestinal tract, while my tiny baby nestled safely amidst my pelvic frame.

Now, however, I love my swelling abdomen, and I love when other people love it, too.

I relish the smiles of the checker at the grocery store and the usher at church, and I feel delight that the sight of this hidden baby has brought them joy.  Pregnancy is a very public event, I have learned.  Any society with its head on straight knows this clearly, but in our schizophrenic culture, where we snuggle the children who are wanted but abort the ones who aren’t, we aren’t quite sure how loudly to proclaim that babies are good.

Yet, babies are very good, not just because they are cuddly and warm and smell good, but because a civilization crashes without them.  I mean crashes.  Most European countries are already in the downward spiral which will culminate in economic and demographic collapse because they have had far too few children for far too long; now, most must employ immigrant workers to fill up their factories and farms.  We are not far behind in the United States, barely holding our birth rate at replacement level so that we have enough children to keep our schools open and enough workers to fill the free market.

When I was a primary school student, I used to feel patronized when I was told that I was the future.  Because, seriously, I knew that.  My life at that point had very little past and was mostly comprised of future.

But, now, I understand that cliché in more pragmatic terms.  Our children, including this sweet baby nestled now under my ribs, are most certainly our treasure and the ark of our culture.  They are the vital link between our rich patrimony of the West and the unseen but glorious, we hope, days to come.

My hidden baby belongs as much to our society as he does to our family; once he has been formed in the first cell of society that is our little Nazareth, he will take his place as a citizen of our republic and live a life that blesses the checker at the grocery store and the usher at church who smiled upon his preborn shape.

So, now, I allow strangers to pat my swelling belly.  It still feels a little strange, but I understand their reaction.  It is a sight that I know brings hope and joy to those who see it.  My pregnancy is not only for me and my family.  It is for others.  In our culture that is so dark and lonely, where we see death more often than life, this baby offers a vital promise that I will not withhold from them.

—Catherine Rose is a mother of three boys—two outside her belly and one inside. She and her husband Devin blog at St. Joseph’s Vanguard and Our Lady’s Train.

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On the Birth of Mary