Originally published at National Catholic Register
Even amid deepest sorrow, Mary’s love for grieving parents brings consolation as she cradles their lost children in heaven.
Several years ago I read the book, Heaven is for Real. The book chronicles Colton Burpo’s purported near-death experience at the age of 4 during an emergency appendectomy surgery. Whatever the truth of his story, I was struck to see how Colton, the son of a Protestant pastor, described “the women in heaven — especially Mary” as having a special role in caring for the little children we have lost.
We Catholics have known this all along: In the order of grace, the Mother of God is truly a mother to us, and especially to our children in heaven. What a most consoling thought.
After my wife miscarried our two children, Thomas and Angelica, within a span of 14 months, the Holy Spirit prompted me and my co-author Cassie Everts to write a book to help couples who have lost a child from miscarriage, stillbirth and infant loss. That book is called Nursery of Heaven: Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss in the Lives of the Saints and Today’s Parents. The book is published by Sophia Institute Press.
As we were
