Giving Birth and Spirituality

Childbearing is the ideal context within which to enrich spirituality. The purpose of this study was to generate themes regarding spirituality and religiosity among culturally diverse childbearing women….

The themes we identified in all of the reviewed data included childbirth as a time to grow closer to God, the use of religious beliefs and rituals as powerful coping mechanisms, and childbirth as a time to make religiosity more meaningful….

Several women were specific in their articulation that childbirth was a time of powerful connection to their God. For example, a Mormon woman described her birth experience in the following way:

The nurse had been so loud, like, “You can do it!”—cheering me on. And then right as she [the baby] was born, the nurse got quiet and the doctor got quiet and my husband got quiet. It felt honestly like a moment frozen, and the room was bright. It was one of those moments when the Spirit is there.

A Guatemalan mother shared a similar experience. She stated, “Giving birth I felt closer to God. I thank God for allowing me to have a baby. While the baby was in the womb, I realized how great God is”

Another Mormon woman expressed a heightened sense of holiness experienced during childbirth:

When the baby was born, I felt the Spirit of the Lord touch my heart, and I realized that this little innocent human soul came from my Heavenly Father. I felt so close to Him and thanked Him for the blessing I have of being a woman, of being able to assist in the creation of a child, and help him come from heaven to earth.

A Canadian Orthodox Jewish mother, for whom bearing a child was the highest mitzvah or good deed according to Rabbinical law, said, “You feel God’s presence most tangibly when you have gone through [childbirth]”. Similarly, according to the religion of Islam and its adherents (Muslims), life experiences prove the oneness (tawhid) of Allah, or God. The deep spirituality of women who espouse the Islamic faith make the birth experience sacred. For example, an Arabic Muslim woman expressed the sense that she was one with God during labor and birth:

During childbirth the woman is in the hands of God. Every night during my pregnancy I read from the Holy Qur’an to the child. When I was in labor I was reading a special paragraph from the Holy Qur’an about protection. The nurses were crying when they heard what I was reading. I felt like a miracle might happen—that there was something holy around me, protecting me, something beyond the ordinary, a feeling, a spirit about being part of God’s creation of a child.

A new Guatemalan mother also remarked on an almost tangible holiness:

[Giving birth] I felt closer to God. I thanked God for allowing me to have a baby. Well, I don’t say she [the baby] is mine but that He let me borrow her. While the baby was in my womb I realized how great God is. Only God watches over the children that are yet in the womb because only He could do that.

Although the sense of God’s presence and a feeling of closeness to God’s power was a reality for many women during childbirth, some of the women identified the spiritual dimensions of childbirth while not espousing a specific religious faith. While some of these women said birth was not spiritual per se, they associated their emotions with a sense of transcendence. For example, a Chinese woman said, “It really isn’t easy at all. Every mother experiences pain, but I do believe it is sacred”…

Childbirth and motherhood are ideal contexts in which to acknowledge the spiritual dimension of women’s lives. Birth narratives can provide insights into the connection between childbearing and spirituality….

The study’s results affirm … “Motherhood is a rich and widely ramified concept linked to biological birth, to culturally learned patterns of mothering and to expressions of … spiritual insights of human experience.” For many women who participated in our studies, childbirth was a sacred event.

Lynn Clark Callister and Inaam Khalaf

Enlarging our Hearts


Pope Francis travelled on Monday to the tiny Sicilian island of Lampedusa. He threw a wreath of flowers into the sea to remember the thousands of migrants who have died making the journey to Italy from Africa. He then met with several migrants, thanking them for their welcome. The highlight of the day was a Mass celebrated in the island’s sports stadium, which served as a reception centre for the thousands of people who fled the upheavals caused by the Arab Spring unrest in North Africa, as well as refugees from poverty and violence in other parts of Africa.

Pope Francis said he came to Lampedusa “today to pray, to make a gesture of closeness, but also to reawaken our consciences so that what happened would not be repeated.”

He began by greeting the islanders with the phrase “O’ scia’!” a word of greeting in their local dialect, and thanking them for the work they have done to provide assistance to the migrants who have found their way to Lampedusa, saying they offer “an example of solidarity.”

He also greeted Muslim migrants who are about to begin Ramadan.

“The Church is near to you in the search for a more dignified life for yourselves and for your families,” he said.

The Holy Father wore violet vestments during the Mass, calling it a “liturgy of repentance.”

“God asks each one of us: Where is the blood of your brother that cries out to me?,” Pope Francis said during his homily, quoting from the Genesis story of Cain and Abel. “Today no one in the world feels responsible for this; we have lost the sense of fraternal responsibility.”

“The culture of well-being, that makes us think of ourselves, that makes us insensitive to the cries of others, that makes us live in soap bubbles, that are beautiful but are nothing, are illusions of futility, of the transient, that brings indifference to others, that brings even the globalization of indifference,” he continued. “In this world of globalization we have fallen into a globalization of indifference. We are accustomed to the suffering of others, it doesn’t concern us, it’s none of our business.”…

“Herod sowed death in order to defend his own well-being, his own soap bubble,” said the Holy Father. “And this continues to repeat itself. Let us ask the Lord to wipe out [whatever attitude] of Herod remains in our hears; let us ask the Lord for the grace to weep over our indifference, to weep over the cruelty in the world, in ourselves, and even in those who anonymously make socio-economic decisions that open the way to tragedies like this.”

Pope Francis then asked for forgiveness: for the “indifference towards so many brothers and sisters … for those who are pleased with themselves, who are closed in on their own well-being in a way that leads to the anaesthesia of the heart, … for those who with their decisions at the global level have created situations that lead to these tragedies. Forgive us, Lord!”

It's time to start 'cleaning house' at the Vatican

Commentators, whether they be Catholic or not, have described Pope Francis’ trip to Brazil for World Youth Day as nothing less than a triumph.

But now back at the Vatican – where he has decided to spend the hot Roman summer without escaping to the hillside retreat of Castel Gandolfo as his predecessors did – the Argentine pontiff faces the real task that cardinals set before him when they elected him in the Sistine Chapel in March: reforming the Vatican, especially the Roman Curia, the Church's central administration.

In some quarters of the Church, especially those who are less instinctively sympathetic to Francis' focus on mercy and poverty rather than on doctrine and orthodoxy, people are becoming impatient.

“We also wanted someone with good managerial and leadership skills, and so far that hasn't been as obvious. It's a little bit of a surprise that he hasn't played his hand on that front yet,” said Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York in a recent interview with the National Catholic Reporter.

The date to look out for will come in early October, when the cardinals' commission for Curia reform he appointed one month into his papacy will meet for the first time after months of preparatory work and private audiences with Francis.

But in recent days the pontiff has already given an indication as to what his approach will be when he finally gets round to 'cleaning house' at the Vatican.

What he seems mostly adverse to is clerics who dabble too imprudently with money – not just those who try to enrich themselves or just give the impression of doing so.

On Wednesday, Francis accepted the resignation of Slovenia's top two churchmen, the archbishops of Ljubljana and Maribor.

Slovenia is a small East European country that has flourished enormously after the breakup of Yugoslavia and its entry into the European Union.

It is a traditionally Catholic country as is its larger neighbor, Croatia. But Slovenia's church has suffered from a scandal that broke in 2010: Maribor archdiocese ventured into a series of hazardous economic ventures, including investing in a national TV channel that was notorious for its porn output.

The business ran up a loss of €800 million (US$1.05 billion) and when the hole started becoming too big to fill the Holy See had to step in.

Benedict XVI ordered the resignation of the previous Archbishop of Maribor but his successor and other Church leaders in Slovenia were found during further investigations to be responsible as well.

Maybe in old times the fact that a culprit had been found out would have been deemed sufficient, and the desire not to rock the boat and confuse the flock would have prevailed. Not with Francis, it seems.

Then there is the case of Cameroon’s Simon-Victor Tonyé Bakot, Archbishop of Yaoundé, the country's capital. The Vatican, as usual, did not give specific reasons for his early resignation.

But Vatican Radio reported, in its French edition, that “according to the Cameroonian press, Monsignor Bakot had been involved in several real estate deals.”

That Francis doesn't like the pomp and the honors traditionally attached to successful careers in the Church is by now a surprise to no one.

It seems that the pope won't content himself with overturning the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank – which is involved in an all-out attempt to show its transparency efforts are genuine.

It has even set up a public website for the first time, but Francis, on the return flight from Brazil, made it clear that all options are still on the table for him, including shutting the bank down completely.

Those bishops and clerics who have secured a somewhat cushy position for themselves in past years, on the other hand, are probably feeling a bit more uncomfortable these days.


Alessandro, Speciale, Vatican City
Vatican City

God of surprises

Were the angels surprised when the triune God sketched out plans for a universe he didn’t need? Surely they were – as surprised as when they saw the first bird take flight and the first humans blink their eyes; as surprised as when they watched God himself sew garments to cover the fallen humans’ shame.

God surprised Abraham with a promise, Sarah with a child and Moses as he knelt before a tree aglow with flame. All Israel walked in wide-eyed wonder as they followed the cloud and the fire, marched beside walls of water and fled to the new land.

God surprised Isaac with a wife, Jacob with a dream and Joshua with unlikely military victory. He surprised Samuel with a voice, Elijah with a whisper and Rahab with an unexpected legacy. God surprised David with kingship, Solomon with wisdom, Hezekiah with life and Isaiah with a vision.

And one day God surprised a teenage virgin with an angelic visitation.

The child born to that girl surprised the learned with his unusual knowledge of God. After coming of age and learning a trade, he surprised those around him by setting off on a mission. On that mission he surprised blind men by opening their eyes and demoniacs by casting their tormentors into swine. He surprised crippled women by straightening their backs and nervous wedding hosts by turning water into wine. He surprised the poor with his attention and children with his affection, the leprous with cleansing and sinners with restoration. It was a surprise to discover him as the Messiah—a Messiah carrying a towel and not a sword. It was a surprise when this Lord washed feet and called his subjects friends.

And this Messiah came into the world telling stories.
Surprising, beguiling, captivating stories.
Stories that shook awake hearts to see what they needed to see.

To shake the self-righteous from their arrogance he told a story about a good Samaritan. To shake the small hearted from their coldness he told a story of a father who throws a party for his repentant son. And to those about to reject him he tells a story about a vineyard owner who sends his Son to collect the harvest, only to have that Son killed by the vineyard’s tenants.

‘How do you make fresh what is thought to be familiar,’ Rowan Williams asks in The Lion’s World, ‘so familiar that it doesn’t need to be thought about?’ How do you get the attention of a world that thinks it knows what Jesus is all about, when it is often only familiar with misconceptions?

You do what Jesus did – you tell stories.
Surprising, beguiling, captivating stories.
Perhaps even stories with a sting in their tail.

In telling of the vineyard’s murderous tenants Jesus sought to shake awake the Pharisees who, blinded by their own misconceptions of the Messiah, would crucify him to protect their own interests. By killing him, the Son, the Pharisees were sealing their own doom. They would trip over the very stone they cast away.

In telling his Narnia stories C.S. Lewis sought to shake awake a less murderous, more indifferent world to the Christ they thought they knew but didn’t. Would they see the Jesus they had cast aside afresh in Aslan? Would they see him as the dangerous-but-good saviour he really is?

The need is no less today – perhaps it’s even greater.

To shake an indifferent world out of its misconceptions of Jesus.

To show that world that Jesus isn’t the distant, otherworldly figure reflected in some of our cathedral artworks, the revolutionary able to be shoe-horned into a favourite political cause, or the happy hipster depicted in those tacky plastic figurines.

No, this is a Jesus who loves lavishly and pronounces judgment. One to be reckoned with, not casually put aside. One who is dangerous but good.

May today’s artists and storytellers speak of him afresh.

This God of surprises who explodes all our misconceptions.

Sheridan Voysey