St. Gerard

I'm now 40 weeks pregnant and ready to have this child already. I've been ready for weeks, actually, but now I'm really getting impatient. Last week at church I lit a vigil candle and prayed that God take care of my labor and delivery. I prayed that everything happen according to His plan and His time, but if it didn't happen soon that he somehow grant me the patience to wait until it did.

I'm finding it really hard to wait, but there's nothing to be done. I try to console myself that everything is still happening according to God's plan, but it's hard.

It's also difficult because I've been feeling slightly abandoned by the Church at this time. I feel like I did what they wanted...I used natural family planning, when it didn't work out I kept my baby, and I'm going to raise him in the faith to the best of my ability. We're even naming him Philo Alexander* after two saints. And yet, I've been having a tough time finding information on Catholic support for pregnant or laboring women. This hurts because every other possible topic seems to be covered. Want to pray off your hangover? St. Bibiana will listen to you. Need some help whitewashing that fence? Hey, you've got St. Colman, St. Killian, and St. Totnan to assist you. There are even saints to help out with our feathered friends. But I was having a tough time finding Catholic support for women who were pregnant or facing childbirth.

Today I was looking again and stumbled upon a whole bunch of saints to help with childbirth and pregnancy. This made me happier. One of the saints was St. Gerard Majella. I found this prayer that I particularly liked:

O great Saint Gerard, beloved servant of Jesus Christ, perfect imitator of your meek and humble Savior, and devoted child of Mother of God, enkindle within my heart one spark of that heavenly fire of charity which glowed in your heart and made you an angel of love. O glorious Saint Gerard, because when falsely accused of crime, you did bear, like your Divine Master, without murmur or complaint, the calumnies of wicked men, you have been raised up by God as the patron and protector of expectant mothers. Preserve me from danger and from the excessive pains accompanying childbirth, and shield the child which I now carry, that it may see the light of day and receive the purifying and life-giving waters of baptism through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

So that made me feel better. Hopefully I'll have the strength to make it through childbirth whenever this kid decides to make his debut.



* I went to find a link to St. Alexander, and it turns out there are about a thousand of them. Yikes. However, a link to Philo was easier to find.