Rachel’s Vineyard helps release ache of abortion

 
  Forgiveness.
   That’s what the weekend retreats offered by the nonprofit Rachel’s Vineyard are all about. The weekends provide an opportunity for post-abortive women and men to forgive themselves and others and accept God’s forgiveness in a confidential and nonjudgmental atmosphere.
   “It takes a lot of courage” for women and men who have chosen abortion to attend a retreat, said Pam Richard, local ministry co-coordinator with Melanie Baglow. “There is so much shame and guilt. … People stay in denial, and all the psychological feelings fester inside of them.”
   The retreat has a contemplative format that takes individuals full circle. Its structure allows individuals to release the burden of aborting a baby by examining their experience, identifying how the loss impacted their life and acknowledging unresolved feelings after abortion.
   “It’s a heavy retreat,” Richard said. “They have a chance on Saturday (if they choose) to tell their abortion story. They each have 20 minutes.” They also name their aborted child, write a letter or poem to the baby and have a chance to participate in a memorial service for their baby at retreat’s end. The retreat ends with a Mass of entrustment.
   “Their child is gone, but he is happy with God,” Richard said. “That child doesn’t blame them, so they need to stop blaming themselves.”
Forgiveness is critical
   With forgiveness a big part of recovery, one of the first retreat exercises involves a person being given a rock that they carry on the retreat until they are ready to lay down whatever burden that rock represents. Attendees also write letters to the person they want to forgive the most.
   “If God forgives, then you should forgive yourself,” Richard said.
   Elizabeth A., who had three abortions, said after the first hour at the retreat participants are buckled into the experience and ready to go.
   “They feel the love,” she said. She experienced the retreat weekend as a gift not only for her own healing but for the children she aborted and the two she lost to miscarriage.
   “They were taken from my inner hatred and into the love and respect and honor that their little lives so desperately warranted,” she said. “I had killed my three babies through abortion, and it was about to kill me as well. But with the help of that retreat team and God’s grace and mercy, I was able to flip it and turn that curse into a blessing, the bitterness into forgiveness and the hatred into compassion.”
Trained counselors can help
   Licensed counselors who have dealt with trauma assist at Rachel’s Vineyard retreats, if needed.
   “Once they come into the realization of what they’ve done, they have a lot of issues and need help dealing with them,” Baglow said.
   What Rachel’s Vineyard has discovered over the years is that 50 percent of retreatants have suffered some type of abuse, and 67 percent of abortions are coerced by parents or the woman’s partner.
   “That’s the psychological stuff that can only be healed by God,” Richard said.
   “And it can be healed by God,” said Elizabeth A.
   “We have seen miracles on this retreat,” Richard said. “When you allow God to come in and heal your heart … when you give that yes … that’s like acknowledging that you have a problem and you give permission for Jesus to come in.”
How the ministry began
   Dr. Theresa Burke was working with women experiencing eating disorders while earning her Ph.D. and discovered a correlation between eating disorders and abortion, Richard said. She founded The Center for Post-Abortion Healing in 1986. Rachel’s Vineyard emerged and was named after the Old Testament figure Rachel, who mourns for her children only to have the Lord tell her to cease her cries of mourning: “The sorrow you have shown shall have its reward.”
   Elizabeth A. said she always knew that aborting her babies was wrong, but it took getting married and having three additional children to feel the impact of her earlier decisions. She realized she couldn’t be joyful in her motherhood because of what she had done. She sunk into a depression and was numbing her pain with anti-depressants.
   “If you don’t heal, you are still where you were when you made that first decision (to abort),” Elizabeth A. said.
   She said she tried to handle the pain alone, but couldn’t. She went to Rachel’s Vineyard and began a conversion back to the Catholic faith. She said the retreat broke the chain and let her be free to love.
   “My forgiveness of myself had freed me to love others including my husband and children,” she said.
   Elizabeth A. said too many women suffer in secret. She thinks since they hate themselves, everyone else hates them, too. But everybody sins, she said, and a sin is a sin.
   “That’s why Jesus died for us,” she said.
   Richard calls those who have suffered from an abortion the “walking wounded,” who are in our churches and choirs and on our playgrounds. Since grief is a process, she said the retreat is a good start for post-abortive individuals.
   “It’s important to get the word out that there is healing and forgiveness after abortion,” Richard said.
   Rachel’s Vineyard offers 700 retreats annually in 47 states and 25 countries. It has been held throughout Louisiana and in the Archdiocese of New Orleans for many years. It is a ministry of ACCESS Pregnancy Center of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans. The next local retreat is Nov. 15-17 at Rosaryville, with scholarships available to those who can’t afford the $170 cost.
   “It’s a magnificent retreat,” Richard said. “God works miracles through the process. The process really works.”
   Visit www.rachelsvineyard.org or call 889-2431, 460-9360 or 1 (877) HOPE-4-Me; email mkbaglow@cox.net or visit www.rachelsvineyard.org.
   Christine Bordelon can be reached at cbordelon@clarionherald.org.