"When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children,… [s]he said to Jacob, 'Give me children, or else I will die'" (Genesis 30:1).
Sometime in the middle of the 1960s, an engaged couple sat making plans for married life. They longed to hear the fabled "patter of little feet," praying it would rise to a clamor before long. The two hailed from large and loving families and were eager to fill a home of their own with new young lives.
They married on a windy day in October of 1964, with a spray of rice and squall of bells. Already, the bride, a resourceful seamstress, was mentally calculating the lengths of fabric she would need to create a quilted crib set for her first little one, wondering if she ought to cut up her gown for a Christening robe. Her head swam with favorite names for future children: Alice, Mary, Florence, Eileen, Joseph, Michael, James, John…. So many beautiful possibilities.
The couple returned from Atlantic City and settled into normal life, looking forward to the hour they would welcome a first child into their home. Days passed, dissolving into weeks, then dragging on to months, but still no babies came. Each page ripped off the calendar was itself a wrenched hope, wrinkled into the dismal wastebasket of years.
One chilly afternoon, the wife was feeling especially downcast. She blessed herself at the door of a local church and sank at the foot of an imposing statue of St. Joseph. Unexpectedly and insistently, the turbulence in her heart swelled into tears — tears of grief and desolation, and tears of something teetering near, but never quite falling into, despair. She cried to the Saint from the depths of her heart (a "prayer" she would often recount to her daughter later):
"How could you let this happen to me? I've always been so devoted to you, even as a child! Why don't I have a baby?!"
Later that day, she felt remorseful and foolish for having spoken so sharply to Good St. Joseph, but he, having been the most perfect of spouses while on earth, surely understood the lamentations of a sorrowful wife. He also seems to have had a word with his foster Son, because, two weeks later, she found out she was expecting.
I am an only child. My mother bought her milk by the quart and frequented the express line at supermarkets. My father brought me to work with him now and then, and, unlike most of the families on our block, we never needed a Station Wagon. I had my own room, first choice of afternoon television shows, and the prizes in every box of cereal. Our home was calm, content, and quiet.
By God's grace, the only child is now a mother of seven, and I cannot help but celebrate the gift of a bustling, busy family. Yet in my quiet moments of reflection, I remember that our large family, in many ways, sprang from a quieter place — from the recesses of a home with only one small olive branch lovingly tended. If the truth is known, the desire for children burning at the very dawn of our marriage came, not from any wisdom or foresight, but because of the example of faithful parents who taught that children are indeed a precious gift, but by no means assured. Thanks to their example and even their disappointment, time seemed of the essence, even at twenty four. Perhaps this blessed sense of urgency was God's gift in the days when I thought time and childbearing would go on forever. I like to think it was His answer to my parents' desperate prayers so many years before.
According to the Catechism, "Sacred Scripture and the Church's traditional practice see in large families a sign of God's blessing and the parents' generosity" (CCC 2373).
Large families are a vivid and visible sign, a beacon of Faith in a world that has too often rejected God's gifts. Yet we know with certainty that our Father in Heaven also sees in secret. He notices the mother shedding a tear as she puts her only child's crib in storage or the father praying for his wife on the way to work, and, in their grief and anxiety, He Himself sees "a sign of God's blessing and the parent's generosity." He holds their hearts in His and knows that their suffering is not in vain. These couples tread a path that "radiate[s] a fruitfulness of charity, of hospitality, and of sacrifice" (CCC 1654). Theirs is a hard fought tribute to the Sanctity of Life.
When our dear Lord came to earth, He blessed small families forever by choosing one for Himself. May we never cease to praise Him for the hidden violets in His heavenly garden.
