Encountering Jesus, the Merciful Healer

On a warm evening in late August, I greeted five of the most courageous women I have ever met. They might tell you that they were apprehensive of meeting me, the other team members, and each other.  While the backgrounds of the women varied–mid-30 to mid-60’s, lifelong Catholics, converts, teachers, accountants & homemakers – they were each seeking one thing: healing from their past abortions. 

Women often experience a variety of negative physical, spiritual, moral, and psychological consequences after abortions including grief, depression, withdrawal from family and friends, deep and unrelenting anger at herself and others, alcohol and drug abuse, fear that God will punish them for committing the “unforgiveable sin,” and anniversary reactions. 

At the beginning of the retreat, I compared their abortions to a physical wound – one that perhaps they had tried to ignore for years, one that was festering and that needed to be cleaned from the bottom up.  Just as a doctor can only prepare a wound for healing by cleaning it, so too, these woman could only prepare to be healed from their abortion by God.  This preparation would include seeking to understand and honestly face their abortions, learning about the many factors that that led to abortion, and examining abortion as both a shattering decision and traumatic event.  In addition, they prayed and meditated on Christ’s response to sinners, which is always mercy, and imagined hearing the words of Christ to the woman caught in adultery: Has no one condemned you?  Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. (Jn. 8:11)

The discussion and activities they participated in prepared them to encounter Jesus, the Merciful Healer, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and entrust their children to the God the Father’s loving care. 

It was an incredibly moving experience to witness how the healing and merciful grace of Christ transformed these five courageous women. 

After the retreat, two of the women shared the following testimonies:

The Project Rachel Retreat provided a great sense of love, forgiveness, mercy, and grace to my heart’s festering wound.  I began tending the wound 8 years earlier, and now, 32 years after my abortion, I finally felt the kiss of Jesus on my heart which provided the healing closure I needed.  I am freed from my bondage of guilt and shame.  I am free to love Him completely. 

I had been carrying pain from my experiences for some 40 years.  I was in denial and didn’t even realize how much I was suffering and how much pain I had caused.  Talking with other women, praying and participating in the exercises and ceremonies at the retreat opened my heart to my unborn child and helped me to receive God’s perfect gift of love, healing, and forgiveness.

The next Project Rachel Retreat will be held March 31-April 1, 2017 in the greater Indianapolis area. If you know someone in need of healing after abortion, please pray for them and encourage them to please to call, (317) 452-0054, or email projectrachel@archindy.org, or visit our website at www.archindy.org/projectrachel. All inquiries and retreat locations are confidential.