WHOLLY FAMILY

A light at Easter: Human creation is meant to reflect the Author of life

By Mary Moore | April 16, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

Our 7-year-old daughter has started to notice people staring at her. At daily Mass and the grocery store, she has become quite a spectacle. Or so she imagines. While admittedly it is unusual for her to be in such places during a school day, her homeschool status which affords it is not the cause of all of the fuss.

The truth is there isn’t any fuss at all.

Her newfound sense of limelight comes from the fact that my husband and I have told her more than once that she must be an example to others, and that her behavior is one which others may choose to model. Of course we were talking about her smaller brother and sister, but when a very genial elderly fellow began to imitate her dancing in a parking lot, with impressive precision I might add, she got suspicious about the effect of her “modeling.”

She concluded that everyone must be staring at her.

Of course I see the prospective vanity this type of complex could produce, but to be very honest I am not worried about it at present. Maybe it is because I know she is all too aware of her flaws. Or maybe it is because I know that she has an understanding of something that most of us navel gazers have lost: the fact that we were made to reflect something to others.

Light in darkness

A beautiful, sorrowful event this Lent reminded me of just what an impact one person can have in reflecting our Creator.

The day before we were to celebrate with much ado our family’s Irish heritage on St. Patrick’s day, I miscarried a child with whom I was nine weeks along in pregnancy. In what still remains a mystery to me, moments after her birth – with what seemed like pretty inappropriate timing considering our shock and grief — I clearly heard God tell me to call her Lucy, a lovely name but not one I have ever pondered for a child of ours. In the days to follow, it would become all too clear why He chose this name for her.

In a rare occurrence, Lucy was miscarried in a completely intact sac at nine weeks, enabling us to see her as clearly as if we had a camera in the womb. Even I, who have been “pro-life” since I understood the unfortunate need for the term, was in awe at how perfectly, fearfully and wonderfully made a human being is at only nine weeks’ gestation. More than her eyes, feet, elbows and spine, most implausible to me were her perfectly formed fingers.

We couldn’t help staring at her. You might say she was a spectacle, in some fashion the way her sister thinks she is in the grocery store. That is, she was a gift meant to reflect something to others.

Thanks to Lucy, my children will never wonder when life begins. Before their mom ever began to show signs of pregnancy, they know that their little sister was completely formed. They will understand with certainty what the author of Psalm 139 meant when he said, “You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb.”

And I will not wonder why God, who calls us each by name, chose Lucy, which means “light,” for hers. To all those who saw her she reflected her Creator: the God of Job who gives and takes away, the God of Isaiah who says, “I will give you treasures out of the darkness... I form the light.”

And so He did.

And so in this Easter season may we be reminded that each of us was created to reflect the Author of Life, so that everyone who meets us might meet the Lord who named them and who longs to live with them eternally in the place He has prepared for them.

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Mary Moore is a syndicated columnist who lives in Mesa.