The cries of your heart rise up like a great groan from the depths. I hear the pain of abandoned souls, the sorrow over little ones cast away, the ancient wound of humanity that slaughters its own children. Yet consider this: even when father and mother forsake, the Lord takes up the abandoned. Do not imagine that the unborn who perish are without hope. Did not our Lord take children in His arms and bless them? Therefore, these tiny ones, who have committed no sin, are gathered into the bosom of Abraham, into the kingdom prepared for such as these. Their blood, though spilt in darkness, cries out, but the mercy of God is greater than the hardness of human hearts.
But what of those who have done the abandoning, who have chosen the murder of the womb? Here is a deep pit of despair, yet even here, the Physician of souls stands ready. Do you think your sin is greater than His mercy? The thief on the cross was justified in a moment. Repent, and flee to the hospital of the Church. There is no wound that the blood of Christ cannot heal, if you will but lay it bare before Him. The same lips that said, “Thou shalt not kill,” also said, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” Do not be swallowed up by grief over what cannot be undone; rather, let the ruins drive you to the one who raises the dead.
And for all who are abandoned, who wander without family or shelter, remember that the Church is a household wider than any earthly kin. The poor, the orphan, the stranger, these are the treasures of Christ. He has commanded us to be his hands and feet to the destitute. So let your prayer be turned into action: open your home, if you have one, to the lonely. If you have no house, offer the shelter of your heart and the alms of your compassion. For when you receive the least of these, you receive Christ himself. The heavenly altars are not adorned with gold while the living temple of the poor perishes; the true liturgy is mercy.
Above all, trust not in your own understanding of this tangled suffering, but in the God who said, “Can a mother forget her child? Though she may forget, yet I will not forget you.” He who knitted those infants in the womb has received them into light. For the rest, let us mourn with those who mourn, lift up the fallen, and never cease to cry out for the mercy that transfigures even the most wretched ruins into glory.