Modern Motherhood: An Interview with Sr. Veronica Mary, SV
By Leah Eppen
Leah Eppen: What is the mission of the Sisters of Life?
Sr. Veronica Mary, SV: In addition to professing the three traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, Sisters of Life take a fourth vow to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life.
Cardinal O’Connor, Our Founder, would say “The Sisters of Life are to love, to love, to love!” We believe that each person is made in the image and likeness of God, is good, unique, valuable, and irreplaceable. With the coming of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, God has revealed His great love for us, wants to share His life with us, and therefore, confers on each of us great dignity––the dignity of being sons and daughters of God. We give our lives––in love––each day, within Community, to proclaim this truth with joy, in word, action, and through our prayers.
LE: What is your role within this mission?
SVM: I have had the great joy and privilege to serve over the past 21 years in various missions and apostolates within the Community. For the last seven years, my role has been to walk with women who have suffered after abortion in the work of the Hope and Healing Mission.
LE: What does a typical day look like for your order?
SVM: The focus of our days is our prayer life, and life in Community. We are always in habit. We eat meals together, enjoying silence with table reading/listening during two of them. We work, eat, pray, and recreate together, on a very regular schedule.
As you can see, our lives are given––to the Lord, each other, and those we serve. Our first work is our prayer and our greatest gift to the Church and to the world is our contemplation.
LE: The Sisters’ ministry works intimately with women who have had or are considering an abortion. From this mission, what have you learned about motherhood?
SVM: Interesting question––and profound. Well, it has shown me more than anything I could ever read in a book. The pain of a woman who has suffered an abortion (the pain of miscarriage is very real too––but different) is as deep as the soul and can be quite raw and desperate. It cuts through to the core of a woman. The complicated grief we witness and receive tell us that in some respects this woman has lost a precious part of herself…different from every other loss. This is a mother in mourning, longing for her lost child. Once a woman is pregnant, she is a mother. And that truth stays with her always.
LE: What makes motherhood a gift?
SVM: Motherhood is the masterpiece of God and as much as we can learn and know through science, it remains the ultimate mystery and miracle. A woman is made to hold another human being within herself! A woman’s body is designed to nurture another and through a vast cascade of perfectly ordered physical responses to the conception of a child in her womb, she changes. Her body is designed to expand, nourish, and shield her child. The child grows within her and she is intimately aware of this other being within. Yet, it is so much more than a physical transformation––it touches every aspect of a woman. She becomes attuned and intimately connected to another––her child––in this profoundly unique bond of maternal love. It was Edith Stein (St. Teresa Benedicta) who said, “Maternal love will change the world.”
When pregnancy occurs outside of God’s plan for life and love, this child is vulnerable to the ultimate rejection.
Before I became a Sister, I was an RN. At one time, I worked in the Labor and Delivery Unit of the hospital. It became a predictable experience every time I assisted at a birth that in addition to the arrival of a new baby being a naturally deeply moving and profound experience, the word I would use is “electric.” It may sound over the top, but it was my real-time experience then. There was an actual, felt cosmic change at every birth, like a bolt of energy passing through the room. I smile as I recall those days.
LE: Do you think motherhood has been wounded by modern culture?
SVM: I think mothers are heroic to begin with…and married couples trying to raise children in today’s culture are the heroes of the day. In generations of the not too distant past, mothers and families lived nearby to either extended family and/or neighbors who were home raising their own children. This meant there was more of a sense of solidarity and support available. This is not so true now, as families are generally smaller and more widespread.
In this rapidly changing culture, I also see mothers facing cultural dilemmas on so many fronts––how secular education challenges nearly every moral and ethical belief, deconstructing basic structures of society, pressures to conform, the ‘comparison’ game (which can be deadly), inability to protect their children from the influences of media outlets, family time competing with extracurriculars, not to mention the societal expectations of what constitutes ‘the modern woman’, etc. I can imagine mothers must have to ‘pick their battles.’ Many other factors, such as aging parents living longer and needing care and the effects of the culture on their own children’s well-being, can leave women who are raising children quite stretched to the limit.
LE: How has motherhood/how have women been wounded by abortion?
SVM: Many women who contact us express that after their abortion, they made a U-turn from God and left the Church. They feel God is angry with them. Believing they deserve to be punished, they often enter onto a path of self-destructive behaviors and poor choices, including poor choices in relationships or marriage. A cascade of psycho-emotional turmoil can enter in, and most of these women, burdened by shame and guilt, feeling invalidated by society in their suffering, grief, and need, will suffer in silence.
The sooner one who has suffered reaches out for healing, the greater the chance that these patterns can be turned around. The hope that forgiveness and healing are possible, can bring them back to God and lead them to make healthier choices. Guilt, and the fear of being judged, shamed, rejected, and/or exposed can keep women from reaching out.
Gentle, non-judgmental, warm, welcoming, and confidential environments give courage and hope to all of us, and are especially important when accompanying and caring for women (and men) who have suffered. Love, acceptance, and attentiveness to a woman’s heart gives encouragement and heals.
LE: How can we restore motherhood by the ways mothers live it out and our cultural attitude towards it?
SVM: God knows well what we face today and what the cultural pressures are. We are never alone. He is, I do believe with all my heart, pouring Himself in His Spirit out upon the world in unprecedented ways––because He will never leave us orphaned! He promised us the Advocate (the Holy Spirit), and the Advocate is busy!
Having said that, women are made for relationship! Many, if not most, women need support and good friends––trusted confidants with whom to share their hearts, their day-to-day struggles, to be heard, listened to and received by another…to know others have the same struggles and challenges, worries and concerns. How helpful this can be!
Women also need maternal models to look to and learn from. If they were blessed with good mothers who taught and modeled well for them…what a gift! For those who are in search of that woman, there are ways to find them. You may know someone whose maternal heart you are drawn to. Someone who provides a place where you can rest in their company. Why not get to know them a bit? Find out their secrets and learn from them.
Naturally, Our Lady, chosen by God Himself as His mother, is a woman we can all look to, pray to, and talk to. How much comfort, wisdom and love she shares with us when we reach out to her! It may take some time to get to know her, but I recommend starting the conversation. Also, the saints and what they long to teach us! The saints in particular who were married with children can teach much about motherhood! Zelie Martin (her letters), St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (Dirvin’s biography), St. Gianna, and so many others. Start a women’s reading or study group on The Dignity and Vocation of Women or Letter to Women by Pope Saint John Paul II (ENDOW or Walking With Purpose are two women’s groups that can help in this area). Meeting with and having other women to share with can build great friendships, while supporting one another in their Catholic faith.
Prayer is essential. Prayer groups, the rosary, and Bible studies can all be an important part of strengthening a woman in her vocation and the issues she finds herself facing. Finding peace within through contemplation and meditation (even 15 minutes), or taking time out if possible for a day or weekend retreat all can, over time, help a woman gain perspective and find renewed strength and rejuvenation.
Finally, maintaining a disciplined use of media in general––and social media in particular––is important as well, so as not to add more undue pressure to an already busy or burdened life.
LE: How can we help mothers who have experienced abortion on the road to healing?
SVM: Sin always whispers false promises and then, after the fact, causes us to doubt the possibility of God’s complete love for us. The women we walk with in our Hope and Healing Mission describe their experience after abortion as a sense of loss and grief, anger and confusion. It inflicted a deep wound, yet, all too often, these women and men are left to suffer in silence, alone, thinking they’re the ones who are crazy for feeling the way they do. But they’re not crazy at all. And Jesus doesn’t want any of us to be alone––ever.
From the first phone call or encounter with a woman who has suffered, we receive them with total non-judgement, grateful that the Lord has sent a lost sheep our way. We reassure them that there is much hope for them and affirm all that they have and are suffering that relates to the abortion. It takes great courage to pick up the phone or send an email. It can take many tries before they gather the courage to reach out…and we thank God when they do. Most times, if not all, there is a sense of almost instant relief––with many tears.
Helping them back to God, to an encounter with Jesus and His Merciful love held out to them, is the goal. Once they know they are safe and that they are not alone––“there are so many of us” we often hear as they meet one another––then the work can begin. To accompany them as they reconcile with God and the Church through the sacraments (when this is possible), with their lost child (assuring them that an eternal soul awaits them with the Lord, knows them, is not angry with them, and wants their mother’s healing!), and with themselves.
To see themselves reflected through the eyes of another––eyes that look upon their goodness, delighting in them, seeing beyond their sin to their inherent dignity, without judgement but with love––heals, restores, and, over time, helps a woman feel like herself…the woman God created her to be. These eyes can be yours, as you too can be an instrument of grace and healing for another. It takes time but, with the support and love of others surrounding her, we have seen many miracles.
LE: What is one thing you wish people knew about hope and healing within motherhood?
SVM: God desires your wholeness, for you to be well and to have hope that healing is possible!
I would also wish to encourage anyone who is suffering from an abortion or abortions: You need not carry this burden alone––there is so much support available and God wants us to trust Him and come back to Him so He can ever so gently tend our wounds.
LE: For our readers interested in learning more about your order, where can they learn more?
SVM: Our website has much information: sistersoflife.org. All of our ministries are listed there, and more information can be found there on the Hope and Healing Mission. Our magazine Imprint, printed 3 times a year, is free, and you can sign up for it on the website, or call the Motherhouse at 1-845-357-3547. A Sister will happily help you!
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save the world through him.” John 3:17
Biography of Sr. Veronica Mary, SV
Sr. Veronica Mary, SV was born in Waterbury, Connecticut and prior to entering religious life, served for six-and-a-half years as a registered nurse in the Air Force. She entered the Sisters of Life in 1999 and made her final vows in 2007. Currently, she is serving in the Hope and Healing Mission—an outreach to those who are suffering after abortion—a beautiful work of God’s great love and unfathomable mercy. She now lives her pro-life passion with the sure confidence that it is her fidelity to her vocation as a religious Sister, grounded in prayer and contemplation, that is her greatest contribution to building a Culture of Life.
Sisters of Life are asked to submit three names for consideration prior to entering the novitiate. Through prayer, she chose the name Veronica Mary. As an RN, she would often recall the gesture of St. Veronica, wiping the face of Jesus, as she herself cared for her patients and they returned a simple gaze of gratitude. Those exchanges touched her profoundly and were no doubt preparing her to be His alone, and to see in each suffering soul the face of Christ.
