When Death Births Life: St. Bryce Missions Grows Out of a Family's Grief

“I went to the jungle thinking I was going to grieve, but God brought me there to heal,” author and full-time missionary Colleen C. Mitchell said as she sat on a stool in my kitchen, watching me prepare a pot of Crayfish Étouffée. Mitchell and I had met only a week earlier at a Catholic Trade Show in Chicago, but when I learned she was a native New Orleanian who would be coming through our hometown in a week, I insisted we get together. During our visit, Mitchell openly shared her story of heartbreak and grief, and how it led her family to a cloud forest in Costa Rica to serve as missionaries caring for the spiritual and physical needs of the indigenous Cabecar peoples.

Their journey to the jungle began in 2009 while Mitchell, her husband, Greg, and their six sons were living a normal, happy life as a Catholic homeschooling family. On what she called “a perfect homeschooling day,” tragedy suddenly struck when Mitchell found her three-month-old son, Bryce, unresponsive in his crib due to SIDS. Within a short time, the couple lost four more babies to miscarriage, leaving Mitchell completely shattered and irrevocably changed by the multiple heartbreaks and ensuing grief that had visited their lives.

Shortly after Bryce’s death, Greg became inspired to establish a non-profit organization in Bryce’s name for the purpose of sharing the Gospel. “I can’t say I opposed the idea,” wrote Mitchell in the exquisite new book that grew out of her grief entitled Who Does He Say You Are: Women Transformed by Christ in the Gospels.  “But I could not make logical sense of how you give your heart away when you are holding its shards in bleeding hands.”

9781632531025_50896be0-fe96-42b3-8234-e71a251d5f3a_1024x1024

Still tentative about how they could help others while in so much pain themselves, Mitchell offered God and Greg a “weak-kneed” yes, and St. Bryce Missions was born. Not long after that, Greg visited Costa Rica on a business trip, coming home with a vision for their future that his wife had not imagined: moving their family to the Chirripo Mountains of south Central Costa Rica to minister to the unevangelized indigenous peoples who live on a government-provided reserve therein.

Making a radical leap of faith, Mitchell packed her family’s belongings and necessities into 12 suitcases, embarking “sight unseen on a journey of redemption” to the poorest area of Costa Rica, unsure of what lay before them. Three weeks into their new life in the remote jungle, tragedy struck again via the death of Greg’s mother, necessitating his departure from Costa Rica for three weeks. “It was then—as I sat broken-hearted, isolated and alone in the jungle with my boys, with no car, unable to speak Spanish, apart from everything and everyone I had known—that I realized I needed to get to know God in a new way.”

Mitchell spent long days sitting beside a running river with her Bible and journal in hand, meditating upon Gospel stories of Christ’s healing, transforming power as her boys played in the river’s clear waters. There the grieving mother began to hear Christ speaking life into her heart again, and it was there that she began to reclaim God’s vision of her by journaling the “tender mercies” the Lord gave her in prayer—the very journal entries that would eventually become the chapters of her beautiful new book.

“I began to own that even with all the cracks and broken places the last few years had wrought in me, I was beautiful and beloved to him, and I had a purpose. He wanted to use me,” she wrote. It would not take long for that purpose to be realized.

Mitchell began to notice that basic healthcare was inaccessible to the Cabecar women, forcing pregnant women to walk as many as ten miles while in labor trying to find a hospital in which to safely deliver their babies. Wondering how she could help, she hatched a plan in her mind to find and engage an existing organizational institution to solve the problem of making healthcare more accessible to these poor women. Again, God surprised her with an unimagined solution.

“One day in prayer, I heard God say, ‘Use what you have to meet this need,’” Mitchell told me as I sat listening in amazement. “You have a car, a house, and a way to get these people to the hospital. Share with them what I’ve given you.”

Mitchell said yes.

The very next day Mitchell and her husband encountered a Cabecar woman with an extremely sick baby who had already walked eight hours in the pouring rain to find medical help. They picked her up, drove her to the hospital, and stayed with her to make sure she received the care she needed, leaving their phone number with her in the event she had no way to get home upon the baby’s release from the hospital. The woman called the couple the next day, and ended up staying in their home for a week until the baby was stable enough to go home.

After this first encounter, the Mitchells put the word out that they were willing to help others, and more women began to show up. This influx eventually prompted the family to move to a larger home close to the hospital which sleeps 25 women in addition to their family of 7—bringing to life the St. Francis Emmaus Center, a home-based ministry that is only one of several initiatives St. Bryce Missions is currently undertaking to reach out to those on the peripheries of society with the Gospel.  To date, over 700 Cabecar women have come through their doors to receive food, shelter, health education and health-care advocacy in the state-run medical system, receiving love and care from the Mitchells and their five still-homeschooling sons, all of whom are engaged in the work of St. Bryce Missions.

The Mitchell’s “yes” to God has birthed healing in hopelessness and grace in grief—for themselves and numerous others. Their efforts have not only spurred a 50% drop in the infant mortality rate among the people they serve, but has given whole families in an oft-overlooked part of the world the opportunity to encounter Christ.

This article appeared previously at Aleteia.

Mercy Upon Mercy: My Father's Final Farewell

“At that last hour a soul has nothing with which to defend itself except My mercy.” —Diary of St. Faustina, par. 1075

“Do you believe in God, Dad?” I asked from the driver’s seat as Daddy and I cruised down St. Charles Avenue heading for my parents’ New Orleans home.

My then-eighty-year-old father, known to cry freely, began to weep. “I’m totally dependent on God’s mercy, Judy Marie,” he choked out using my entire given name, which he’d called me exclusively since the day I was born. “What else is there?”

That conversation contained the most open display of faith I’d ever seen in my dad; a father of ten whom I’d never witnessed initiating prayer or church attendance. Daddy and I had never even talked about faith before, and we only stumbled into this conversation because he was attending my Health Care Ethics course at a local Catholic college. Our weekly post-class lunch together, and the drive home, left ample time for conversation but it seemed that the topic of God was the hardest thing to broach.

Until Daddy lay dying.

“Dad,” I said out loud as I held the hand of my lightly comatose father in what would be the last week of his life, confident he could still hear me. “Remember what you told me about being completely dependent on God’s mercy? Trust in the mercy of God when you meet him, Dad,” I continued. “That’s all you need to do.”

Family members had been gathering daily by Daddy’s bedside to pray the Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet, engaged in a vigil of prayer and personal attendance as he slept in a newly delivered hospital bed. At least one person from our large family sat next to him constantly, while others occupied nearby spaces—keeping company with Mama and each other, preparing meals, and running necessary errands.

“What a beautiful way to die,” I thought one evening as I stood in the kitchen tending a rump roast and sipping a glass of wine. I was overcome with awe by the sheer grace of it all, noting the powerful manner in which our father’s impending death had pulled us all to God and to each other; offering gratitude for the way a father’s final days had drawn a family that’s experienced more than its fair share of adversity, division and tragedy solidly together in faith, hope and love.

A priest friend had come by twice in eight days to offer Mass, anointing both of our ailing parents each time with the Sacrament of the Sick. At the second Mass at least thirty members of our extended family crammed around the dining room table to celebrate the liturgy—the same table at which at least a dozen people would gather for dinner another night to pool our hearts and prayers:  intermittently praying, eating, crying, laughing, and sharing stories of our lives together. An Apostolic Pardon was given to Daddy, as well as the offering of love, peace and pardon from many family members. One particularly precious night, a room full of grown children raised our voices beside our unconscious father to thank him for the many gifts he’d given us, including endless hours spent in the scorching Louisiana heat teaching twenty-eight first cousins how to ski, crab, boat and fish in the murky waters of Lake Pontchartrain.

Life had not always been easy and Daddy had borne his scars, especially from the heart-shattering deaths of two of his sons to suicide.  Indeed, life had seemed almost merciless at times and God far distant, and our now-fragile father had cried many tears over life’s bitter disappointments.

But now—at the hour of death when it mattered most—mercy upon mercy showed up.

A peaceful, holy death was granted to a man who had the grace to comprehend that he was “totally dependent on God’s mercy”—tender, faithful Mercy that drew us all into its embrace during a father’s final farewell.

This article previously appeared at Aleteia.

Pre-order my new book at MemorareMinistries.com.

Being Pro-Life In A Pro-Choice Political Dynasty

The whole clan (almost) at Grandma's.

We must admit that the practice of mercy is waning in the wider culture. In some cases the word seems to have dropped out of use. However, without a witness to mercy, life becomes fruitless and sterile, as if sequestered to a barren desert. Pope Francis, Misericordiae Vultus, para. 10

The poignant, personal statement by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg about the death of Antonin Scalia, and the ensuing details of their warm friendship, has brought to mind the close relationship I enjoy with my some of my own family members who serve in the political arena—loved ones with whom I have deep differences over the issue of abortion.

My teeth were cut on the campaign trail, as I grew up in a highly political family of Louisiana Democrats, wherein one or more of my immediate relatives have held public office almost continuously since I was born in 1960. Memories of my childhood are replete with door-to-door canvassing, rallies and working long hours alongside my siblings and cousins in various campaign headquarters in New Orleans. There we answered phones, ran endless copies of flyers on Xerox machines and addressed, stamped, and sealed envelopes until our fingers were raw. At rallies, we handed out yard signs and bumper stickers, blew up hundreds of colored balloons with helium and sang homespun songs for our candidates. Politics, and its inherent idealism of making the world a better place, was at the center of our lives.

Our boisterous Catholic clan was extremely family oriented, with two lone brothers spawning nineteen children in less than a dozen years—my parents’ 10 and Uncle Moon and Aunt Verna’s nine. (We won the race because we got a set of twins:)  Sundays included shared lunches at Grandma’s house after church, where we lingered to play jacks, card games and jump rope over the dueling smells of Paw Paw’s sweet pipe and Uncle Moon’s strong cigar. I adore the smell of pipes and cigars to this day, as both instantly transport me back to memories of family gatherings over Grandma’s rump roast and gravy.

Summers brought us all together at the rustic camp that Grandma bought on Lake Pontchartrain in 1963, where swimming, fishing, boating, skiing and crabbing kept us, and many of our friends, entertained from dawn until dark in the scorching Southern heat. The pinnacle of summer was our Fourth of July celebration, when we raised the family flag that rested on Paw Paw’s coffin when he died in 1967, then recited the Pledge of Allegiance and read aloud the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution. Uncle Moon’s short speech about appreciating the gifts of freedom and democracy that we enjoy in our great nation preceded the singing of “America the Beautiful.” We were proud to be Americans and Landrieus.

Sadly, the winds of change crept in during those precious years, bringing with them drugs, rebellion, a confused post-Vatican II church, contraception, radical feminism, and the new law of the land, abortion on demand. I was swept up into much of the Cultural Revolution, but somehow, by God’s grace, I always knew with certainty that abortion was wrong. Whether it was the Natural Law or the sensus fidei at work, no one ever had to tell me that killing an unborn child in its mother’s womb was a grievous offense. Furthermore, no one had to convince me that a pregnant woman was carrying an actual child, given the fact that I had nine siblings and numerous cousins, with almost half of them younger than I.

Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, the year I became a teenager.   I didn’t think much about the issue of abortion until senior year in high school, when a close friend of mine became pregnant and had an abortion. Suddenly, what had previously been clearly wrong was now a “necessary choice.” Freedom became associated with the ability to choose for oneself, and even the ability to define reality according to one’s own perceptions. Thus began the slippery slope that slid our nation headlong into 60,000,000 aborted babies, with some of my family members ultimately leading the national charge for abortion rights by way of their political power.

I’ve prayed, fasted, and grieved hard about my family’s pro-choice stance over the years—the very issue that eventually pushed me into the Republican Party by default. When possible, I’ve tried to persuade those I love to see the light. Some conversations have gone well, others not so much.

I imagine that Justice Scalia must have felt real grief over what he saw unfold before his eyes during his long tenure on the Supreme Court—not only because he was a jurist who believed that the Constitution nowhere permitted a woman the right to abort her child, but also because he was a devout Catholic who firmly believed in the sanctity of human life. Even so, he worked side by side and apparently enjoyed intimate friendship with people who assumed a completely different stance than he did on abortion (as well as on marriage and other moral issues). I was genuinely surprised to learn this fact about him but am heartened by his example, especially during this Year of Mercy when Pope Francis is challenging us to re-think the way we go about relationships, especially at a time in history where mercilessness and rancor seem to rule the day.

There is a time and a place to stand strong for what we believe, particularly when standing firm for what is right and true affects the direction our future takes, both individually and corporately. But there is also a time and a place to put painful, divisive things aside for the sake of strengthening relationships, for the sake of growing in understanding of one another, for the sake of cultivating friendship.

Humility and charity demand that we don’t have to engage the fight every chance we get, don’t have to win every argument or prove we are right all of the time (or even most of the time for that matter). In fact, sometimes we win more through listening, through kindness, through love. That’s one thing that Nino Scalia’s towering legacy is saying to me, and I am taking note.

This article was previously published on Aleteia.

Grace Upon Grace

Dear Friends, Many blessings to you and your families as we end 2015 and begin the new year.  Please know that I am praying for you and your intentions today at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C..  May the Lord bless you abundantly in 2016 and grant you a fresh outpouring of His mercy and love.       Blessings and grace!    Judy  

We recall the poignant words of Saint John XXIII when, opening the (Second Vatican) Council, he indicated the path to follow: “Now the Bride of Christ wishes to use the medicine of mercy rather than taking up arms of severity.” Pope Francis, Misericordiae Vultus, par. 4

Carried tenderly through the Jubilee Door of Mercy at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception by her parents, 10-day-old Grace Philomena would be baptized in just a few hours on this same special day—the Feast of the Holy Family in the Octave of Christmas during the Jubilee Year of Mercy.

Grace. God’s favor and unmerited gift. A perfect name for a baby conceived in an imperfect situation by unmarried young adults; yet a child welcomed, wanted, loved by God and by us. Moreover, a child soon to be infused with the grace of God, giving her the one identity that truly counts: child of God.

Standing in the crypt of the National Basilica, it was hard to miss the sense of being in the womb of the Church, the womb of the Bride of Christ, the womb of Mercy. I pondered the paradox of the God-man choosing to enter this world in an irregular and apparently scandalous situation, conceived before Joseph and Mary were living together as husband and wife, making Mary subject to stoning according to the demands of the law. Why that way, Lord? I have asked the question many times. I thought of Mary’s dilemma, about how difficult it must have been as she wondered how her situation would play out. I thought of all the months I worried about and prayed for Grace, asking God for his help that this situation, too, might play out well.

Then came Grace, on the birthday of Pope Francis—the pope who baptized the baby of unwed parents on the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus. And here we now stood on the Feast of the Holy Family holding Grace hours before her baptism, with grace holding us.

The last Gospel reading of the year proclaims: “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace; for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:16-17, RSV). While the law was a teacher, grace is a healer. The law was a guide; but grace is a mother. The law foreshadowed Christ; grace gives us Christ. Grace welcomes Grace, making her a child of God “born not by natural generation or by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God” (John 1:13).

“Were sin the only thing that mattered, we would be the most desperate of creatures,” Pope Francis said in his opening homily for the Jubilee Year of Mercy. “But the promised triumph of Christ’s love enfolds everything in the Father’s mercy.” That enfolding comes in many forms—all destined to beckon us to God.

I’ve watched an unborn baby call two confused young people to adulthood: to purpose, to promise, to love. I watch them now as they hold an infant daughter in their arms, presenting her to the Father of Mercies that she may be enfolded in his love. The law would have repudiated Mary. But grace embraces Grace, and her parents, with the medicine of mercy. The arms of severity have no place here, only the arms of love.

This post was previously published at Aleteia as The Mercy Journal.

Give Me Your Hand

“Deme su manita,” was the first thing my ninety-five-year old Colombian mother-in-law, “Mina,” said to her son Henry every time he entered her home. “And once she had my hand, there was no letting go,” Henry shared with our extended family as we gathered after Mina’s funeral on The Feast of the Holy Rosary to have a meal in her honor. It happened so many times that Henry took a picture of Mina holding his hand and placed it in a frame in her living room where she could see it at all times from her chair. Mina took great comfort during the last days of her life in holding our hands, just as we had each received consolation in life by holding hers.

Henry shared a vivid memory he had from 1948, when he and his siblings, Bernardo and Hedy, were eating with Mina in a restaurant in their native Bogota. “A revolution broke out and gunshots started firing everywhere,” Henry told us. “We were only four, three and two at the time, and Mina took us by the hand and ducked from alley to alley until she got us home safely.”  Though they left Bogota for America shortly thereafter, Henry never forgot how their mother had calmly and coolly led them to safety. Mina’s providing a sense of safety for others was a theme among us as we told our favorite stories about her life, along with the way that she made others feel not only loved and accepted, but truly beautiful.

Yes, Mina had taken each of us by the hand at some time in our lives, and she had confidently conveyed through both her immense love for others and her deep faith in God that everything would be okay. I’ll never forget the comfort I took in her presence when her son, my late husband Bernie, was critically ill. Though she was ninety at the time, she insisted that I pick her up in the evenings so she could come to the hospital to hold Bernardo’s hand and pray a Rosary with him, then bathe his face with kisses and tears. Mina’s health sharply declined after Bernardo died, and it was our turn to take her by the hand. Her family members, especially her daughter Hedy and her granddaughters, went to her home often to keep her company and pray with her. Mina was receiving back her own legacy of love and faith, as her family readied her to take the hand of God.

The last time I saw Mina, I held her hand and prayed with her the Rosary she taught us all to love. Mina had recited the Holy Rosary every day of her life—and God alone knows how many Rosaries she offered for each of us. Before becoming frail with age, she could frequently be found in her bedroom, kneeling on a prie-dieu before a lit holy candle and a crucifix that held the tattered body of her beloved Jesus, whom she called affectionately called Emmanuel. That name of Christ, which means “God is with us,” perfectly summarized Mina’s life belief. She was heard to say many, many times: “I have never been alone, because God has always been with me.”

In spite of the fact that her life held its deep sufferings, including the heartaches of being widowed in her forties and burying a son and grandson, Mina was secure in the knowledge that God was right beside her, holding her close. Her intense love of God and faith in Him was the foundation of her rich, blessed life. It kept her strong and peaceful until the Feast of the Guardian Angels, when God extended His welcoming, merciful hand to take her home.

Thank you, Mina, for your precious love and for your beautiful witness of faith, which impacted our lives so profoundly. You are now in the hands of your Maker. Rest there in sweet peace.

For I am the Lord, your God, who grasp your right hand.  It is I who say to you, "Fear not, I will help you."

Isaiah 41:13