God's Gift - Noel.

Taken from Fr. Roman Theisen's People I love.

She opened my office door hesitantly. "Are you busy, Father Tai?" "Not at all,"I replied. I liked this woman. she and her husband were devout Catholics whom I had baptized two years before. She sat down. " I have a problem," she began. "I didn't know I was pregnant and took quite a lot of cough medicine that my doctor tells me will cause my baby to be born mentally and physically disabled. He wants me to have an abortion." she looked at me in anguish.

I sympathized with her. I'd heard the same story from other women. As always, I explained our Catholic belief that God, the Creator, gives life and that this God-given gift of life is so beautiful and precious that once given no one but God may take it away.

"but my doctor said,..." she explained at length the reasons her physician urged her to have an abortion. I explained how precious and sacred the life of even one human person is, simply because every person is destined to know and to give glory to God, and to share God's own glory for all eternity even though that person may be deformed, old or disabled mentally and ... But if it were my child, I'd trust God and have the baby. Her face brightened. "I'm so glad you said that," she said. "My husband told me you'd know what to do."

From that day on every time I saw Marcella and Paul at Sunday Mass I besieged Heaven with prayers that Marcella's baby would be born strong and healthy. Then one morning I went to open the Church for early Mass and found Paul waiting for me. His face was beaming, "Yesterday afternoon my wife gave me a strong, healthy son." I congratulated him and sent a fervent "Thank you" up to the Good Lord in Heaven, whom I am sure was smiling upon us. They named the baby Noel, because they said, " He was God's Christmas gift to us."

I was invited to Noel's First birthday Party, the baby's "Tol", which Koreans traditionally celebrate with great solemnity and joy. Paul presented me with a painting which he himself made from the photograph he'd taken after Noel's baptism, of me holding little Noel in my arms. As Marcella and Paul gave me little Noel to hold again, he looked up at me with clear eyes and smiled. How precious and wonderful God's gift of Life! How good God is to His People!