As we look forward to celebrating the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we remember the reality of how this day came to be.
There stands the quiet sorrow of Our Lady’s parents, Anne and Joachim. Before they became Saints, they were a quiet couple who suffered the sharp pain of infertility.
It’s tempting to overlook them. We imagine their sufferings as perfectly offered and their prayers sweetly answered. After all, they eventually became the parents of a beautiful baby girl conceived without sin.
As the legend goes, Anne and Joachim lived a devout life in Nazareth, but year after year they suffered deeply over having no children. They continually begged God that if He granted them a child, they would consecrate that child entirely to Him.
After Joachim was publicly shamed at the Temple for his barrenness and Anne bore her own share of sorrow and hardship for her infertility, they retreated to further pray. It is said that in
that time of prayerful separation, an angel appeared to each of them, announcing that they would conceive a daughter of extraordinary grace.
In my work as a mentor, I accompany both men and women walking through the pain of infertility. It is a brutal, awful, isolating journey. Eager to take their vows, they marry with the hopeful expectation that children will follow. They often come together in the marital embrace having charted, observed, and timed everything perfectly. They believe, quite reasonably, that they will soon welcome a unique and unrepeatable new life to grow their love and start a family.
Then comes the two-week wait, filled with dreaming about nurseries, tiny onesies, and the sweetness of new life. And then—bleeding. Again. Their hope begins to unravel as cycle after cycle after cycle passes with no child. The two week wait seemingly becomes longer and drier.
In the hidden agony of their hearts, they watch friends and loved ones celebrate the pregnancies and births that they themselves are aching for. It is cross, after cross, after cross. I enter in with them in that pain—waiting, hoping, praying—wondering whether this month their prayers might finally be answered.
We say we want what God wants, but it’s hard to say sometimes. We believe He wants to answer the desires of their hearts. But when the single line appears, again, devastation sets in. It is an incredibly hidden, tender, and painful road.
Trustful surrender sounds beautiful on paper… until you are living that line between hope, love, and grief, month after month.
The Immaculate Conception began in the hidden sorrow of a barren couple, and their unseen suffering was not wasted. Even though we know God lives in these places, it is agony. Even though we know that He loves to conceive His greatest works in these crosses, it is heavy.
We continue to peer through the veil and call on Saints Anne and Joachim, and on our Blessed Mother, for their intercession. We place everything into the hands of Our Mother—the one who noticed and quietly said to her Son, “They have no wine.”