Today  Sunday 21st June is Day for Life.

“The humanity of the unborn child”

Every year our Day for Life falls on Father’s Day and we wish our fathers a blessed day. Today we remember with gratitude the loving care and direction our parents gave to us, whether they are still with us or have gone to the Lord. Parenthood is a vocation of joys and hopes, of griefs and anxieties. On this year’s Day for Life, we would like to acknowledge the particular grief of mothers and fathers who have lost a child before birth or in infancy. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day can be especially difficult for parents who experience the loss of an infant. Such loss often takes its bodily toll upon the mother, and it can leave fathers feeling helpless and unsure of how to support their family, or of how to express their own grief. The Church wants to be especially close to parents who have suffered the loss of an infant.

Many parents find consolation in their faith and its assurance that God has created, willed and deeply loves from all eternity every child, including those who lose their life before they are born or soon after. We have the LORD’s promise from the Scriptures that: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you” (Jer 1:5).

To read the full bishops’ message visit www.councilforlife.ie