Marian Helper • Winter 2023-24 • Marian.org 21 Growing family By February 2022, Amanda and Ryan had been blessed with six children, two boys and four girls. The youngest was one year old; the eldest, 11. Amanda was overjoyed to be pregnant again, and was in her 12th week. Then disaster struck. Amanda suffered a massive hemorrhage and was rushed to the hospital. It’s where medical staff saved her life, but announced she had lost her son. She named him Jesse. The blood loss, as huge as it was, seemed only a trickle compared to the flood of grief experienced from miscarrying Jesse — and the fear that he had died without receiving the Sacrament of Baptism. “I was feeling very empty on the inside,” Amanda recalls. “I searched for answers. I found that, even within the Roman Catholic Church, few folks talk openly about miscarriages. Some websites caused me to fear that my baby was not in Heaven.” According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1261), “As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: ‘Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,’ allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism.” Comforting visions Although born and raised Catholic, Amanda became a Baptist when she married Ryan in 2009. Their children were raised in the faith, but Amanda and Ryan were disenchanted and simply going through the motions. “We began staying home on Sunday mornings to simply read the Bible and sing hymns,” she recalled. All that would change in the aftermath of the miscarriage. “I was very sad and did a lot of praying,” Amanda said. “Jesus and Mary answered my prayers.” Amanda claimed she experienced two visions while sleeping, one of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and one of Jesus, the Divine Mercy. “Mother Mary was beautiful beyond description and dressed in white,” she explained. “She consoled me and gave me the assurance that Jesse was in Heaven.” Two nights later (again, she says, in her sleep), Jesus visited Amanda in a vision, with two rays — one red and one pale — radiating from Him. “He talked to me, heart-toheart, though I felt so unworthy of His attention,” she said. “But He kept persevering in the conversation, comforting The Layman family has grown to seven children! me that everything was OK with Jesse.” Coming home Remarkably, at the time of the vision, Amanda said she did not know that it was a replica of the Divine Mercy Image. “I had grown up Catholic, but the devotion to Divine Mercy had not yet taken hold in my childhood parish,” she said. “It wasn’t until I saw an Image of the Divine Mercy on the altar of our current church that I realized the connection.” She searched online for everything she could find about Divine Mercy. She was especially blessed by the information she found from the Marian Fathers in Stockbridge. As a result of their guidance, she began praying the Rosary and a Divine Mercy Chaplet every day, and eventually returned to the Catholic Church. Even though Amanda had returned to the Church, Ryan resisted that for himself. “In his own search for meaning in all our struggle, Ryan began listening to teachings by Fr. Mike Schmitz and Fr. Chris Alar,” Amanda said. “He really loved Fr. Alar, and he has been instrumental in bringing Ryan home to the Catholic Church.” Ryan, a local police chief, completed the Rite of Christian Initiation (RCIA) and joined the Church at the Easter Vigil this year. A few weeks prior, they had had their marriage blessed — and Amanda gave birth to their seventh child, a healthy daughter, Ellie! Helping others A surprising fruit of her renewed Catholic faith is Amanda’s desire to help minister to other mothers who are experiencing miscarriages. “If the Lord leads me, I really want to start a program that offers women resources from a Catholic perspective,” she said. “There is so much out there on abortion, and so little on miscarriage. Nobody talks about it, and many women feel left alone. I want to change that.” To learn more about healing from the effects of a miscarriage, visit Marian.org/miscarriage. To learn more about the Shrine of the Holy Innocents at the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, and how to memorialize a loved one, visit MemorialsOnEdenHill.org
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