Product Description

An unusual and invaluable resource for families, Christian clergy and health professionals who want to find ways of praying after the death of a baby during pregnancy or around birth. This means not only the death of a tiny baby, but also a miscarriage, a stillbirth, an abortion, an ectopic pregnancy, a neonatal death and the grief of infertility and childlessness. It also means the grief of many years ago when the death of a baby during pregnancy was ignored, often at a terrible cost to the parents of the child. This book offers a collection of 21 model liturgies for every situation, including a funeral for a stillborn baby, prayers after miscarriages and the dignified disposal of ashes by a hospital chaplain. As more and more parents are now coming forward for pastoral care in these situations, this is a valuable training text for students at theological training colleges and seminaries. There is some exploration of the theological implications. There is sympathetic description of the hidden grief of miscarriage or abortion. This book explores the strong feelings that are aroused in everyone involved when a baby dies, regardless of the circumstances, and this includes members of the clergy. There are plenty of additional prayers, readings, music, symbols etc. to enable anyone who wishes to tailor a special service as closely as possible to the needs of the people involved. This useful manual contains everything one would require to create a special service of prayer and memorial for a parish or a group of any size: even a large cathedral congregation. This book provides answers to some perennial problems for Christian clergy: what to do after a stillbirth when the parents ask for baptism? What prayers are suitable for a funeral after abortion on grounds of abnormality?

This book is recommended to anyone engaged in pastoral theology. It is a bookshelf must for parish clergy of all Christian denominations. It is a useful source of practical advice for hospital chaplains. Parish workers and Christian counsellors working with men and women still grieving for babies who died many years ago will find that here at last is an answer to their prayers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #672308 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From the Author
This book is the culmination of more than five years’ work, which has taken me on a long journey through the hidden grief of miscarriage, the tragedy of abortion, the anguish of neonatal death and the silent despair of childlessness.

I soon realised that this area of grief is almost entirely unrecognised. There are very few resources available for Christian clergy to underpin their pastoral care for families after a baby has died, whether during pregnancy or around birth. With the help of this book, priests and ministers of all the Christian denominations can also begin to meet this problem with simple and expressive liturgies of prayer and memorial, which the families themselves can help to create.

Through the ten years of this project, which I called “Not out of Mind”, I was contacted by Christian priests and ministers from all over the English-speaking world. Their creative approach to liturgy and their courageous efforts to create new and theologically sound ways of meeting this emerging area of pastoral care impressed me very much. I decided to gather them into a single volume for the whole world to be able to benefit from the liturgies they created. The material is organised in such a way that anyone can plan a service very simply and easily, even if they have never done such a service before. This is obviously a boon to busy clergy and parish workers.

There is an increasing demand for services of prayer and memorial after miscarriage and stillbirth, and such services are becoming a regular practice in some of the more creative Christian parishes. With this manual as a guide for anyone who wished to attempt this new style of service, I hope that this practice will continue to expand to the benefit of grieving families everywhere.

About the Author
Althea Hayton is a Roman Catholic, married to an Anglican curate and mother to two healthy children. She was educated at Oxford and Leicester Universities, and in 1999 was awarded the PostGraduate Diploma in counselling from the University of Hertfordshire.

Her interest in the subject of the hidden grief of pregnancy loss was triggered by a miscarriage in 1974 and her own feelings about this. Later, she became involved with her local Life group, and it was in 1990 that the almost total lack of pastoral care for women after miscarriage and abortion became apparent to her. She began her research for this project, which she called “Not out of Mind”, in 1991. She recruited help from the religious newspapers, who were very supportive, She held three study days at a local retreat centre. This project continues to attract media attention because it is the only project of its kind in the UK. Althea has her own self-publishing company, Wren Publications, through which she has published several books on the subject of the death of a baby.

Excerpted from Not Out of Mind by Althea Hayton. Copyright © 1998. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Just as you do not know the way of the wind or the mysteries of a woman with child, no more can you know the work of God who is behind it all.
Ecclesiastes 11:5 (Jerusalem Bible)

A parent's experience of pregnancy is not always a positive one: there are times when the tender hopes of parenthood are dashed by the premature ending of a pregnancy and the consequent death of the baby.

The Christian response to such a tragedy has until recently been woefully inadequate. The existing manuals of prayer and liturgy hold little material suitable for use when a baby dies, and even the training of our priests fails to address adequately the theological issues involved.

This book is intended to fill the gap that is experienced when clergy, parents, bereavement workers and other professionals look to the Christian faith to bring some meaning to an event that turns our normal expectations upside down- the death of a baby around birth. This includes miscarriage, abortion, stillbirth and neonatal death.

The theological questions that arise go to the heart of our Christian tradition. There is the issue of when or whether to baptise, and there is the question of whether a miscarried or aborted foetus should receive a funeral. How can anyone bring comfort to a women who felt the first stirrings of life in her womb, only to be told by an ultrasound radiologist that the heart has stopped and that the baby's brief life is now over?

Is this woman truly a mother? Was her unborn baby a separate person with a soul? Where is her baby now? This book can only hint at some of the questions, rather than provide answers, for there are none to be found, other than to trust in the infinite mercy of God.

New liturgies

It is through the willing and extensive provision of appropriate prayers and liturgy that the Christian church can provide a caring response to tragedy. Suffering, bereaved people have always turned to prayer in their despair, both within their own faith and through their local church. At last the Christian churches are beginning to address this long- neglected area of need among their parishioners. Many of those enlightened clergy have contributed their ideas to this book.

The right to mourn

Having been for too long hidden and unacknowledged, pregnancy loss is now recognised as a true bereavement. Some 36% of conceptions are lost before birth, through miscarriage, stillbirth, ectopic pregnancy or abortion, so this represents an enormous on-going need, not to mention the pent-up grief of previous generations of women denied the right to mourn their dead children.

In the wake of the feminist revolution, mothers are beginning to demand the right to grieve openly. As the clamour increases, the sheer numbers involved will become overwhelming. Public baby bereavement services of prayer, often involving many hundreds of grieving parents, can help to meet this need.

The death of a baby touches almost every family, and the whole community can be affected by the stark sadness of a pregnancy that ends in death instead of new life. Grieving parents who find no solace in the church at the time of their greatest need can become isolated both from their faith and their church. If clergy can reach out with liturgy and we can all be willing to come together in prayer, then we can create a greater sense of community and a more trusting faith.