Lord Jesus, Easter has come.
Alleluia. You are risen.
The Church is filled with flowers. The candles are bright. The music is joyful. Families arrive dressed for Mass. Children carry Easter baskets. Little girls wear spring dresses. Little boys squirm in their pews. Babies are passed from one pair of arms to another.
Everything seems to proclaim:
Life.
And that can make today both beautiful and painful when we are longing for a child.
Lord, we believe in resurrection.
We believe that the tomb was empty.
We believe that death did not have the final word.
We believe that You make all things new.
But sometimes, surrounded by all these signs of new life, we become painfully aware of the life we are still waiting for.
Another Easter.
Still no pregnancy.
Still no adoption match.
Still no baby in our arms.
Still an empty crib.
Still a place in the family photograph where we once imagined a little face would be.
Perhaps last Easter we whispered:
“Maybe by next Easter.”
And here we are.
Jesus, meet us here.
Do not let us think that Christian hope means pretending disappointment does not hurt.
The Resurrection came after Good Friday.
The disciples did not skip the Cross.
Mary did not skip Holy Saturday.
There was a real tomb.
There was real grief.
There was real waiting.
And then came Easter morning.
So when our own lives feel more like Holy Saturday than Easter Sunday, help us remember that You are still Lord in the waiting.
Lord, infertility can sometimes feel like a long Holy Saturday.
Something we desperately want has not come to life.
We wait between what we hoped would happen and what we cannot yet see.
We pray.
We listen.
We wonder whether anything is happening beyond the stone.
Adoption waiting can feel this way too.
Paperwork completed.
Home prepared.
Profile waiting.
Phone nearby.
Nursery quiet.
Love ready to be given.
And still:
Silence.
Jesus, when nothing seems to be happening, keep us from assuming that You are absent.
But also protect us from turning Easter into a promise You have not made.
Your Resurrection guarantees our ultimate hope in You.
It does not guarantee that every earthly longing will be fulfilled exactly as we desire.
We know that.
And still, because You taught us to ask our Father for what we need, we ask boldly:
Lord, please give us a child.
If there is illness, bring healing.
If conception is possible, let new life begin.
Let cells divide.
Let a tiny heart begin beating.
Let a child grow safely beneath a mother’s heart.
Let there be an ultrasound.
A growing belly.
A birth.
A baptism.
Let us someday carry our baby into church and trace a little cross upon that child’s forehead.
Let us teach our child to say:
“Jesus is risen!”
And hear a tiny voice answer:
“Alleluia!”
Lord, we would love that.
Please, if it is Your will, let us have it.
And if adoption is the road by which a child will someday be entrusted to us, guide every person involved.
Protect the child.
Protect the child’s mother.
Protect the child’s father.
Give them genuine support, freedom, honesty, and good counsel.
Never let our longing cause us to see another family’s crisis merely as an opportunity for us.
If parents can safely raise their child and desire to do so, help them.
If adoption is freely chosen and truly serves the child’s good, guide the process.
And if someday a child comes through our door and into our family, help us receive that child with gratitude while honoring every part of the story that came before us.
Lord, Easter may also be painful for parents whose child has died.
For them, the promise of resurrection is not abstract theology.
It is everything.
Be near the mother who approaches the empty tomb of her own grief.
Be near the father who would give anything to hear his child’s voice again.
Be near the parents who miscarried.
The parents whose baby was stillborn.
The parents whose child lived for minutes, months, years, or decades and then died.
Today the Church proclaims:
Christ is risen from the dead.
Let those words enter the deepest places of grief.
Not as a command to stop mourning.
Not as an explanation for why the child died.
But as a promise that death itself will not reign forever.
Lord, bless couples who will attend Easter gatherings today and hear children running through the house.
Let them enjoy nieces, nephews, godchildren, grandchildren, and friends’ children without feeling guilty when joy is followed by sadness.
Sometimes the hardest moment comes afterward.
After everyone goes home.
After the Easter baskets are empty.
After the photographs are posted.
After the house becomes quiet.
That is when we may look around and think:
I wish there were a child here making this house messy.
Be present in that silence.
Jesus, protect our marriage while we wait.
Do not let the desire for a child become the only subject between us.
Let us still laugh.
Still celebrate Easter.
Still make traditions.
Still go to Mass.
Still cook too much food.
Still hide Easter eggs for nieces and nephews if we want to.
Still take photographs.
Still live.
We do not have to postpone our lives until parenthood arrives.
And yet, Lord, there are traditions we are saving in our hearts for a child of our own.
We imagine a tiny Easter outfit.
A basket beside the bed.
Little hands coloring eggs.
Teaching a child the difference between the Easter Bunny and the astonishing truth Easter actually celebrates.
We imagine walking together through Holy Week.
Washing little feet on Holy Thursday at home.
Venerating the Cross.
Waiting through Holy Saturday.
Lighting a candle.
Then telling our child on Easter morning:
The tomb is empty. Jesus is alive.
Lord, if that day comes, help us remember these years when there was no little hand inside ours.
Let waiting make us more grateful parents.
Not perfect parents.
Grateful ones.
And Lord, if we are tempted to read every disappointment as evidence that our story is over, remind us that we cannot see the whole story from where we stand.
But keep us grounded in truth.
Hope is not pretending we know what You will do.
Hope is trusting Who You are when we do not know what You will do.
That is harder.
Teach us that kind of hope.
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb while it was still dark.
She did not yet understand what You had done.
She only knew that she loved You and believed something precious had been lost.
Then You called her by name.
Jesus, call us by name in our waiting.
Remind us that before any prayer is answered, we are known.
Before any child comes, we are loved.
Before our family looks the way we imagined, we belong to You.
Mary, Mother of the Risen Lord, you endured Holy Saturday without knowing Easter morning as we know it now.
Stay close to those waiting in uncertainty.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of Life, pray for every couple longing for a child and every vulnerable mother and baby.
St. Joseph, guard our homes and marriages.
Blessed Fulton Sheen, who spent so many hours before the Eucharistic Jesus, intercede for us.
Teach us to remain before Christ when answers do not come quickly.
Lord Jesus, Easter tells us that the worst moment is not necessarily the final moment.
The sealed tomb was not the end.
The darkness was not the end.
Death was not the end.
We will not claim that this means a pregnancy or adoption must be around the corner.
But we will let Easter remind us that our lives belong to a God who can bring life where human eyes see only endings.
So we bring You our infertility.
Our diagnoses.
Our aging bodies.
Our adoption paperwork.
Our disappointments.
Our empty nursery.
Our failed matches.
Our miscarriages.
Our fears.
Our marriage.
Our longing.
And once again, our request:
Jesus, if it is Your holy will, please entrust a child to us.
And while we wait, raise up whatever has begun to die inside us.
If hope has died, breathe upon it.
If tenderness has died, restore it.
If prayer has become mechanical, awaken it.
If infertility has wounded our marriage, heal it.
If envy has hardened us, soften us.
If disappointment has made us afraid to love, open our hearts again.
If we have forgotten how to rejoice, teach us slowly.
This Easter, perhaps the miracle we are asking for has not yet come.
But You have come.
You entered death.
You shattered it.
You rose.
You remain.
And because You live, no faithful love offered to You is wasted.
So today, even with tears in our eyes, we will say it:
Alleluia.
Even while waiting:
Alleluia.
Even with empty arms:
Alleluia.
Even when we do not understand:
Alleluia.
Not because everything we wanted has happened.
But because Christ is risen.
And therefore we can keep loving.
Keep praying.
Keep asking.
Keep hoping.
And keep walking toward whatever You have prepared.
Jesus Christ is risen today. Alleluia.
Mary, Mother of the Risen Lord, pray for us.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
Blessed Fulton Sheen, pray for us.
Always remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Holy Family! Help us to be a holy family and pray for us!
Amen.