It’s time for post-abortive women to heal
Published Jan 22, 2008
WESTMONT—Thousands of pro-lifers are set to demonstrate their fervor for life Jan. 22—the 35th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion. The fight to overturn the ruling and change the law has been raging for more than three decades. However, there is one member of Holy Trinity Parish in Westmont that is focusing on healing rather than fighting. Yvonne Florczak-Seeman is spearheading a ministry to help post-abortive mothers heal.
Florczak-Seeman is the founder and president of Love From Above Inc., a company that supports women with crisis pregnancies and/or single mothers. She welcomed the Catholic Explorer into her home Jan. 11 to discuss her latest initiative. A Time to Heal is a 12-week Bible-study program for post-abortive women, which she said received approval from Bishop J. Peter Sartain in 2007. She noted, “Jesus stopped his entire ministry to make (sinful women) instrumental in his ministry. I know God has a place in his heart for those women.”
The curriculum coincides with Florczak-Seeman’s first book, “A Time to Speak,” a journal for post-abortive women. Last year, 29 women completed A Time to Heal pilot programs in four groups that met in the Joliet Diocese and Archdiocese of Chicago. This year, 38 trained facilitators are set to continue the program in both areas and to launch it in the Rockford Diocese. She concluded, “We now know and believe God has given us a program that clearly works.”
Essentially, less than 12 post-abortive women form a small Christian community and work through the curriculum created by Florczak-Seeman, who had five abortions as a teenager. The 43-year-old woman used her more than 20-year healing journey experiences to connect 12 therapeutic steps with a dozen women in the Old Testament. Each week, the women are introduced to biblical characters that made terrible decisions and represent dilemmas in post-abortive women’s lives.
Florczak-Seeman, a consultant to the crisis pregnancy center Woman’s Choice Services in Lombard and Downers Grove as well as the post-abortive healing ministry of Project Rachel in the Chicago Archdiocese and Rockford Diocese, gave a few examples of how the biblical women offer lessons of forgiveness and renewal to post-abortion women. Eve’s mistake in the garden shows God’s mercy and presents the struggle between deterioration and renewal. Deborah’s life shows despair vs. hope when she leads Israel into battle. The example offers women the chance to sing their own praises, like Deborah did after they won the battle. Florczak-Seeman said, “Every woman needs a Deborah song.”
By the end of the 12 weeks, the embarrassment, guilt and fears are replaced with pride, reconciliation and trust, added group facilitator Linda Couri during a telephone conversation with the Explorer. The member of St. Zachary Parish in Des Plaines has been a licensed clinical social worker since 2001, but professional experience or training is not a requirement for group facilitators. Each facilitator undergoes a seven-week training to prepare for leading the small groups.
Couri, who facilitated a group that met from February-June 2007 in Chicago, said the women in the group created a new support network with each other and healed in a “loving environment that is God-centric and forgiving-centric.”
She pointed out that the faith-based program is different from her previous experiences counseling women in a secular setting. The Catholic faith offers the sacrament of reconciliation, which is essential in the healing process, she added. “God is so powerful, he works through our sinfulness,” she said.
The program was designed to “restore hurting women to their original purpose of contentment and wholeness by helping them to understand the source of their brokenness, and to provide them with the resources to work through the pain by finding true freedom through forgiveness,” explained Florczak-Seeman.
A Time to Heal is intended for Catholic women, but applies to any post-abortive woman. One accidental result of the program has been its evangelizing influence, added Florczak-Seeman. She said many non-practicing Catholics have returned to the church after completing the program. A Time to Heal also converted some non-Catholic participants. Florczak-Seeman, who converted to Catholicism in 2004, offered the example of one woman who was living with her boyfriend and hurting from an abortion she had as a result of taking the morning-after pill, RU486. Florczak-Seeman is now the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults sponsor of the former participant in A Time to Heal.
Posters, bulletin announcements and other materials are ready for distribution to parishes. Florczak-Seeman even provides sample homilies for priests. She said, “As a post-abortive woman, I know what they need to hear from the pulpit.”
More information about A Time to Heal is available at a 24-hour hotline 1-866-846-3277.
E-mail
|
Print
|