Today is the March for Life. Hundreds of thousands of people are gathering in Washington, D.C., to fight for an end to abortion. There have been more than 58,000,000 abortions since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973. And that number continues to grow daily. Today, we gather to commemorate those lives and to do what we can to prevent more lives from being lost to this evil.

Along with those 58,000,000 children lost to abortion in the last 45 years is an equally staggering number of mothers who never had the chance to raise their children. To be a mother without a child is a tragedy. To have your heart and soul changed forever into the heart and soul of a mother, designed to nurture and raise a child, only to have that child taken away, is a cause of immeasurable grief.

This is a tragedy at any stage of life—a mother should never have to bury her child. Yet even Our Blessed Mother had to do this. One of the Seven Sorrows of Mary is the burial of Jesus. Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, watched her Son laid in the tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. Mary knows the pain of losing a child. She knows the pain of being a mother in this life while her child lives in the next.  This should be a source of consolation for any mother who mourns the loss of a child. Mary knows this pain, which makes her the perfect woman to turn to for comfort and consolation.

And this comfort and consolation found in Mary can lead to healing, through the saving power of her Son. We grieve the loss of a child, no matter the circumstances. The tender love of Mary, our Mother, and of Christ, our Lord, helps us bear that grief. The work of Project Rachel also assists mothers who are in need of healing after an abortion, helping them to find comfort and consolation in the wake of their loss.

At the March for Life, we recognize this need for consolation, the need for mourning the lost child. Every year at the March, there are a number of mothers whose children were lost to abortion: women who have the souls of mothers, but no child here on earth to love. These mothers, in a testament to hope and healing, carry their signs, making their presence known, mourning the loss of their children and praying that mothers to come will have the opportunity to hold and to love the children they conceive.

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Image: Master of the Female Half-Lengths, Virgin of the Seven Sorrows