Marian chapels for the unborn

On February 2, 2019, the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, a new chapel to the Unborn was inaugurated in Saint John Baptist Church of Arras (Pas-de-Calais). This chapel has an altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary, surmounted by an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. A laywoman, Sylvie Oprysko, is at the origin of this project. Oprysko lost a baby twenty years ago, but it was not until 2015 that she felt a true sense of peace during the consecration of a "place for children who die before birth" while attending a Mass in Canada. Back in Arras, she convinced her parish priest of the benefits of such a chapel.

The idea of ​​a place of prayer for all the children who have died before their birth was expressed by Saint John Paul II in the 1980s. In France, the first place of this kind was inaugurated in 2015 at the Shrine of Saint Baume (diocese of Fréjus-Toulon). The "Consolation Way" leads from the Calvary to the grotto where, according to tradition, Saint Mary Magdalene spent the last 30 years of her life and is enameled with verses and meditations. This pilgrimage, both physical and interior, leads to the rock of the lower cave where parents can hang a plaque engraved with a date and the name of their unborn child.

Likewise, at the Shrine of Montligeon (central France), dedicated to praying for the souls of Purgatory, it was natural to make a special place for those poor children and their parents. Thus, in 2017, the shrine added a "Consolation Way" to help mothers and fathers who have lost their child before birth, to put words on their suffering and acknowledge their grief, in order to heal.

In Paris, an altar of consolation is dedicated to the Unborn at Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix Church, and another at Notre-Dame-des-Victoires Basilica. More than two hundred babies have already been "presented" to the Lord on these altars of consolation.

Aleteia