{"id":243412,"date":"2021-04-18T15:34:23","date_gmt":"2021-04-18T20:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=243412"},"modified":"2021-04-16T22:33:23","modified_gmt":"2021-04-17T03:33:23","slug":"monks-wood-caskets-children-stillbirth-miscarriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/monks-wood-caskets-children-stillbirth-miscarriage\/","title":{"rendered":"These monks handcraft tiny wood caskets for children lost to miscarriage and stillbirth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For over 20 years, the cloistered monks of New Mellaray Abbey in Iowa have been crafting made-to-order wood caskets for adults as a way of financially sustaining their small community. But according to a\u00a0November 2020 article<\/a> at The American Conservative, “Whenever anyone calls to arrange a child\u2019s burial, the monks always send the casket as a gift.”\u00a0The monks, who have provided handcrafted infant caskets completely free of charge<\/a> to grieving parents and families as their ministry to bereaved parents experiencing infant loss, do so with the prayer “that all children will be commended to God\u2019s love and care forever.”<\/p>\n

The entire manufacturing process and shipping costs, including overnight shipping when necessary, are a completely gratuitous offering of generous grace and sturdy hope at a time when devastated families are most in need of both. Each casket is prayed over by the monk who creates it, and the name of the child it is to be used for is entered into a special book of remembrance that includes every other person who has been buried in one of the caskets.<\/p>\n