Tomorrow is the Fourth Sunday in Advent. As we anticipate Christ’s coming, Richard Leonard SJ recalls his experience as a ‘birthing partner’ and the amazing graces that followed When I was a seminarian, during the long Christmas holidays, I worked in the pastoral care department of a big Catholic public hospital. At a Christmas party I met the charge nurse of the labour ward. Pleading that because I was a celibate I would never be at a birth, I enquired if I might be allowed to come and see. The charge nurse thought that would be fine. Six weeks later I got the call. Apparently a student priest watching you have a baby is not an easy sell! But Mary was 16, had been dumped by her 19-year-old boyfriend and shunned by her family. A kindly seminarian was better than no one a