Receiving the Child
- roundrockadam
- Mar 6, 2018
- 2 min read
The little boy leaned across the back of the pew. He pointed his finger to my face. I leaned in; I knew what he wanted. He wanted what every baby wants of me: my glasses.
He touched my lenses with delight. His fingers were small and only left a tiny smudge. But the mark he left on my heart was bigger. Babies are very good for a bespectacled person’s self-esteem.
I am not sure how his grandmother felt. She seemed more concerned with how to contain her grandson’s energy. But I was delighted to have this little person, probably under the age of two, at Mass today. And everyone else seemed delighted too.
Then the boy caught the sound of his echo in the church. Echos of coos and other vocalizations are great when you are a baby. We smiled at the boy and his grandmother asked him gently to hush. Lessons like these are hard for kids. But it wasn’t distracting.
Then the boy went down his pew to the young man sitting with his girlfriend. The boy reached out a hand. And the young man happily put his hand up too for a high five. The girlfriend laughed and so did the woman in front of us.
It was a very happy occasion for me to see how welcoming everyone was to the child and grandmother. I know I have felt anxious and awkward with my little girls in Mass, conscious of their every move and noise and how it might detract. I start to fear that Mass was made for the consecrated and the childless elderly, that everyone is resenting us. And some have given us scowling glances and even a gruff “hush.” But today, I saw how everyone was blessed to care for the child and allow him to care for us too. It was exactly how Mass should be.
Mass today was delightful. Children are delightful. I am sure our delight was an echo of the Lord, who says, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me (Matthew 18:5).”
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