TIME

I was reading through some old journal notes the other day and stumbled upon this story about one of, if not the, most meaningful and overwhelmingly beautiful days of ministry I think I’ve ever experienced. I was filling in as a substitute catechist in atrium two, which holds grades 2nd-4th. I was leading one of our 90-minute, contemplative, screen-free session for about 15 children. At the end one of the boys asked incredulously “That was an hour and a half?!? It felt like 5 minutes!” This is not the first time I’ve heard this…and it is true. The time spent communing with God and one another in this sacred space does really fly by!

What really touched me was what happened right at the end of our session. I gathered the children around our prayer table for our closing prayer, we sang “Shepherd me O God” with some petitions and silence peppered in. Then I dismissed the children and one-by-one they all went to meet their parents at the door to go home. All but one little girl, about 8-years-old, who hung back and scooched up next to me around the prayer table, tapped me on my knee and said in a whisper “My brother, in my momma’s belly. His heart stopped and he died.”

I responded, of course, with how sorry I was that this had happened to her family. I asked how her momma was doing and she said “she cries a lot” and I nodded, and said “yes, she must be very sad.” A little silence was shared and then I asked her if she remembered our ribbon lesson from last year (called “La Fettuccia” in its original language of Italian) and she nodded in the affirmative. Then I said “Do you think maybe one of the things that God might want us to know from that lesson is that whether we live just a few weeks in our momma’s belly or to be 100 years old, each of us live for just a whiff of time. In the blink of an eye, all of us – very soon – will be swept up in God’s loving arms, just like your brother and we will all be together again…and then who knows what goodness God has planned for us!?! I bet your brother already knows this wonderful place, don’t you think?” I could literally see the burden lift off this little one who had truly heard the “good news” as her face broke into a wide grin. Then she nodded, gave me a quick hug and bounced out of the room. It was quite a moment.

This experience reminded me of the little anecdote about paleontologist, mystic and Jesuit priest Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In Teilhard’s view, the unfolding, evolving Universe is both a physical and a spiritual event that emphasizes the great patience of God, not unlike our ribbon lesson in the atrium based on his theology attempts to make somewhat concrete for the children. One time, back in the early 1950’s, Tielhard was being interviewed by a very anxious reporter who asked him with great fear and trepidation “But, what if we destroy ourselves with the Atomic bomb!?!?” And Tielhard responded nonchalantly, even with a little levity born of his deep trust in God, his sense of the vastness of history, the mystery of the universe, and the indomitable nature of life, “Well, that certainly would set us back a few million years!”

May we all have such hope and confidence in our creator.