From out of the mouths of children … - Susie Hii

Tessa: Do you come back down after you go to heaven?
Mummy: No.
Tessa: Why not?
Mummy: Because it is so nice there you do not want to come back.
Tessa: Why is it so nice?
Mummy: Because you are with God, you can see God.
Tessa: You can’t see God.
Mummy: Why not?
Tessa: Because you have no eyes.
Mummy: You can feel God.
Tessa: You can’t because you have no hands.
Mummy: You can see God with your heart.
Tessa: You can’t because your heart has no eyes.

I had this conversation with Tessa when she was five years old. Another time, as I was putting the children to sleep, five-year-old Tessa looked up at the crucifix and asked, ‘Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?’

Gerard, who was eight, replied, ‘God the Father wanted him to die on the cross.’

Tessa asked ‘Why did God the Father want him to do that?’

I did not answer as I could not think of a good answer. As I was searching, I heard Gerard say, ‘So he could rise again and there is Easter.’

Jesus tells us, ‘Unless you become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.’ My children have posed questions that make me reflect on some of the crucial aspects of my faith, and have provided the answers, simple and straightforward truths that I have taught them that they accept without question.

As well as learning from my children the things I have taught them, I am thankful for all the prayers I learnt as a child. As part of growing up and ‘maturing’, I stopped saying a lot of the vocal prayers I learnt by rote, and tried to pray in my own words and to meditate, to pray without words. However, I find that many of the prayers I learnt in childhood have come back with renewed meanings. One of the most powerful lines from the Gospel for me is ‘I have faith. Help my lack of faith’ (Mark 9:24).

At our house, it is not always sombre talk about God:

• When he was three or four years old, Gerard told me that ‘grace is something God gives you, it fills you up.’ I do not remember how I explained grace to him. I like how he explained it to me.
• Tessa asked me, ‘Mum, do you know God’s telephone number?’ I said ‘no’.
  She said, ‘It can be any number.’ What a good reminder that we can call on God anytime even when we do not remember the phone number.
• One day in Advent, Tessa asked me to bake a cake. Gerard suggested, ‘You could bake a cake for Jesus as it is nearly his birthday.’
  Tessa said, ‘But I want to eat it.’ Gerard: ‘We can eat it because Jesus can’t eat it.’