September 25, 2013
THE LAST WORD: A Little Child Shall Lead Them*
By REV. JOSEPH J. GUIDO, O.P.
All five children are flaxen haired and brimming with energy. Curious about everything, they had questions about bugs on leaves, tufts of newly sprouted grass, and the rumble of earth movers on campus. We had lunch in Alumni Hall Food Court, a gastronome’s delight: cheese pizza, Apple Jacks, chick peas, and pink lemonade, and for the littlest one — chubby cheeked and wide eyed, with just one tooth — her first French fry.
Afterwards, the oldest boy, 8 years old, asked me if he could go to confession. His parents nodded, and so we stopped in the oratory in Harkins Hall, a cool refuge on a blistering day.
Newly shriven, he led his siblings in a skipping contest — forwards, backwards, and with eyes closed. At the priory, the feast continued: Oreo ice cream pops, covered in chocolate and sprinkles, and strawberry-swirl ice cream cups, mashed up soft and creamy.
It was all of a piece … the pizza, skipping, and sacrament; a single graced day. Not a whiff of self-consciousness or hesitation, as much at ease in the oratory as in Alumni or grubbing for bugs. There’s a lesson in that.
———-
Alone on a country road, late at night, a missed curve, a skidding motorcycle, a looming tree, and a young life is gone. He was a month shy of beginning his freshman year here, a member of the Class of 2017.
More than 700 people filled the church. Many of them were young. Many, no doubt, were not regular churchgoers. They stole furtive glances, had the slightly hunched and rounded shoulders of the uncertain, but on seeing a friend they seemed relieved: a long embrace, eager to sit together, and the common admission, “I can’t believe it.”
One by one, they rose and spoke about him. He was the best of sons, the best of brothers, and the best of friends. Always ready for an adventure, he also had a big heart, and four years on, there still was a hole in that heart for a father who died too soon. They strained for humor and fought back tears, but they got the important things right.
“This is not the end.” “There is life beyond this life.” “We will see him again.” “He’s with his dad.”
By the grace of God, the rest will come in time.
———-
It was an astonishing sight: more than a million young people on a beach in Brazil, braving the wind and rain to pray in dozens of languages throughout the night. A tiny black Madonna, an enormous gilded monstrance, and 50 girls — of every hue and race, all dressed in white — gathered around the man from Rome. The youngest among them toddled over to give him a bouquet of flowers, and received a kiss in return.
More astonishing still, a young couple presented their newborn, a little girl with anencephaly. They knew long before her birth that she would be severely impaired, and that she would not live long; a few months perhaps, no more than a year or two. But they chose to have her, to “celebrate her life,” they said.
This new pope, a pope of the heart and a pope of the poor, welcomed her, blessed her and them, and blessed all those for whom Love comes in distressing disguise. For the immensity of Love is measured not by the fact that it moves the sun and other stars, though it does, but by the fact that it can move hearts.
And perhaps nothing moves our hearts more at Love’s prompting than a child; by this we are led best.
Rev. Joseph J. Guido, O.P. is an assistant professor of psychology and a counseling psychologist in the Personal Counseling Center.
*Isaiah 11:6
