This comment was out of the blue. She had obviously been thinking about it. I was really struck by her statement. I responded in agreement, "Yes, I am sure that God is sad because of all the pain and suffering that the devil causes." The conversation didn't go much farther.
Here weeks later I am still pondering this moment. I can think back to a string of conversations Gracie and I have had over the last year about "bad guys" and how God made them too and that good people make bad choices... I imagine this comment is part of this line of thinking. But it's not so much the, "where did this comment come from?" that has kept me occupied with pondering.
That comment was a privileged glimpse into this seven-year-old's interior life. She has an interior life. Every seven-year-old child has one. What are we doing as parents to nurture that interior life?
***
With this glimpse, I was prompted to turn to Maria Montessori and Sofia Cavalletti....
... in giving the child the full opportunity to live his own religious life, we shall realize that religion will have much deeper roots in his soul, and will depend much less on the stimulus of the teacher. Furthermore, the religious life of the children will also animate the religious life of the adults, because it will be more true and more real...
~Maria Montessori, God and the Child
In the contact with God the child experiences an unfailing love. And the contact with God the child finds the nourishment his being requires, nourishment the child needs to grow in harmony... In helping the child's religious life, far from imposing something that is foreign to him, we are responding to the child's silent request: "Help me to come closer to God by myself."
~Sofia Cavalletti, The Religious Potential of the Child
A child working in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Atrium - The parable of the Good Shepherd, "The Sheep know the shepherd's voice. He loves his sheep. They know he will take care of them."
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