Living Monstrance

For a few months as a Franciscan, I lived in Lawrence, the poorest city in Massachusetts.  It’s a perfect place to be with the Lord.

One little 5-yr-old girl in the neighborhood, Darlene, had come to look up to me as a friar.  Whenever the friars had functions for the neighborhood children, she always stayed close to me.  We sat at Mass together, we spent time praying before statues in the church, we did some arts and crafts.

At this one particular function, she told me she wanted a small statue of the Blessed Mother.  It just so happened that not 10 minutes later, the friars were beginning a raffle for items, including a small statue of the Blessed Mother.  The friar priest would ask a Catholic trivia question, and the first child to answer correctly could come up and select a prize from a box.

The only problem was this: all the other kids were much older than Darlene.  She didn’t stand a chance.

The first few questions asked were easy, and sure enough the older kids got the right answers.  Darlene had no clue.  She had never even been baptized, never mind catechized.

But the next question was difficult: “Before God chose David to become King of Israel, he was one of these…”

The kids racked their brains, rattled off wrong guesses, and made all the commotion that adolescents make in competition.  It was chaos.  But in the midst of the fray, little Darlene did the complete opposite.  She turned back to me with hope in her eyes.  I stepped forward through the crowd and whispered in her ear, “a shepherd.”  She jumped up and gave her answer.  She won the prize.  She trusted me.  I was so happy.  ”At that time, Jesus answered and said: I confess to you O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to little ones.” (Mt 11:25)

God doesn’t want us to figure out the tough things in life.  When we do, all we do is create chaos.  No, He gives us the tough things so that we look to Him with hope and let Him tell us the answer Himself.  He wants us to have the prize we want, but even more He wants our trust.  It makes Him so happy.