There were a lot of babies and children at Mass. Their sounds filled the air. There was crying, laughing, burbling, shouting, loud whispering and the pitter-patter of little feet running to the bathroom or escaping the pew and running from their parents. There were the sounds of toys being dropped, tiny hands in the narthex slapping at the glass doors into the church before a parent could race up to quiet them, raspberries being blown, rattles being shaken and more little feet running to the bathroom. On top of all the usual sounds of youth, we were that week being treated to the children’s choir who performed once a month much to the congregation’s delight. They sang with such out of tune enthusiasm my heart could only just bear the cuteness while a couple of more children ran by me to the bathroom.
The sounds of children indeed filled the air that day at Mass, but the din was reasonable and the sound system more than adequately projected the priest’s voice above the commotion so that not a word of the Mass was missed by anyone in the church.
Most of the ruckus went unnoticed by me. I, myself, have many children and two of them are non-stop chatter boxes. I have learned well to filter out the tiny person bedlam and focus on the priest’s voice despite all the distraction and I didn’t think much of it. So, it was with great surprise to hear the reason for which an agitated woman in her late sixties to early seventies was leaving Mass before the second half (the Liturgy of the Eucharist) had even begun. Making her way through the narthex filled with the too-restless-to-stay-in-their-pew children, the fussers and the newly walking babies, she snidely remarked to one of the harried mothers, “I’ve had about enough of the ‘children’s Mass’!” and then marched on out of the church.
The eyes of the harried mother and I met in momentary surprise before we both shrugged and returned our attention to the Mass.
What a heart that woman must have had! What a heart! To leave Mass early – to leave even before Communion which, as Catholics, is supposed to be the source and summit of our lives – because one is annoyed by the abundance of children around you.
God Himself, once said, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 19:14)
It is to children that the kingdom of heaven belongs and I am worried for that woman. I am worried that she’ll get to the pearly gates and see, in the garden of paradise, toys strewn about, messy handprints on everything and drawings all over the walls. I’m worried the air will be filled with the laughter and chatter and squeals of delight as the kiddos chase each other, hide from each other and seek each other, jump scare each other, tickle each other and dance with each other. I’m worried she’ll see them playing with worms or that she’ll see them spreading dandelion seeds or watch them spill juice and then do a horrible job of cleaning it up. I’m worried she’ll expect the choirs of the angels providing the soundtrack to heaven to sound like classically trained singers but they will instead sound more like the off-key enthusiastic singing of a children’s choir.
I am worried that she will get to heaven and see that it is messy and loud and unpredictable and fun because it belongs to the children. She will see it filled with beings that don’t wear matching shoes, often don’t wear clothes at all, don’t brush their hair and that don’t have inside voices. She will find an existence that is outside of her control and she will have to face the fact that if she embraces it, it will completely change her.
I am worried that she will turn her back on those pearly gates and continue to turn inward on herself for eternity. I fear she will turn away from those ethereal beings skipping through heaven from which Christ Himself, would never turn away because they are most like Him. I’m sad at the thought that she may reject the chance to be loved by those sweet, innocent souls whose only motive for loving her is because she is herself, which is how they are most like Christ. I fret that because their love doesn’t come in the form she thinks it should and at the time that she thinks it should and on her terms, she will choose, instead, to spend forever only loving herself.
I am worried for that woman and all like her that have hardened their hearts to the presence of children and all that children bring with them because we are the ones who choose our eternity. God leaves the decision to us. He, of course, would love for us to choose an eternity with Him. But if we’ve spent our entire lives excluding the vitality of children from the formation of our souls, and God said it is to children that heaven belongs, there are going to be people who will turn their malformed, hardened hearts away from “the Children’s Mass” that is heaven and then march off to the lifelessness of hell.
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