The toddler sitting in the pew in front of us is fussing.
He’s not happy on his mother’s lap, so she hands him to his father. They try every position with him. They pull every toy and snack out of their diaper bag. They stand up to hold him, then sit to bounce him. He just won’t settle.
As the Mass unfolds around him, the baby seems to be antsy and uncomfortable, wriggling and whining through the songs and the readings and the prayers.
His parents take turns walking him to the back of the church. I see them point to the stained-glass windows and then the altar, trying to distract and engage him. He’s simply unhappy. He wants to be anywhere else.
I feel for the parents, who are doing everything they can. But I also can’t help but see myself in that child.
How often are we just like that little one, fussing and squirming and wriggling away from an encounter with God? Our hearts and minds aren’t always focused on the experience into which God is inviting us, even when we are at church.
We can be surrounded by the most beautiful music that gives a taste of heaven. We can be offered the Word of God, delivered powerfully – and unpacked in a thoughtfully crafted homily. We can be summoned to the table of the Lord and given the miraculous gift of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. Yet we still might be distracted by our grocery list or plans with friends later or that problem that we’ve been wrestling with lately.
It’s easy to glance at that baby and feel we are different from him. We know why we are at Mass, and we know the wonderful gift that that time is in our day, in our week. But we are human. The distractions of the world often pull us away from that connection with God. And, though it might not be as obvious for us as it is when you see a squirming toddler, that little one reminds us that we’re all children of God. No matter where we are on life’s journey, and no matter how close we feel to Jesus, we very likely have aspects of life we know we need to push aside to grow even closer. Each of us has times when we are that squirming, fussing child at Mass.
As the child comes back into the pew with his father, I realize he’s calmer now. His thumb is in his mouth, and he’s resting his head on his father’s shoulder. I have been this child, too, at Mass, safely in my Father’s love, calm and at peace. On the most wonderful encounters at Mass, this is where we are, held by our Father, resting in his love.
“Lord, I lean on you alone for strength,” St. Rose Philippine Duchesne said. “Give me your arm to support me, your shoulders to carry me, your breast on which to lay my head, your cross to uphold me, your Eucharist to nourish me. On you Lord, I shall sleep and rest in peace.”
Whatever concerns and troubles we bring to God in prayer, may we find that sense of peace that only he can give – the peace a father can give his child, the peace of infinite, unconditional love.
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