This year, my 7 year-old son unwrapped his early gift to find a, ummm, surprise: A statuette of Jesus, from Sr. Faustina's vision of the Divine Mercy.
I held my breath a moment.
"How am I supposed to play with this, his arms don't even move" Sam said, getting simultaneously teary and agitated. Merry Christmas, from my parents, I thought to myself."Look, Sam, He's got red and blue lasers coming from His Heart," I said,"like one of those big, Japanese monsters." I tried to comfort him, but he fumed and raved for quite a while, wondering what grandma and pépère were thinking.
Eventually, I thought I'd shuffle everyone off to bed. "Alright, Sam, let me put this up on the shelf to keep it from getting broken," I said, taking the much-maligned gift." Wait, no," Sam said,"I want Him up in my bunk, where He'll be close to me." So, Sam made a small shrine up in his bunk, and set up the statuette of Jesus near his pillow.
I guess that it's something to think about, next time God gives us something that we're not asking for at the time.
Heck, I wanted a new set of golf clubs for Christmas, and instead, I got a lesson about faith and expectations.
2 comments:
Merry Christmas, Jimbob.
My 7-year-old was selected this year to carry in the statue of the baby Jesus at the 5:00 pm Vigil Mass on Christmas Eve. Before Mass, in the sacristy, he was beside himself, "practicing" with the statue and telling the priest, "Fr. Michael, look, I know how to put down Baby Jesus gently!" On Christmas morning, Patrick was busy "transforming" one of his Transformers that Santa had brought him, and he started casually talking, mentioning everything he liked about Christmas. Then he asked, "Mom, you know what I like the most?" I asked him what that was, and he very seriously said, "The birth of our Savior."
We can learn from our children.
Would only that WE were able to keep JC close to us as does your son...
eh?
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