Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Sadie, Mary and Praying

Sadie discovered a coloring book of the rosary yesterday that I had hidden away for a later date. She immediately began to plead her case for using the book and then asked for her blue crayon. After that she spent quite a while paging through the book and coloring Mary blue, followed by looking for Jesus and coloring him yellow or, in the nativity scene, red (one of her favorite colors).

This morning she found some pieces of cardboard that I'd opted not to use as backing for the shelves and I told her she could use them to draw on. A few minutes later I noticed that she'd drawn a large blue person like shape in the middle of the paper, surrounded by a line of little blue dots at the edge of the paper. If I hadn't seen the book yesterday I probably would have missed what she was drawing.

"Is that Mary with a rosary around the page?" I asked her.
"Yes!" She grinned enthusiastically and proudly showed the picture.

She was also quite shocked yesterday when we went on a walk and I suggested we say a rosary as we walked along. We usually say our family rosary together and so, after a few prayers Sadie began to frantically ask: "Where's Daddy?" When I told her he was at school she said: "Why are we praying?" I replied that God likes it when we pray and talk to Him and she smiled and covered her face and looked a little embarrassed.

I've even heard her praying on her own lately (two days ago she said a little prayer thanking God for Mae Bae and a long list of family members I couldn't entirely understand) and earlier in the week she told me, quite adamantly that she would be asking God to send her another sister.

I can't help but wonder what she's going to say next.

4 comments:

  1. What blessed parents you two are. I can only hope my son does the same thing one day. My husband isn't Catholic and gets very "odded out" when I try to pray, so I've taken to praying with Vincent during our quiet time before bed. I sometimes worry that he'll feel John's displeasure (or worse, see his eye rolls) and take to scoffing the Catholic faith, too.

    Stories like yours, however, give me hope that children can pick up on the beauty of our faith and can enjoy participating as much as we do.

    You guys are forever in my prayers... may you continue to find such beauty and love within the faith, and within each other. :) <3

    I swear... my heart melts into my shoes every time I read your blog. *Grin*

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  2. Aww so cute. They just soak everything up don't they. My 3 yr old does this thing where she is out playing with her sister or cousin and stops and makes the sign of the cross and starts saying either grace before meals or the hail mary and then keeps playing. She also does that every time she jumps off her Granny's ottoman in her lounge which is the strangest thing ever. I have no idea where she got it from!!

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  3. I'm just starting my second degree so that I can knit together children's studies and theology; I am fascinated by children's spirituality. It's something we may never get a real glimpse into - we forget exactly how it feels by the time we ourselves are grown - but only see in flashes and wonder at. To be a child and growing physically, socially, intellectually, and so forth is amazing enough, and then to feel a relationship with God flourishing in this newly discovered self ... it must be just astounding! We are indeed so finely designed. (And you're a great mom for developing this deeper understanding, too. I love the dots around Mary!)

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  4. That is wonderful that she is praying! I try and teach my little sisters to pray, and it actually settles them down when I do night prayers with them.

    God bless,
    Claire

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