When my friend’s daughter became a full member of the Catholic church at the age of eight, she was so excited she couldn’t wait to tell her friends about her new faith. In fact, she did such a good job of telling them they all were sinners and going to hell that three of the children came home in tears every day that week. The girl’s own mother didn’t think anything about what her daughter was saying. After all, how could you be a good Catholic if you weren’t filled with fear and guilt. As Erma Bombeck said, guilt is “the gift that keeps on giving.” But the other children’s parents got tired of having to deal with a religious crisis every dinner and fiery nightmares every night after the lights went out.
The next Monday, the girl’s teacher had a stern talk with her. Luckily for the little girl, the teacher was a Christian herself and understood what was missing from the girl’s sermons.
“You’re not supposed to be a newspaper with just bad headlines and obituaries. You have to tell people the main story, the good news that Jesus brought, that God loves everybody — not just the good people, everybody.”
The little girl said she understood, and when she continued her proselytizing, she always mentioned God’s love….in a flat, quiet voice after a heavy dose of dark sin and fiery images. It wasn’t much, but enough to prevent more tears and parental interventions.
By the end of the next week, she had all of the kids, including three Muslims and four Jews making the Sign of the Cross before they spoke to her. Things got really interesting the third week when she convinced the children to let her hear their confessions. Every recess, she hung a small crucifix around her neck and set up shop at the corner bench in the playground. There, she heard sordid tales of cookie-snatching and sibling-snitching.
That only lasted two days, however. The third day the little girl stayed home. Her mother told the school she was sick, which was true in a sense – sick at heart. The previous afternoon Johnny Matthews had told her that she couldn’t do confessions since she wasn’t a priest, and she couldn’t be a priest because she wasn’t a boy.
That upset her, but not too much since she didn’t really believe him. But when she went home, she found out the shattering truth – Johnny was right. Women couldn’t be priests. Only men could. The mother tried to placate her by telling her that God loved women just as much as he did men. It was just a rule of the Catholic church.
“That doesn’t make any sense!” the little girl said. Her mother agreed, but the damage was done.
When the girl returned to school the next week, the crucifix was gone from around her neck. In its place was the Star of David she’d gotten from Rabbi Sara Abramowitz.
Cute and apt
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