Does God speak to children? Today's comic page is a visual recreation of an incident described in Sofia Cavalletti's book, The Religious Potential of the Child. The first chapter of the book is chalk full of recounted experiences of children primarily from ages three to six. Many of the children are suddenly overcome by a glimpse of the divine. Often they experience indescribable happiness and while the moment is short, they long for a repeat experience their entire lives. It is similar to The Door in the Wall short story by H.G. Wells. Sofia's book is a wonderful read but in the interests of modern attention spans, I will just give two short quotes from her masterpiece.
"The following example presents similarities with the one reported by Montessori. However, this one involves a three-year-old girl who grew up without the slightest religious influence. The child did not go to nursery school; no one at home, not even her grandmother, who was herself an atheist, had ever spoken of God; the child had never gone to church. One day she questioned her father about the origin of the world. "Where does the world come from?" Her father replied, in a manner consistent with his ideas, with a discourse that was materialistic in nature; then he added: "However, there are those who say that all this comes from a very powerful being, and they call him God." At this point the girl began to run like a whirlwind around the room in a burst of joy, and exclaimed: "I know what you told me wasn't true; it is Him, it is Him!"....
Read, for instance, the experience written by the famous French novelist, Julien Green: In the course of these dim years, I can remember a minute of intense delight, such as I have never experienced since. Should such things be told, or should they be kept secret? There came a moment in this room when, looking up at the windowpane, I saw the dark sky and a few stars shining in it. What words can be used to express what is beyond speech? That minute was perhaps the most important one of my life and I do not know what to say about it. I was alone in an unlighted room and, my eyes raised to the sky, and I had what I can only call an outburst of love. I have loved on earth, but never as I did during that short time, and I did not know whom I loved. Yet I knew that he was there and that, seeing me, he loved me too. How did the thought dawn on me? I do not know. I was certain that someone was there and talked to me without words. Having said this, I have said everything. Why must I write that no human speech has ever give me what I felt then for a moment just long enough to count up to ten, at a time when I was incapable of putting together a few intelligible words and did not even realize that I existed? Why must I write that I forgot that minute for years, that the stream of days and nights all but wiped out of my consciousness? If only I had preserved it in times of trial! Why is it given back to me now? What does it mean?"
Sofia Cavalletti, like Maria Montessori, was an extremely accomplished woman before giving her undivided attention to pioneering a loving education of young children. Maria Montessori had overcome a sexist mentality in academia to become the one of Italy's first physicians, and even won an academic prize along the way. Sofia Cavalletti was an academic intellectual of such standing that she was called upon to be the resident Hebrew scholar on ecumenical commissions for the Italian bishops and the diocese of Rome. She was fluent in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek as well five modern languages. At age 37 she volunteered to teach scripture at a Montessori school and one of her four students, a seven year boy named Paolo was moved to tears. He didn't want the two hour class to end. Cavalletti was similarly moved in her soul and then on till age 84 spent her energies solely on the education of children. So it does seem that God speaks to children and often, as in Cavalletti's case, through children God speaks to us.
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