Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”

One of the most rewarding aspects of people-watching is seeing wide-eyed, energetic little kids pulling their parents or guardians along the sidewalk or being pushed in a stroller or carried on the back. So often full of excitement, bouncing and utterly beautiful with their velvet skins, almond eyes and little arms waving aimlessly. And in a big city they come in all colors and racial mixtures, providing an endlessly fascinating picture.

It makes it all the more poignant and sickening to hear of tragedies involving children. The newspaper pictures a little Bosnian boy, blinded by a land mine, learning Braille. A friend asks prayers for his sister whose eleven-year-old hanged himself after a dispute with her about selling his saxophone to buy an electronic game. And to cap it all, the stories of children gunned down in schools and elsewhere. Or kidnapped: young girls in Nigeria.

All this, of course, is somewhat selective; we have become almost immune to continuing horrors in many parts of the world involving children. There doesn't seem to be too much danger of sentimentalizing children in our world. The uniqueness, beauty and vulnerability of little children needs a lot more veneration. They are incomprehensible and inexhaustibly fascinating miracles not only for their parents but for all of us.

Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”

Reply to Fr. Don at: DTalafous@csbsju.edu

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