Jesus Loves Children

One thing you may not have heard me say is that I have enjoyed a love affair with children, especially newborns, infants, and toddlers. This love affair started in 1991 when my wife was pregnant with our first child. Let me share with you how this love affair began.

In 1990, I was in my second year at St John’s Theological College in Auckland. All the married students were housed in married quarters of the College. The three years at St John’s College were truly blessed days. I had the opportunity to study and train for the priesthood while all provisions were provided for.

Our neighbours, Peter and Sarah, were about five years older than us and already had a baby girl, Natalie, who was two years old. We adored her. We were very close to Peter and Sarah. My wife often talked to Sarah about being pregnant and motherhood.

Two events in Sarah’s life made me fall in love with newborns, infants, and toddlers.

The first event took place on an ordinary day while Sarah was bathing in the sun in her garden while enjoying tea, and Natalie was riding her tricycle. All of a sudden, Natalie came over to Sarah, got off the tricycle, placed her tiny hands on Sarah’s belly, patted her gently, and declared, “Baby! Baby!” At that time, Sarah had no idea she was pregnant with their son Ben.

Later, Sarah told us that she couldn’t have been pregnant for more than a day or two at the time. Yet Natalie knew that a miracle was growing within her and announced it with absolute certainty. Sarah had visited her GP that day, and it was confirmed that she was pregnant.

How did Natalie know that a baby had been conceived in her mother’s womb?

The second event took place nine months after Ben was born.

Sarah had prepared to give birth at home. Their trusted midwife facilitated the baby’s birth, and Peter and Natalie were present.

About five days later, everybody at home had settled into their daily routines and had come to celebrate the new addition to the family. And then, this happened.

Natalie, who had turned three about a month before Ben’s arrival, started demanding to be alone with the baby brother. Sarah and Peter were reluctant, fearing Natalie might be jealous and wanted to poke at the baby. So, they put them together but lingered outside the bedroom. Little Natalie crawled over to her baby brother Ben and whispered (loudly): “Please talk to me about Heaven. I’m beginning to forget.”

Sarah told us about these two events, and I began my love affair with newborns, toddlers, and children.

Since 1991, if a baby is in the room, I have experienced a heightened awareness, as if a magnetic connection draws my attention, and I must make contact.

As the father of two of our children, I spent many hours simply gazing into their eyes during their early years of childhood. In those private and intimate moments, I often sent silent, inquisitive messages asking them to tell me about God and what Heaven is like.

I may have spent countless hours lying on the floor or bed, directly contacting the two children. I spent many hours gazing into their beautiful eyes, conveying to me the delight of where they had come from and the frustrations of having found themselves on this side of life.

As they were growing up, I was fascinated by the children of the same parents showing different personality traits: some traits common to their sex as boys and girls, a few idiosyncratic traits picked up from the parents, and many other traits unique to them alone.

I remember asking my two children, a son and a daughter, when they were toddlers, who had just begun to communicate with language, to tell me what they remember about their experiences before coming here to be with us.

Since, intuitively, whenever I briefly communicated with babies during a visit to the family or when I baptised them, I asked them the same question.

To this day, I have not stopped asking that question to babies and toddlers. I know that they can be a window for us to glimpse into the unfathomable, infinite, invisible world that we are all to discover. After all, they haven’t had much time to forget.

During the service, the children do their own thing, and parents attempt to keep them engaged. At the same time, I have often wondered whether they savour the memories of Heaven, which are much more real to them. Those memories must be more vivid and real to the children than the experience we try to create for ourselves in the liturgy.

When I think of newborns and toddlers, I often think and reflect on the words of that beautiful poem by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.