Anna is an eighteen-year-old girl with Down syndrome, the youngest of four children. For years now, she attends Sunday Mass with her parents at the parish church. Thinking of all the families like his own who wonder where their children belong in the Church, Anna's father has written these reflections. He hopes they may help someone.
Entrance
Sunday, eleven o'clock: a Sunday like any other. As the celebrant enters, the song of the Christian people rises—gathered in their diversity. Like every other Sunday, Anna strains to sing too, with all her clumsy innocence. Like every other Sunday, her presence beside us evokes the invisible, aching multitude of all those parents who feel, each day, the daily suffering caused by that inexorable wound in their child's mind.
What does our daughter understand of this Mass she attends so regularly? No doubt she is moved by the ceremonial beauty of the liturgy, but her grasp does not stop there. In the responses, in the simplest prayers she can manage to recite—haltingly, doing her best with the rest of us—in the moments of silence she respects, something spiritual passes over her that I am certain she feels, at her humble level. And we adults, the able-bodied, the "normal"? Do we have any assurance that, before the sacrifice of Christ renewed for us, we stand closer to the sacred than this girl can in her eternal present? In truth, from the very beginning of Mass, Anna's presence seems to contain an enormous richness.
"We Acknowledge Our Sins"
Here we are, Lord, meditating on our poor human condition. But Anna too, in her hoarse and halting speech, "acknowledges before her brothers and sisters" that she has sinned.
You alone, Lord, know the depths of our hearts: in what has my daughter sinned against you? You alone, Lord, know the secret depths of the human soul: allow us to hope that she, at the foot of your altar, will make up for our adult mediocrity before your infinite gaze. You alone, Lord, know human misery: help us discover the special place you have reserved for our daughter among all your creatures.
"Let the children come to me..."
Lord, this child you have entrusted to me, this young woman who will always be as a child, here she stands before you in all her innocence. We have brought her as you told us to do. Grant us, Lord, to be enlightened, in your sight, by the light of her soul. And since "theirs is the kingdom of heaven"... remember, yes, that we have brought her as you asked.
Do we have any assurance that we stand closer to the sacred than this girl can in her eternal present?
Do we have any assurance that we stand closer to the sacred than this girl can in her eternal present?... Lord, Have Mercy!
Have mercy, Lord, on our failings, on our impatience before this trial, on our weariness, on our inability on certain days to keep peace in our souls, to accept this "small one" as she is, this child-adult with the clear soul; however close she may be to you, there are moments when we cannot bear it anymore.
...Christ, have mercy!: Have mercy on all of us, discouraged parents who on certain evenings lose hope, who on certain mornings lack the courage to take up the burden again, tempted by rebellion, crushed by the trial that returns each day.
...Lord, have mercy!: Have mercy, Lord, on our inability to carry our cross to take even a few steps at your side, mercy on our refusal.
"Glory to God in the Highest"
Like a luminous answer from the Church, the assembly bursts into praise, taken up by Anna with all her fervor and her clumsiness. What can she understand of this praise, of this "infinite glory," of this "Lamb of God," of the "unity of the Holy Spirit"?
What does it matter? Is it not enough that deep in her simple, clear heart, she feels that her effort to repeat with the crowd the words we have tried to teach her for months and years—does this not allow her to enter the world of the sacred, of mystery, of adoration? And perhaps when the rhythm of our singing becomes too fast for her, when the words are too difficult for her mind, perhaps the strain and effort she makes is enough in God's eyes to capture his attention far more than what we manage with our beautiful song. Perhaps, without knowing it, she adds to our prayer a freshness that none of us will ever be able to bring to it. Lord, how heavy our handicap is before you, compared to the purity of praise from this handicapped daughter of ours.
Readings
The reading of the prayers and the epistle gives Anna a chance to show her wisdom: she waits in silence. But it seems to me that she naturally grasps the sacred character of the assembly's posture and takes part in her own way, through her silence. At the Gospel she stands like everyone else: "the word of God" must be heard standing—she knows this, she sees it. She listens, but gives up trying to understand language too difficult for her. Lord, I don't know how, but I am sure you know how to find the way to her spirit that words cannot reach.
As for the sermon, the preacher must forgive me: for Anna it is like crossing a desert, with no oasis except the occasional familiar word here and there. A desert that a brief, unashamed nap—leaning against me—allows Anna to cross in peace. Lord, how often are we ourselves asleep, just like the Apostles on that tragic night of Holy Thursday. And we do not even have, as does this child whose fragility you entrusted to us, the excuse of an irreparable wound to the mind.
Consecration
This moment, mysterious above all others and the high point of her attention, Anna receives its essence. "Hello, Jesus," she murmurs in her rough, gravelly voice. For her it is very simple: we can be glad because "Jesus is here." I marvel at her peaceful conviction in the Real Presence, over which so many superior minds have stumbled; and I am filled with hope as I wonder whether our daughter does not find herself naturally within the prayer of Christ as Luke reports it: "I praise you, Father, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever, and revealing them to little children."
The Lord's Prayer
The beautiful prayer of Jesus is another important moment for Anna. Lord, the Apostles once asked you humbly to teach them how to pray. Here, two thousand years later, our daughter in turn stumbles word by word to recite with the whole assembly the prayer you left us. In this prayer, Lord, receive our offering as parents: for years we have sought, on your word, to teach it to her; each word that Anna mumbles as best she can is a conquest, a step toward you. Receive this prayer from our daughter, Lord—within it, there is a bit of ourselves.
Greet Each Other with Peace
Give each other peace. Here Anna finds the chance to come to know the people around her, to find them again each Sunday with renewed enthusiasm, as a member of a community that recognizes her as its own. At peace with herself and with others, she offers all that she has: her innocence, through which perhaps some glimpse in this "different" child the unconscious bearer of evangelical promises. Bless, Lord, this still-young woman who smiles at her with all her heart; bless that man who took seriously the hand she offers him and holds it long in his own. For this woman, for this man, for all those who have accepted seeing in our daughter the privileged messenger of your peace, Lord, know yourself bound by your promise: "...What you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine..."
Go: The Mass Is Ended
The candles are extinguished, Mass is over, the crowd disperses: once again our daughter has participated in the Church's prayer. What has she gained from it? No doubt the conviction that she is a member of a praying community, the joy of being accepted there, of having her place. But above all, I am certain she has given much.
Herself, first and foremost—which, alas, disrupts the recollected prayer of those around her; her wounded mind; her face so starkly marked by her condition; her strange way of speaking; her complete inability to sing properly. But also the purity of her heart, her innocence, the peaceful simplicity of her way of turning toward God, which unconsciously testify to the infinite worth of the smallest among us in God's sight: and for all of us Christian parents, this may be a shy glimmer of hope in our darkest hours.
In those hours, Lord, remind us of this unfathomable and overwhelming mystery: in our children, in each of these small ones who can only remain small children forever because they are "not like the others," in each of them lies hidden—we know it from the deepest place of our Hope—a burning spark of eternity. "For theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
-by J.F., 1984
from Ombres et Lumière No. 41