Once a year, when you and I are together at a Sunday Mass, once a
year, around Mothers’ Day or Fathers’ Day, I trot out children’s
letters to God. And if you were here the past three times, you could
just have a kind of spiritual snooze, if you kind of have heard those
all before. But I bring them out once a year because they have been
such a help to me. Letters to God from little kids.... I found this
original book in England many years ago. Some Catholic nuns in Great
Britain got little kids in Catholic School to write letters to God. I
thought, “What a great gimmick!” So then when I went back to
Poughkeepsie where I was teaching in a Catholic High School, I told
the Catholic kids, seniors in high school, I said, “You go to your
neighboring parishes, extra credit project, and ask little kids to
write a letter to God.” And the kids did, and the little kids took it
very seriously. By “little,” I mean between the ages of five and a
half and nine, small kids. And I have hundreds. Don’t get alarmed. I
only bring about twelve, every year. And some of them are repeats and
some of them are falling apart, like a Dead Sea Scroll. Some of them,
really old, I put on index cards. And some of them are from the
original book. But, once a year, and my theological reason, said he,
seeking for an alibi, is they talk theology but they talk it under
their own terms. All the years that Father and I studied theology,
everything is in these letters: eschatology, Christology, cosmology,
hermeneutics.... but in their own way.

Now, today is the Body of Christ, the feast “Corpus” (body)
“Christi” (of Christ), and there are different ways of looking at the
phrase. You and Father Tom and I and the servers, we are called “The
Body of Christ, the Mystical Body of Christ.” In a while, when I’m
quiet and the Mass continues, almost all of you (I am always happy to
see.) receive the Eucharistic Body of Christ. And maybe some of you
are weary and irritated at my always iterating this. But it’s not
just a blessed biscuit. The Church has always believed from the
beginning in some marvelous, mystical, miraculous way, for a few
minutes, the real sacramental presence is in your body. So talk to
him. Talk to him! A convert, back on the East Coast, an adult who
just became a Catholic, whom I’ve known, and he called up and said,
“I believe Christ is in the Eucharist. It’s not just a cracker.” And
I don’t know what to say to him. I think he is self-conscious. I
thought of the letters of kids. I said, “Talk to him as a kid would.
Keep it simple.” Hello.... and complain.... as if it were and is your
best friend. When Our Lord had a real, physical body, the body of
Christ here on this earth, remember the passage where little kids
were running to see him, Our Lord must have had a radiant
personality, radiant, warm and, with kids, probably funny. Remember
the passage when they were running to him and the apostles, that
officious bunch of oafs, shooed them away?And Our Lord said, the old
translation, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” “Suffer”
is a bad translation of the Greek. It means “Please let....” Please
let the little kids come. And the gospel says that Jesus blesses
them. Anyhow, he must have been so relaxed with kids. He didn’t have
to constantly argue and have a dialectic and..... Anyhow, here’s a
batch. And, as I say, if you have heard them before, there are only
twelve.

This is one of the real old ones I should put on a card. This girl
was five and a half, but listen to her prose.
“Dear God,
Why do you make bad people? My baby brother is very bad. I always
have to spank him when Mommy ain’t looking. Please make him good. If
not, more spankings!”
(And then she sagaciously adds,)
“I love you.
Jean”

“Dear God,
Why do I have to pray when you know anyway what I want?” (Great
theology!) “But I’ll do it if it makes you feel better.”
Her name was Susan.

“Are you real?” (Harriet was eight.) “Are you real? Some people don’t
not believe you.” (.... in you, bad grammar, but we know what she
means.) “If you are real, do something quick!” (Amen!)

“Dearest God,
Did you mean for the giraffe to look that way or was it an accident?”

Now this letter is about eschatology. Father and I studied
eschatology but the little kid is putting it more pragmatically.
“Dear God,
Mrs. Coe got a new refrigerator. We got the box it came in for a
clubhouse. So that’s where I’ll be when you come looking for me.”
His name was Marvin. Beacon, New York.

This again is falling apart, in shreds. So I put it on a card. Mark
was eight. The original was a big poster, and at the top of the
poster there was a picture of this benign aged-looking gent with a
beard and a halo. And at the bottom of the poster was an arrow
pointing up. And here was the original script:
“Dear God,
I am drawing a picture of you on my top of my letter. Look at you. I
don’t see pictures of Jesus smiling. You smile here. Did Jesus smile?
Our priest always looks like his head hurts. He never smiles. But
kids love Jesus, so I’m wondering if Jesus smiled.”
(The theological answer is “Absolutely! Our Lord was a perfect human
nature and with those twelve characters he hung out with, of course,
he must have laughed a lot.”)
“Anyway, Dear God, you smile in this poster. Follow the arrow.
Mark”

Some of us in our adolescence might identify with Peter. Peter is
nine and a half, and he writes,
“Dear God,
PLEASE send Dennis Clark to a different camp this summer.”
(A very human prayer.)

“Dear God:
OK.
I kept my half of the deal.
Where’s the bike?”

Doreen was seven. And she is now a young grandmother. But she was
seven in upstate New York when she wrote,
“Dear God,
I made a bet with my mother that you would answer this letter. She
says you’re too busy. I told her Sister said God is never too busy to
answer when we ask. I’m asking. If you do not answer, I will lose the
bet. I’ll also tell all the other kids that you didn’t .”
(Seven years old!)

OK. Karen was eight.
“Sister says you made all things. You made the rivers, the hills, the
trees and us. Did you also make my brother?”

This was printed, printed painfully.
“My father, Dear God, can never get a fire started. Could you make a
burning bush in our backyard?”
(And there’s a little cartoon with this angry-looking guy.)

“OK, God. I got left back. Thanks a lot!”

(Now, some of us agree with this next letter may be in a state of
incipient heresy. But none the less....)
“We heard today, Jesus, about hell. I don’t buy it. When people are
bad, you should just forget them - forget them - ! When they die,
they just disappear. And you can enjoy, in heaven, the good people
only and not worry about whether you maybe sent a few good people
into the fire by mistake. THINK ON THIS!
Roger”

Sandy, seven and a half. She lived in Millbrook, New York. She came
from a very wealthy family, very determined, smart young lady. She
was only seven and a half when she wrote,
“I think you should go on TV and straighten things out. The faces and
the voices are sad, lots of shooting and bad stuff. Tell ‘em off! Be
tuff! They say you love us. OK, but I think most of them would be
good and scared if you get tuff! Channel 2 would be good, or 4.“

These, in the last three, are always my favorites.
Stacey McKuen. She was seven. She came to the high school later on.
Stacey McKuen, wherever you are, in your honor.... What she is about
to say is the seven volumes of the Summa Theologica by St. Thomas
Aquinas. She says it in a little letter.
“Dear Lord Jesus,
I thank you for all the things you have done for me. You have gave me
a heart and a ‘brian’ to love and to learn. I’m seven.
Stacey”

“Dear God,
I’m sorry I was late for Sunday School, but I couldn’t find my
underwear.
Norman”

And this is one of the oldest. I always end up with this one.
“Dear Jesus,
I like going to Mass. I do, going to Church on Sunday. I like it. But
the priest talks too long!”