A SMALL CHILD MAY JUST BE LISTENING.

" Like many children whom circumstance has accustomed to suffering, Callie shares little in common with other girls of her age.
Although somewhat sensitive, she displays an awareness and an intellect beyond her years.
She is at present unable to reach her potential due to the palpable difficulties in her home life.
These need to be addressed.
Callie has yet to find her way through, but has the intelligence to turn this to her advantage with time and guidance"
This was the concluding paragraph of my school report, written by my head teacher, The Mother Superior, when I was just 11 years old!

Maybe it was easy for the nuns to write their assessments without really knowing the circumstances of their pupils.
Maybe, having written those words, they should have felt some sort of obligation to do something about the situation they saw fit to comment on.
They did nothing!

We were taught at school to faithfully follow the Bible, its Scriptures and its doctrine.
This was a little at odds with what Mum taught us.
She said that as the Bible had been interpreted by man, we should question that interpretation because it need not always be accepted as literal.
The Nuns professed that God was watching and listening, that if we were good Catholic girls, lived a pure and holy life, and repented our sins He would always be there to watch over and help us.
They said that this was a proven truth because the Bible told us so.
I actually believed the Nuns.
I had to believe them because I really needed God to help us.
There seemed to be nobody else to turn to, so I just had to believe.
Believing The Nuns meant that Mum must be mistaken, but that was a risk that I felt, at the time, was worth taking.
However, the only problem with this theory was that God really didn't seem to know that I existed!

So I made Church my adopted home. It felt safe and I often hid there.
I attended every Mass I could.
I spent all my pennies either lighting candles, or pretending that I enjoyed the clatter that they made as they slid into the Poor Box.
I went to Confession so often that I would make up sins because I couldn't think of real ones...and then go back to confess to the real ones of telling lies!
I cleaned the Church for fun, weeded the graves, polished brasses, sang my heart out in the choir and generally made myself at home.
Nothing in Church was scary. I wasn't frightened of graves, or ghosts, or even funerals.
The other children were sometimes scared, but there was nothing in Church that was as scary as the things that were going on in my home.
In Church I was the same as everyone else.
Except of course for the miracle thing!

Everyone seemed to believe that miracles really did happen.
I really believed that this was an absolute fact, that if you were really good and prayed really hard, then God would grant you a miracle.
Maybe, somehow, I had used my miracle up without realising.
Maybe God was too busy with the really good children.
Maybe I was the only Catholic girl not to have every been allocated my one miracle in the first place.
Maybe I simply didn't deserve His help!
Whatever the reason, He wasn't listening and I realised that we were on our own.

Mum said that sometimes human interpretation of the Scriptures could result in bigotry, and that this was dehumanising to those in the minority. She said that God would surely celebrate those differences that He had created.
Perhaps she was trying to tell us something that we were just too young to understand at the time.
Well, we were certainly in the minority in our world, and the differences in our family left nothing worthy of celebration, only an overwhelming sense of embarrassment and shame.
I knew that we were very different to other families long before I was able to articulate or really understand what made us so.
Mum also said that Christianity was about kindness, generosity and love.
I tried so hard to remember this.
I often wondered why, if it was so important, other people didn't seem to remember it also?

Lots of people knew that I was virtually camping out in that Church at totally inappropriate times.
They saw me.
Sometimes they smiled.
But they all passed by.
A small gesture of concern or kindness towards one small girl would have made such a difference.
Perhaps it was easier for them to do only what was publically required of them.
Perhaps being seen to be doing good was more important than actually doing anything good.
After all, they all did exactly what was required of them.
They attended church.
They prayed to God.
And they also made their judgements.
Perhaps, being human, they only reached out in return for the status it offered them.
Who can really blame them for that?
But they seemed to be granted their miracles.

So I stopped believing,
Stopped praying,
Stopped hoping for the miracle with my name on it.

I accepted the family shame along with the realisation that we were in it alone.
Nobody, not even God, was going to help us.
I wonder now how those people that passed by would have felt had they realised that they silenced one small girls prayers forever.

So perhaps before you next unthinkingly echo Amen in agreement, can I gently ask that you look around and consider what it is that you are agreeing to....because, perhaps, just perhaps, another small child may just be listening!