The wonder of a child is a wonder to behold. To see the world and everything in it through the eyes of a child is to see the world with amazement. The irony, of course, is that a child’s wonder stems from their lack of wondering about things. A young child has no preconceived notions of anything, nor do they have a desire to truly understand; they don’t wonder how a flower bloomed but only appreciate its beauty and the pleasant aroma it omits. They don’t wonder where chocolate comes from, but merely enjoy that it tastes delicious. A child needs no qualifiers to appreciate something; their awe of the world is innate.
This childlike wonder is exactly what Jesus spoke of when he said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3). I witnessed a profound form of this wonder last year when my eldest daughter received her first communion. She was below the typical age that kids receive confirmation and communion, but she asked to receive it early, and with our pastor’s permission, was granted her request. I’ll never forget the moment that she approached the Eucharist to receive for the first time. She solemnly stepped forward, a white veil draped over her head, and almost instinctively, she knelt down before receiving the Body of Christ on her tongue.
Perhaps the most miraculous thing about her doing this was that she didn’t learn it from my wife or myself. The Holy Spirit moved in her little heart at that moment and prompted her to kneel — a fitting response when one considers what the Eucharist actually is. It was a proud moment for me as a father, and also one that made me take pause, for I wondered in my own heart: do I approach the Eucharist with the faith of a child? This little act of reverence on the part of my daughter stirred something up in my wife and I and made us reconsider how we approach Jesus in the Eucharist.
This childlike wonder is exactly what Jesus spoke of when he said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3).
Something similar happened with the witness of Bl. Carlo Acutis, who happens to be one of the patrons of this Eucharistic Revival we find ourselves in. This smart, kind and video game-loving Italian teenager was also a devoted lover of the Eucharist. When he received his first communion, his family was nominally Catholic — his mother had only been to Mass a handful of times before in her life. Yet from a very young age, Carlo, in his wonder, was drawn to the Catholic Church and especially the Eucharist. Once he received the Eucharist for the first time, he made his mom bring him to Mass every day — it was him doing the dragging, not the other way around as it usually is.
“It was my son Carlo who taught me everything,” said Carlo’s mother Antonia Salzano in a recent interview. “Even as a child, he showed great piety: At the age of three, when we passed in front of a church, he wanted to go in, greet Jesus on the cross and Jesus in the tabernacle, and bring little flowers to Our Lady. At the age of four and a half, he was reading the Bible and the lives of the saints and was praying the Rosary. If in the case of St. Therese of Lisieux, her parents were the great educators; in the case of Carlo, the roles were reversed. He was my little savior, and above all he was my great educator in the faith.”
Carlo was a computer whiz, and during his brief but impactful 15 years of life, he spent much of his free time building a web database devoted to reported eucharistic miracles around the worlds, complete with presentations that are being utilized for this Eucharistic Revival. Even amid the great suffering he endured while battling an aggressive form of leukemia that ultimately took his life, the Eucharist remained Carlo’s tether to Christ. He showed great reverence always for the sacrament, and through this reverence, inspired the conversion of many through his eucharistic witness, including his own family members. ⊲
We often underestimate just how powerful the witness of a child can be, and this is especially true in matters of faith. It is in the innocence of a child —that of my daughter and Carlo — where faith in its purest form can be found. And it is precisely with this sort of blind, untainted faith that Jesus beckons us to approach him in the Eucharist — at every Mass, to be sure, but especially during this Eucharistic Revival. One might purport that Carlo had a supernatural gift of this faith, but the truth is he was a normal child just like any other, prone to all the same tendencies a child has. The same is true of my daughter. But for reasons that are a mystery, both she and Carlo see something in the Eucharist that all the faithful are called to see — and they make no qualms about it. “If Jesus says he is fully present in the Eucharist,” so goes the mind of a child, “then he is.” They don’t wonder whether it’s true or not, but in their wonder, they simply believe.
Of course, as Carlo understood very well, the Eucharist is the primary means by which we unite ourselves to Christ. “Carlo always said that we must ‘Eucharistize’ ourselves, because then we become contagious with Christ,” Antonia said of her son. “‘Being always united to Jesus: that is my program of life,’ he used to say.”
Children, in all their wonder, often make for the best Eucharistic witnesses — and indeed, God likely intended it this way. Suffice it to say that those of us who are older and wiser and try to make sense of everything (this writer included) can learn a thing or two from approaching the Eucharist with this sense of childlike wonder. May the Lord grant us the grace to do so during this Parish Year for the Eucharistic Revival.