"I hope no one will have an empty heart."

The truth voiced by my children leaves me in awe every time.

Veronica’s artwork entitled, “Ice cream cone,” was selected for display in our citywide children’s art festival, FAME (Foundation for Art and Music in Education); March 2024

(Listen to the audio version of my essay above.)

It is Sunday. I corral the offspring (because my teenager reviles being called a kid or child), and we head to church as a family. Ben files each of the five into a pew near the back of the sanctuary, and I collect everyone’s coats into a heap that takes up enough room for at least two people.

Felicity fidgets, as she always does. I wonder what passes through her mind. I know her life feels heavy, not just because she is thirteen, but also because she is changing so rapidly and, being highly sensitive, struggles to keep up with it all.

Auggie and Joey instantly tug on Ben’s dress shirt and whine, “I have to pee! Now!” Ben sighs and grabs each one by hand, disappearing from sight as they head to the bathroom in the gathering space.

Sarah opens her children’s booklet with today’s scripture readings, and she asks me for a pen. I notice a word search on the back of the booklet and fish around in the bowels of my purse. Finally. I hand it to her and attempt to settle in for some semblance of quiet.

Actually, no. There is seldom quiet, even at church on Sunday. Still, I try.

I kneel and fold my hands in reverence, affixing my gaze at the altar, crucifix, statues. Very few aspects of my formal religion move me anymore—not prayer, not meditation, not the liturgy or beloved hymns I recall belting out as a child. I am Catholic, but I feel like I don’t belong here. My concept of God has changed the last several years, and everything inside me rattles in restless protest.

Some things should stay the same, right? At least, my faith should?

But it doesn’t. It can’t. My only hope now is that what changes in me indicates growth.

Then I turn to my left and notice Veronica. She has been kneeling this entire time—at least five full minutes—motionless. Her head is bowed, eyes are closed, and hands are folded. Coming from my little jumping bean of a kid, I’m stunned and intrigued. I notice her lips moving, but the sounds she makes are barely audible. I decide not to disturb her.

She must sense I am watching her, because her eyelids flutter, and she turns to me. “Mommy,” she whispers, “I am praying that no one will have an empty heart. Sometimes our hearts are closed, but God can open them again. That’s what I want for everyone, for the whole world.”

Veronica is not quite seven years old. But her theology feels like an answered prayer to me.

My astonishment stems from the realization that my faith doesn’t have to be as complicated as I make it. I make everything complicated. Veronica understands something I’ve forgotten, maybe because of years of burnout or past traumas I’m working through in therapy or the creeping cynicism I noticed the last few years. She sees people suffering. She recognizes that humans have broken hearts and that sometimes we close them, cordon them off to love.

But there is always a way for them to soften and open up again.

I guess I doubt God’s mercy. Not generally or theologically but specifically, for me. I doubt in his mercy for me. Maybe I’m one of the people for whom Veronica prays, because my heart has become so battered and bruised that I’m afraid to open it up again to this God I don’t really understand anymore. I feel unworthy. I feel ashamed.

The problem is not that I don’t believe. It’s that things don’t fit neatly into categories anymore. My spiritual director told me recently, “Be willingly vulnerable. You are in the metamorphosis.” She said God is a “hidden holy mystery” and no human can possibly articulate God.

“The real theologians go to the edge of the abyss and report back what they saw.” She said these aren’t the pharisaical preachers I’m accustomed to. They aren’t the catechists who point to imperatives and doctrines. They live on the edges of the world, and their hearts are often tattered by what they see, what they live, what they feel.

Veronica’s faith seems simple, yet it’s not. It’s profoundly deep. It’s present, powerful, and real. I don’t know where she got it. I didn’t even know the girl prayed much, aside from our twentyish minutes of gathering as a family each night to recount what we’re grateful for and where we notice suffering in the world. Our family talks about suffering and injustice. We have conversations. But I don’t proselytize.

I want our children to grow into their beliefs. I want them to understand that it’s good when they question things that don’t make sense to them. It’s healthy to be angry with God sometimes or wonder if God even hears their lamentations. I tell them this, yet I still struggle with deep-seated shame at the aspects of my religion that hurt people.

And I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s the expression of one’s religion that can harm or heal, not necessarily the religion itself. That’s why I stay here: there are many parts of Catholicism that are beautiful and meaningful to me, even comforting. But I also understand why some people just can’t stay. And both of these realities hurt my heart.

But if I heed the words Veronica shared with me today, if I pray that I might keep an open heart rather than an empty one—one devoid of love—then maybe all the interior conflict I’m experiencing really is my pathway to healing and to discovering the mercy of God for myself.

So I smile at her, pat her head, and lean over to say, “That’s very good, Veronica. What a beautiful prayer.” She beams and gives me a hug. To her, hugs resolve every ailment. And maybe she’s right about that, too. Maybe we just need to hug each other more. After all, that is one avenue of demonstrating love to another human.

Veronica sits back in the pew, but I continue to kneel, tears streaming down my cheeks. There are so many wounds—so so many—but there is grace, too. And grace is the invisible attribute of this “hidden holy mystery” my spiritual director told me about. This God who saves, who loves, whose mercy abounds. God is hugging me, too—hugging me through Veronica, healing me in this moment.

I don’t think we have to comprehend what is impossible to fully grasp. What faith means to me is taking that leap into the unknown and walking on those uncertain surfaces where I might fall, I might fail. And when I do, I still continue searching. I press on. Because somehow, somewhere, there is a light that stays hidden from my view but still exists over the horizon.