Hearing inaudible messages
Raising children is learned throughout life. To bring up means to let the good in the child develop in him, to help him to receive the forces of God and to stop any evil that could mislead him, blind him, and lead him down the wrong path. These forces enter the child through love. God is love and whoever loves remains in God and God in him. But love is such a broad term that people call everything they do, what they can do and what they want – love.
They were coming down from the mountain. The mother walked in front, then the tree-year-old girl, and behind her the father. The little girl screamed joyfully, threw herself on the grass and rolled on it happily, and then quietly followed her mother. Suddenly she saw a flower, stopped, picked it, and then delightedly called her mother to show it to her. The mother did not turn around. The girl persistently ran after her, gathering all her strength to reach her, she almost fell over the stones and grass on the way. She shouted loudly: ‘Look, mom, a beautiful flower!’ She expected her mother to hug her, praise her for finding the flower and tell her that she is the most precious flower that exists. But she turned around and warned her not to run because she might fall. Something broke in the little girl, she stopped. It seemed as if the light had disappeared from her, that her strength had left her. Then, with a last twitch of her hand, she gave her mother a flower.
She expected praise. The mother took the flower, looked at it, said only a faint ‘yes’, turned and went on. The little girl lowered her head, picked something with her fingers, and then tears started to flow down her face.
What was wrong? For the first time, the child experienced mountains, grass, sun and clouds, breeze and parental love while walking down the mountain. The little girl found a flower and it was a life discovery for her, she had to share it with someone who would praise her, who would lift her high and tell her that she is the best little girl in the world. She needed that; she needed a word from her mother to carry her forward. Instead, she received reprimand, coldness, and silence. It was as if something in her had died, as if she had lost her mother. As she ran happily, she expected her mother to praise her for running so persistently, well and safely, even over stones and grass. Instead of praising the good that the little girl did, the mother warned her of evil, of falling, of injury, of what could happen.
They were seemingly small things, but the girl will carry those wounds for the rest of her life. She will feel that she did not have a mother, that her mother did not love her and that everything she did in her life had no meaning. How many good deeds in life have failed because there was no one to smile, to praise, to be amazed at the small, tiny discovery of a child.
I was climbing towards the top of the mountain. I met young parents walking down the hill with a two-and-a-half-year-old child and an eight-year-old girl. Far behind them, almost a kilometer, was another boy. I wondered if he belonged to them or someone else.
I saw him crouch down, sit on the ground, bow his head, and quietly stack a pebble upon a pebble. It was obvious that he was not having fun, but that something was hurting him inside. He stayed behind, and none of his parents remembered to call him, no one waited for him, no one came to pick him up, to ask if he was in pain, was it hard, or was something bothering him. He felt that he did not belong to his family, that there was no one who would care for him, who would love him, who would look for him. I came close to him. I was only thinking about what to say to him. I looked at him for a while and he looked at me. Our eyes met. Then I looked down the hill and saw the father standing, looking, and waving to his son to come. I asked him whose he is, whom he belongs to. He just waved his hand coldly saying:
‘My parents went somewhere down the mountain.’ Then I told him: ‘Look, dad is calling you, go, he is waiting for you.’ Fortunately, the father was still waving. The son saw him, took a few pebbles in his hands, first slowly, then more and more hurriedly, and finally started running.
His father was waiting for him down the mountain. It is the best thing that can happen to a child. Always be interested in a child, ask him what is wrong with him, answer all his questions, praise him for even the smallest thing, joke with him and listen to how a boy tells a story to his father or a girl asks a question to her mother – this is a way for children to get to know themselves and grow up in well-brought-up people.
Climbing further up the mountain, I met a father and his five-year-old son, dressed similarly to his father, with a cap on his head and a hundred questions that the father happily answered. The son was proud, it was clear that the father recognized him as his partner in conversation, that he could ask his father anything and that he was smart, that his father considered him valuable. It was nice to watch them. Some miraculous grace lay in those two, the father and his little son.
How necessary it is to shout to adults that children love and need them, that it is the best job in life and that life is worthwhile only by working for children and with children. I see, the Western world, together with us, has wandered somewhere from its own center. Unfortunately, not only the world of Europe and the West. Too bad! A turn towards the center should be made.
The course of the meditation: Sit in a quiet corner of the room. Raise your eyes and remember: YOU ARE HERE, GOD. Your eyes are looking at me. Your face is looking at me. Wonderful, you are looking at me. You are watching me, now your gaze is on my face. It is magnificent! Here, I am looking at you too. I AM HERE. Our eyes met. I want to just watch you for the next fifteen minutes. I let you control our conversation. I am looking at you… I am looking at your bright eyes… Jesus, you are looking at me and I am looking at you. Do not rush! Say all this calmly, consciously, slowly, making it slow, absorbing every word. Then remain still and only aware that you are looking at the face of Jesus and that he is looking at you. Endure the meeting of your eyes calmly, relaxedly, consciously. You will come out completely different from that encounter. Full of joy, tears of joy, strength, faith and love.
He was born in Davor in 1938. After studying philosophy and theology in Zagreb and Rome, he was ordained a priest of the Zagreb Archdiocese in 1966. After achieving a master’s degree in philosophy and a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, he returned to Zagreb in 1971, where he became a professor at the Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb. He is the head of the Chair of Fundamental Theology, and was one of the editors of the Theological Review. Areas of his scientific work are philosophy, theology and literature. He explores the relationship between philosophy and theology, faith and science, atheism and religiosity, revelation and faith, the Church and ecclesial communities, Christianity and religion, the phenomenon of sects and issues of theological epistemology. His special field of interest is the study of man’s existential-spiritual dimension, where he discovers the way of modern evangelization and the necessity of the development of spiritual medicine, which, along with somatic and psychological, is indispensable in the complete healing of man, especially in the healing of spiritual diseases and addictions. For this purpose, he developed the method of hagiotherapy and founded in 1990 in Zagreb the Center for Spiritual Help, of which he is the head. From 1971, in addition to working at the faculty, he was a student religious teacher in Zagreb, the initiator of the prayer movement within the Church of the Croats, the founder of a religious society called the Prayer and Word Community(MiR), and the leader of numerous seminars for spiritual renewal and evangelization at home and abroad. After completing his studies and scientific doctorate in fundamental theology at … (Read more at https://hagio.hr/tomislav-ivancic/).
