Religious Ed with a Seven-Year-Old Theologian

Some of you know that I am teaching our daughter's children (ages 12, 7, 4) religious ed.

So yesterday, Marcus—seven-year-old first grader grandson--and I had an interesting back and forth exchange of questions and attempts to bring theology down to a second grade, apparently quite inquisitive, mind. Next year he will receive his First Communion. The chapter in his first grade book talked about the Last Supper. Thus starts the interest.

Me, "So Jesus changed the bread into His body."

Marcus, "Yuk. That's gross."

Me, "No, it still looks and tastes like bread, but it is actually Jesus' Body." (Wrinkled nose).

Next Me, "Jesus then took the chalice (had to explain a chalice) with wine in it and changed it into His blood."

Marcus with a disgusted look, "Gross."

Me, trying to bring it down to a seven-year-old, "It still looks and tastes like wine, but it is really Jesus' blood."

Again, "Gross. Jesus can't do that."

Me, "Yes, He can. He is God, and He can work miracles. He performed a miracle that changed the bread into His body and the wine into His blood."

Marcus. "God can't work miracles."

Me, "Yes He can. He can do anything. He created all of the planets, the sun, animals, the earth."

Now, you have to be ready for a complete change of what might be assumed logical thought someplace.

Marcus, "So was God born before the dinosaurs?"

Me, "God never was born. He always existed. God always was, and He created the dinosaurs."

Confused look. So how do you explain this theology down to a seven-year-old brain?

Change of subject.

Marcus, "So is God or St. Joseph Jesus' father?"

Me, "God is Jesus' Father, and St. Joseph is His foster father."

Marcus, "What is a foster father?"

From here, fumbling, I tried to explain that Jesus was both God and human. Now you can't explain how human babies are conceived to a seven-year-old, especially if you don't know if his parents have explained the birds and the bees. So, it became a very clumsy attempt at trying to explain that God the Father is the Father of Jesus as God (or something like that). St. Joseph wasn't Jesus' real dad, but... Don't remember what I said.

At one point my daughter who heard a part of this conversation walked past us and said, "Good luck with this one, Mom."

The questions and the fumbling continued. It's all a blur to me after that.

This young man is going to be very interesting to teach. He is going to challenge my "bring your theological knowledge down to a seven-year-old’s ability level.”

It would be a teensy bit easier if he would stick to one subject so that I can try to explain it more instead of jumping around. I don't think he stayed with one topic long enough to get what I was trying to teach. But in his defense, I was definitely not prepared for this "theological" exchange. Now I know how my husband feels when my mind has made connections that he is not privy to, and I come out with a statement that is 180 degrees out of phase with what we were talking about.

Of course, now I come up with answers that I could have given Marcus. Isn't that always the case?

An addendum to Marcus. Now 8-years-old and preparing for First Communion, we were discussing Heaven, purgatory, hell, and sin. So, Marcus asked something like, “So, if you are in Heaven and you sin, will you go to hell?”

To which I had to explain that once you go to purgatory or Heaven, you can’t sin anymore. Then Adam and Eve entered the conversation—sin, evil, sickness, and such entering the world after their sin.

So, Marcus came up with a solution to all of this. He is going to go back in time and cut down the tree so that Adam and Even can’t eat its fruit and thus sin. Problem solved. I say, go for it.

Fast forward a few years. At 11, he is even more deeply questioning and thinking about theology. Our discussions are even more challenging. He is a very sharp and intelligent young man. Now the preciseness of science and the imprecision of theology are confusing him. He inquires and discusses quite adult topics, which are a very difficult to try to explain down to an 11-year-old level, even to a very intelligent 11-year-old. But I absolutely love our discussions. I just need a ton of guidance by the Holy Spirit in order to lead Marcus to God instead of letting science lead Marcus away from Him.

I just love his imagination and his theological mind. Like I said, he is continuing to be interesting to teach as he gets older. I love to delve into theology, but he will continue to challenge my theological knowledge—and likely teach me a thing or two. A friend called him a budding theologian.

What a blessing Marcus is.