How a Baby Prays

Lucy, lately, wants to do everything I do.  When I fold laundry, she wants to fold laundry (she takes an item out of the basket, wads it up, and carefully sets it on the bed).  When I wash dishes, she wants to wash dishes.  When I pray, she imitates me.  She finds a little book, kneels or stands or sits, and babbles in the tone of voice I usually use for reciting the Divine Office.

It had a flash of insight the other day, as she was doing this.  In the Sacrament of Baptism, the intention to "do what the Church does" is sufficient for a nonbeliever to validly perform the Sacrament.  In a similar way does it not stand to reason that the prayers of a toddler "doing what Mommy does" would be acceptable to God?

Just a thought for Moments of Grace this week.

Singing Along

My husband came out of Lucy's room last night saying, "We had a mommy-blog moment."

As part of the bedtime routine, they sing the Salve Regina.  Lucy sings along with many songs.  Mostly this is babytalk-mumbling, but whenever there is a word she knows, she chimes in loudly with that word.

So my husband was singing along "Salve regina, mater misericordiae ..."  And Lucy was singing along in her usual babytalk-mumble.  My husband was wondering what words she could possibly know, given that this song is in Latin.

"Ad te suspira -"

"MOOSE!" Lucy chimed in, and my husband got the giggles so that he couldn't continue singing.