Rosary girls

47

The little girl giggles as she chases the puppy around and around the small, crowded park on Catharine Street, weaving through the forest of legs. We adults watch her, hovering nearby, ever vigilant. We are shields against the evils of the world. If you think about all the tragedy that could befall such a little one, the mind staggers.

She stops for a moment, reaches to the ground, retrieving some little-girl treasure. She examines it closely. Her interest is pure and untainted by greed or possession or self-indulgence.

What did Laura Elizabeth Richards say about purity?

"The lovely light of holy innocence shines like a halo 'round her bended head."

The clouds threaten rain but, for the moment, a blanket of golden sunlight covers South Philadelphia.

The puppy runs past the little girl, turns, nips at her heels, perhaps wondering why the game had stopped. The little girl doesn't run or cry. She has her mother's toughness. And yet there is something inside of her that is vulnerable and sweet, something that speaks of Mary. She sits on a bench, primly arranges the hem of her dress, pats her knees. The puppy leaps onto her lap, licks her face. Sophie laughs. It is a marvelous sound. But what if one day soon her little voice was silenced? Surely all the animals in her stuffed menagerie would weep.