There is a moment in our lives, sometime around middle or high school, in which we learned how to pretend. Not the kind of imaginary play that fills the days and hours of a child’s life, but the facade we erect around ourselves. We want to be liked, to be wanted, and so we observe what our friends and peers seem to like, and we make ourselves imitate those things. The treasure of children is their innocence, when the idea of pretend does not even exist in their minds.

In the treasure of this innocence is an openness about the importance of their faith. It could be cynically assumed that children merely parrot what their parents tell them. It’s true, and good, for children to follow the example of parents who labor in every way to instill virtue in their children. But dismissing a child’s words as empty or meaningless is to discount what that innocence unlocks.

Children do say memorized prayers or repeat answers from the Catechism, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the scent of sanctity that wafts off them as they share expressions of faith. A child who dashes to the Marian altar after every Sunday liturgy, who proudly announces as they emerged from their room that they have just prayed the rosary, who begs to go to Eucharistic Adoration on a Friday night, or whose drawings are filled with angels and the saints. This is not a child who is copying their parents; this is a child who has accepted the love of God in the simplest and purest way.

It is admirable when these behaviors present themselves; it might even leave parents wondering how best to respond to cultivate this continued love. Perhaps, though, it is more than just the expression of a child. Perhaps it is a gift from child to parent, a reminder that accepting God’s love is the work of a lifetime, but that we are to approach God with the trust, innocence, and acceptance of children.

Life brings many great pressures, burdens, and challenges. We are not made to carry them alone. The less we trust in ourselves and our abilities, and the more we place that trust in God, the closer we move to Him in our spiritual journey. Every so often all we need to remind us of this important work, in the midst of so many tasks, is a brief waft of the scent of sanctity.