Since Easter ’99, when I encountered the presence of God in Jesus at a charismatic assembly, I’ve been passionately pursuing the mystery of God – as a charismatic, a Baptist, an Anglican, but mostly as a Catholic; in personal study and in academic contexts; as an unmarried person, a husband and a father.
And for many years prior to Magdalene’s death, it was my private prayer that, together with my wife and kids, we would be a “city set on a hill” (Matt 5:14), effectively witnessing, from the womb to the tomb, to the “gospel of the kingdom of God” (Matt 4:23), and that His kingdom has no age limits.
Maggie’s unexpected and tragic death has proven to be an occasion of fulfillment of this prayer, although one I could not have imagined or ever desired. In the midst of the wreckage left by the hurricane of suffering – it is only by the power of the Spirit of God that “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude v3), this unbroken succession of hope, has remained our own, though we ourselves have been broken
As Maggie holds the hand of Jesus with one hand, she holds mine with the other. She has become the child who teaches me about the gospel of the kingdom of God. As I follow her in procession, I have found that the words of the second century martyr-bishop, written on his way to the Roman colosseum to be eaten by lions in the presence of the social media of his day, have become my own: “Now at last I am beginning to be a disciple”; and Maggie’s mission has become my conviction and purpose.