They had brought me Maria Cristina, just taken out of her bath, half-naked in her little baby’s frock, and had set her down on my bed, and the tot was scurrying about and laughing happily....
Jesus gave me a very sweet lesson as I was looking at the infant (five months old), who was not concerned about being naked, and had me consider that even the suffering connected with modesty - sometimes as acute as a martyrdom - is also a result of the malice arising with the first sin.
If only the baby’s parents had known that Jesus was bending over his little daughter and smiling at her innocent grace! Jesus with children! It is really the most serene, gentle, and youthful Jesus that can be contemplated. ‘What a father Jesus would have been if He had been able to become the father of a little human child!
I cannot - I could not at the time, for I was holding the tot, and, besides, Jesus said to me, “It is a lesson for you alone” - but I will recall this alone in summary form to remember always “that, as happens with Maria Cristina, innocent by virtue of her age and supernatural grace, so would it have been for all men,” and He gave me some comments on the deep meaning concealed in Genesis 2:25.