I brought my four year old to the 11 a.m. Mass this morning. All my other children were there already with their parish school. It was a nice Mass and my oldest is in the choir.

Our pastor talked during the homily about the Ten Commandments and hit the biggies like not killing or coveting or stealing. And then he talked about Purgatory and compared it to when kids are being punished by their parents by not getting dessert or no television but it doesn’t mean their parents don’t love them.

After Mass we walked back to the car, just me and the four year old as the other guys had to go back to school, and she looked up at me said, “You gonna’ ask me the question?”

After Mass on Sunday, I typically quiz the kids about the gospel and the homily. Typically, the older kids answer but this time the four year old clearly wanted to show off that she’d been paying attention at Mass.

“OK,” I asked her. “What was the homily about?”

“If I kill someone I don’t get dessert,” she said.

Hmmm.

“That’s a very true statement,” I said. “You definitely wouldn’t get dessert that night.”

As we got into the van she reminded me that she hadn’t killed anybody that day so maybe we could go to Dairy Queen.

I said sure. We even got sprinkles.