CINDERELLA – AN ADULT CHILDREN’S TALE

 

CINDERELLA – AN ADULT CHILDREN’S TALE

Once upon a time there was a little girl called Cinderella. Her mother was very ill and before she died, she called Cinderella and encouraged her to be patient and kind.

She then died and the father married another woman who had two daughters. Both the step-mother and her daughters made life miserable for Cinderella who used to go to her mother’s grave to cry and pray.

The king decided to hold a party for his son, the prince, so that he could meet many girls and choose one as his princess. The stepmother and her daughters went to the party but they left Cinderella at home. She was sad and cried as no one seemed to be kind to her.

Then she had a vision of a kind god-mother coming to her and giving her a beautiful dress and shoes and providing a carriage to take her to the party. But she warned that everything will go back to normal at mid-night.

Cinderella wondered if she was dreaming; but she got into the carriage and went to the party. When the prince saw her, he was delighted and went to her and they danced together the whole evening. But when the clock started to ring twelve times to show it was midnight, Cinderella remembered the words of the god-mother and ran out of the party losing her shoe as she went.

The prince ran after her but she was gone. But he saw the shoe and determined to search for the one whose foot the shoe fitted. He went from house to house but no girl’s foot fitted the shoe.

Eventually he came to Cinderella’s house and tried the shoe on first one of the step-sisters and then the other. But the shoe fitted neither of them. He asked the step-mother if there were any other girls in the house and the stepmother was reluctant to tell him of Cinderella. But eventually she had to.

The shoe fitted her foot perfectly and the prince knew this was his beautiful princess. He took her away and married her and later they became king and queen and lived happily ever after.

This is a story which has been told in different ways in different places for thousands of years; how the poor, the weak and the sad can suddenly become transformed.

In the gospel we have just read, Peter, James and John who, up to that time were confused and afraid, were thrilled, delighted, by what they experienced on the mountain. They could not believe that Jesus could be transformed into this dazzling being.

Jesus revealed himself to them in this way to give them a glimpse, a taste, of what they too would become. They, and we, will one day become something beyond our imagining.

But first, like Cinderella at midnight, they had to come down from the mountain and enter into everyday life again where they would try to be patient and kind. Bu they do so with the knowledge that they will soon be transformed into something beautiful.

Jesus was particularly keen they should understand this as he would soon enter into his own terrible struggle and humiliation on the cross. This world is a cruel place, as Cinderella knew, but it is God’s world and he is transforming it day by day through our struggles.