When a Child’s Painting Became a Parish Prayer
The story of Emily Rose’s painting on Matthew 7:7 and a remarkable thread of Providence
Sometimes God speaks through Scripture proclaimed at Mass. Sometimes through a homily, music, or silence. And sometimes Providence reveals itself through ordinary moments which, only afterwards, seem to belong together.
That is the story of Emily Rose’s painting inspired by Matthew 7:7: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
But what is perhaps most beautiful is how it all began.
It Began Before We Knew Where It Was Going
On 6 May, the Feast of St Dominic Savio, a significant day for a Salesian parish. That Wednesday evening, before our First Holy Communion session began, I received a card from a family whose mother’s funeral I had celebrated. As a gesture of thanksgiving, they had arranged for Masses to be offered for me at the Shrine of Our Lady of Knock in Ireland. I was touched by the gesture but thought little more about the word Knock as it had the phrase Knock and it shall be given to you.
Then, during the First Holy Communion session, Emily’s younger sister Lydia drew an angel, representing her catechist, Ann Paton. That little drawing prompted their mother, Liz Rose, to show me something Emily had painted about a week earlier. And there, across the painting, were the words of Matthew 7:7. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
The artwork became special to our parish when it helped inspire our reflections during the Ascension and Pentecost and our parish novena. But what makes the picture even more beautiful is that Emily did not begin with an elaborate theological plan. She simply created.
The Artist and the Priest Saw Different Things
Once Emily’s painting had become part of our parish prayer, I wanted to hear from the artist herself.
I prepared forty questions around nine themes, and Emily’s mother, Liz Rose, interviewed her daughter.
Her answers were delightful because they reminded me that the artist’s intention and the viewer’s interpretation are not always the same.
Emily is eleven years old. Having attended St Bernadette’s Catholic School, she is now beginning a new chapter at Farnborough Hill. When asked where the idea for the painting came from, her answer was wonderfully simple: “One night I started scribbling in a notebook and I somehow made it resemble a person. I thought about the night sky. Then it just started appearing on the page.”
The night sky came first. And perhaps that tells us something about faith. We do not always begin with answers. Sometimes we begin in the dark, and gradually something begins to appear.
Her painting was not created for a parish project, a competition, or a religious assignment. It simply emerged from her imagination.
A Bracelet, a Bible Verse and a Door
Why Matthew 7:7? Emily explained that for her First Holy Communion she had been given a bracelet bearing the words of Matthew 7:7. The verse remained with her and eventually found its way onto the painting.
Her interpretation of Jesus’ three words is both simple and profound.
ASK: “You are important and people will listen to you.”
SEEK: “Hard work is rewarded.”
KNOCK: “You are always welcome with God.”
Of the three, “Knock” speaks most strongly to Emily. She finds it unexpected and distinctive.
At the bottom of the painting stands a door. In Emily’s imagination, the person in the picture is thinking about a key that will open it. And hidden within that simple image is perhaps the deepest message of the whole painting: “Every problem has an answer, no matter how long it takes to find it.”
That is a beautiful way of understanding Christian hope. Faith does not promise that every door will open immediately. Sometimes we must remain before it. Sometimes we must search for the key. Sometimes prayer itself is the patient refusal to walk away.
We ask. We seek. We knock. And we trust. None of us knew then where that picture would lead.
I had wondered, for example, whether the mysterious golden lines flowing across the picture might suggest something spiritual, almost like the movement or “frequency” of God.
Emily’s explanation was wonderfully simple: “A gold river, because I read a book in school with a river that flowed gold.”
And what about the white cloud-like shape, the circles, and the key? Again, Emily was very clear:
“A thought bubble with a key, representing the person thinking about the key for the door.”
That distinction matters. Emily created the image. What happened afterwards was an encounter between art, Scripture, prayer, and the imagination of those who contemplated it.
And sometimes a work of art speaks beyond what even its artist consciously intended.
40 + 9 + ONE = 50
As I prayed with Emily’s painting, something caught my attention. Inside the thought bubble I counted forty dots. Then I looked at the key. To my eye, its shape suggested the number 9.
40 + 9 = 49. Immediately, my thoughts turned towards Pentecost.
Biblically, forty is a number associated with preparation, testing, and transformation. Pentecost comes after the completion of seven weeks, seven times seven, forty-nine, and the fiftieth day opens onto something new.
So, the painting raised a question in my prayer: If we have reached 49, where does the 50th come from? The answer that came to me was beautifully simple:
We must remain with the ONE. And the ONE is God.
It brought to mind the words: IN ILLO UNO UNUM. In the One, we are one. In the ONE, we become ONE.
Of course, the Holy Spirit cannot be reduced to a number or mathematical formula, nor did Emily consciously encode any of this into her painting. It is simply what the picture awakened in me as I prayed with it.
Yet it became a powerful image for our novena. We can ask. We can seek. We can knock.
We can journey through our forties, our forty-nines, our waiting, searching, and longing.
But the Christian journey reaches its fulfilment only when the ONE is at the centre. And the fiftieth day is Pentecost. Waiting becomes gift. Fear becomes courage. The closed room opens. And prayer becomes mission.
When a Picture Became a Prayer
Something about Emily’s painting stayed with me. There was a person searching, and it inspired me to put the nine-year-old face of Michael Harden. There was a closed door, but also a key. And over everything were the words of Christ from Matthew 7:7: Ask. Seek. Knock.
The image gradually entered my prayer and reflections for the Ascension and Pentecost. Eventually, it became an inspiration for the third parish novena we have prayed for the healing of Michael Harden, this time entrusting him particularly to the Holy Spirit and Mary, Help of Christians.
A beautiful connection: Michael is Emily’s uncle.
Without knowing it, the young artist who painted a person searching for the key to a door had created an image that would help an entire parish pray for someone within her own family.
The Holy Spirit Is in the Stars
When Emily was asked which symbol mattered most to her, she chose the white stars in the night sky.
And when asked where she saw the Holy Spirit in her painting, she answers simply: “In the stars.”
What a beautiful image for a novena to the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit does not always remove the darkness from our lives.
Sometimes the Holy Spirit gives us stars within the darkness, enough light for the next step, the next decision, the next prayer.
Emily says the Holy Spirit helps us to ask, seek and knock because: “It guides us in the right direction.”
Perhaps that is what Providence has been doing throughout this story: quietly guiding one moment into another.
“I Want Them to See the Mistakes”
One of Emily’s most moving answers came when she was asked what she wanted people to notice first when they looked at her painting. She did not choose the golden words. She did not choose the door, the key or even her beloved stars.
She says: “The mistakes, proving I’m just human.”
There is a little theology of grace hidden in that sentence.
We sometimes imagine that God can use us only when everything is right, when our faith is strong, our talents polished, and our lives neatly arranged.
But Emily saw mistakes, and the parish saw an invitation to prayer.
Something created spontaneously by a child became an inspiration for a community.
When Emily discovered that her picture had inspired our parish novena, she felt “joyful and surprised.” And she says the experience taught her: “It’s good to be proud and share, because the results could be amazing.”
Providence Often Looks Ordinary at First
Perhaps that is one of the deepest lessons of this whole story. Providence did not arrive with thunder and lightning. It came quietly.
Through a First Holy Communion bracelet. Through a child’s drawing of an angel. Through Ann Paton, faithfully serving as a catechist. Through the Feast of St Dominic Savio. Through Liz saying, in effect, “Father, look at what Emily painted.” Through forty little dots that caught my attention. Through a key that, to my eyes, looked like a nine. Through the words of Matthew 7:7.
And through our continuing prayer for Michael Harden, Emily’s own uncle. Emily’s painting offers a wonderfully imaginative representation of Matthew 7:7, not only through its images of asking, seeking and knocking, but also, remarkably, through the numbers and symbols that emerge within the picture.
Faith allows us to wonder whether, somewhere within them, we can glimpse the gentle fingerprints of Providence. Often, it is only afterwards that we see how the threads might belong together.
“Fairness and a Just Opinion”
At the end of the interview, we asked Emily one final question:
“Emily, if you could leave one message for every parishioner who has seen your painting, what would you like to say to them?”
Her answer was not about herself or even about her artwork: “Fairness and a just opinion should be shared and cherished.”
Perhaps that tells us something important about the young person behind the painting.
The same child who sees the Holy Spirit in stars and acknowledges the mistakes in her own work asks us to value fairness and justice.
Indeed, when asks what parishioners had learned from her painting, Emily wisely replies: “Everybody’s perspective is unique.”
And that includes mine.
Emily saw a golden river because of a book she had read. She saw a thought bubble and a key. I saw 40 dots representing renewal, transformation, and a key resembling 9, The Holy Spirit, A Novena waiting for the ONE who brings us to 50.
Neither needs to cancel the other.
That is part of the beauty of art placed within a community of faith: the artist offers the gift, and the gift begins to speak in ways even the artist could never have planned.
ASK • SEEK • KNOCK
As we conclude our Jubilee Year, perhaps Emily’s picture has become a small parable of our parish.
There is darkness, but there are stars. There is a locked door, but there is a key.
There is a golden river running through the night. There are mistakes, but they do not destroy the beauty. Then comes Pentecost. Then comes the Spirit. Then the door opens. Then prayer becomes mission. Then what began in one child’s imagination can become the prayer of an entire parish. We entrust this all to our blessed mother, Mary Help of Christians.
Thank you, Emily, for sharing your gift.
Thank you, Lydia, whose angel helped bring Emily’s painting to light.
Thank you, Liz, for recognising and sharing the gifts of your daughters, and for interviewing Emily so that we could hear the artist’s own voice.
Thank you, Ann, and all our catechists, for creating spaces in which the faith, imagination and gifts of our children can flourish.
And as we continue praying for Michael, and for all the sick, vulnerable and fragile members of our parish and families, may we remember the words that began this remarkable story:
ASK • SEEK • KNOCK
Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking. Stay with the ONE. And keep looking for the stars in the darkness.
Fr Anthony Lobo SDB
Watch the Pentecost Mass here: OLSD Mass – Sunday 24th May 2026 – Pentecost
Download/View: Pentecost Novena
