themselves birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries like that of the annunciation, visitation, and presentation.
Let us come back to the thought that Jesus was a real child. Much later He will one day solemnly declare to us how we have to be and what we have to do if we want to go to heaven. He will say it in His straightforward, unsophisticated, unmistakable way when He takes a little boy, points to him and says to the disciples, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). Just like that: “If you don’t, then you won’t.” There is absolutely nothing we can do about it, but one day we have to face this phrase and what it means. We get some help in how we have to take it when we think of another incident when our Lord said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus, the typical grownup, said, stupefied, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” This brought him a slightly ironical, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?” (John 3:3–10). So when He says: “Unless …you become like children,” this is parallel, and we are not supposed to ask in the same stupefied way, “How can I become small again after I have grown up?” We know He doesn’t mean that. So we face the necessity of having to do research work on the question “What are children?” In what ways do children differ from grownups mentally and spiritually, if the physical comparison is to be disregarded but the word still stands: “Unless you become….” And we are about to make one of the most beautiful discoveries, urged on by the reading of the Gospels.
The most striking difference between little ones and grownups is that little ones cannot worry, because they have no past and no future. They live only in the present moment. Just let us watch children. If they eat, they eat; if they sleep, they sleep. There is a beautiful English word which describes how they do whatever they do. They do everything “wholeheartedly,” whereas grownups always are half-hearted. While they do one thing, they have to worry about the past — “Oh, I should never have …oh, if only I had.” Of the future they contemplate, “My, and what is going to happen when …and what will I do or what will I say if….” So they are, in the true sense of the word, split personalities and can never do anything with their whole heart. That’s why that grave word is spoken over them. They cannot go to heaven because they cannot fulfill the first and most important commandment, which our Lord said was, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). Only children or childlike souls can do anything with their whole heart. That’s the first and most tremendous lesson.
Then we find a few more things. Children are full of confidence. They have not learned yet to be suspicious, and when they stretch out their little arms, what else can you do but take them up?
Children learn by observing and imitating. Before they go to school they have learned a whole language and all the necessary ways of acting and doing in order to go through life: how to eat, how to sleep, etc. They watch the ones they love and trust, father and mother, sisters and brothers. If our Lord wants us to be like little children in this regard, He certainly has supplied the means. He has told us about the Father in heaven, we have the example of His wonderful mother and of all our older sisters and brothers, the generations who have gone before us. We have plenty to watch and imitate. There is just one hitch to it. Even the nicest little boy (or girl as far as that goes) will have his faults. Even the greatest saint will first have had to do an enormous amount of work to become like one of those
Let us come back to the thought that Jesus was a real child. Much later He will one day solemnly declare to us how we have to be and what we have to do if we want to go to heaven. He will say it in His straightforward, unsophisticated, unmistakable way when He takes a little boy, points to him and says to the disciples, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). Just like that: “If you don’t, then you won’t.” There is absolutely nothing we can do about it, but one day we have to face this phrase and what it means. We get some help in how we have to take it when we think of another incident when our Lord said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus, the typical grownup, said, stupefied, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” This brought him a slightly ironical, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?” (John 3:3–10). So when He says: “Unless …you become like children,” this is parallel, and we are not supposed to ask in the same stupefied way, “How can I become small again after I have grown up?” We know He doesn’t mean that. So we face the necessity of having to do research work on the question “What are children?” In what ways do children differ from grownups mentally and spiritually, if the physical comparison is to be disregarded but the word still stands: “Unless you become….” And we are about to make one of the most beautiful discoveries, urged on by the reading of the Gospels.
The most striking difference between little ones and grownups is that little ones cannot worry, because they have no past and no future. They live only in the present moment. Just let us watch children. If they eat, they eat; if they sleep, they sleep. There is a beautiful English word which describes how they do whatever they do. They do everything “wholeheartedly,” whereas grownups always are half-hearted. While they do one thing, they have to worry about the past — “Oh, I should never have …oh, if only I had.” Of the future they contemplate, “My, and what is going to happen when …and what will I do or what will I say if….” So they are, in the true sense of the word, split personalities and can never do anything with their whole heart. That’s why that grave word is spoken over them. They cannot go to heaven because they cannot fulfill the first and most important commandment, which our Lord said was, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). Only children or childlike souls can do anything with their whole heart. That’s the first and most tremendous lesson.
Then we find a few more things. Children are full of confidence. They have not learned yet to be suspicious, and when they stretch out their little arms, what else can you do but take them up?
Children learn by observing and imitating. Before they go to school they have learned a whole language and all the necessary ways of acting and doing in order to go through life: how to eat, how to sleep, etc. They watch the ones they love and trust, father and mother, sisters and brothers. If our Lord wants us to be like little children in this regard, He certainly has supplied the means. He has told us about the Father in heaven, we have the example of His wonderful mother and of all our older sisters and brothers, the generations who have gone before us. We have plenty to watch and imitate. There is just one hitch to it. Even the nicest little boy (or girl as far as that goes) will have his faults. Even the greatest saint will first have had to do an enormous amount of work to become like one of those
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