THESE are words Christ addressed to his disciples after he praised the Father for revealing the deeper meaning of things to those who are childlike, that is, those who are simple and humble like a child. (cfr. Lk 10,23)
“I give praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,” he said, “for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to the childlike.”
Once again, we are made to consider the crucial role of the virtues of simplicity and humility in our life, since they make us like little children, able to see things clearly and objectively without being trapped in some complicated thinking.
I suppose we are familiar with the phenomenon of us seeing and looking, hearing and listening, and yet missing the point. It’s a common phenomenon that we should be more aware of and that we should try our best to correct.
To be sure, the object of our senses and even of our intellect and will are not just material things and some ideas. It is much more than these, since reality is not simply made of material things and ideas. Reality starts with God and ends with him, since he is the Creator of everything.
We have to learn to discern the presence of God in everything. And this we can do if we strive to nurture our relation with Christ who is the fullness of the revelation of God to us and who remains with us in so many ways.
It can only be through him that we can see more than what our eyes can see, hear more than what our ears can hear, and understand more than what our intellect can understand.
In other words, we can see, hear and understand what is the most important thing to see, hear and understand in our daily affairs. We don’t get confused, lost or needlessly entangled in the maze of things in the world.
We have to do everything to keep vibrant our piety and relation with Christ. This is what truly matters in our life. We need to give priority to our prayers, our sacrifices and recourse to the sacraments over all the other concerns we have, no matter how important or urgent they may be. The tension and the self-denial involved in this would all be worthwhile.
We need to explode the myth that taking our faith seriously and consistently living our piety in all the circumstances of our life means having a deprived and secluded life. The opposite is true.
With faith we get to see both the macro and micro levels of reality. With faith, our power to cover big and distant areas, as well as to penetrate things to their core is mightier than what the Internet and other new technologies, for example, can do. It would be mightier than what our senses and our intellectual powers unguided by faith can reach.
That’s the reason why we should always enliven our faith through constant prayer, recourse to the sacraments, assiduous study of the doctrine of our faith, waging a continuing spiritual struggle against our weaknesses and temptations, and growing in the virtues.
The saints achieved a universal mind and heart, with the effects of their sanctity reaching distant lands, simply by living their faith to the full even if they were confined to a certain area. The life of St. Therese of the Child Jesus is proof of this. Her heroic sanctity, lived and developed in the confines of her convent, made her the patron of the missions.
