What Is Childlikeness?

 

¹⁷ The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

¹⁸ He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹ I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. ²⁰ However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

²¹ At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

²² “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

²³ Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. ²⁴ For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

We celebrate the Memorial of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, patron of the missions and of Central Catholic High School, Lawrence Massachusetts, (along with many other schools and churches) and Doctor of the Church.  Why is this Carmelite nun who died at the age of 24, after only nine years in the Carmelite convent in :Lisieux,  France so popular and so loved? Happily, her autobiography, STORY OF A SOUL, reveals a spirituality that is simple, "doable" and accessible to us all: the Way of Spiritual Childhood.  As Jesus said in verse 21, God has revealed the key to holiness to "little children", or in another translation, "the childlike". The life of St. Therese illustrates that living life with the innocence, spontaneity, acceptance, and simplicity of a little child, we can draw closer to God and his ways, because we have no agenda except HIS! Nothing stands between us; he fills the open space we provide for him to shape and mold us as one of his children.  St. Therese, pray for us to be able to become children of God.

Bro. Rene