Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14)
This may be a disappointing verse for those of us who are no longer children.
Perhaps we might console ourselves with the thought that Jesus just unintentionally failed to mention that adults will also be granted access to the kingdom of heaven – a reasonable assumption.
But then we have to deal with this verse from the Gospel of Matthew.
Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)
Ouch. Apparently gaining entry to the kingdom of heaven really is dependent on our becoming like children. There does not appear to be an option.
So often in Scripture we are taken aback by phrases Jesus uses. We would like to pass over these convinced He only meant them as an exaggeration. They include verses like:
If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna. (Matthew 5:30)
Or,
Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it. (Mark 8:35)
In light of these two verses, the idea of becoming childlike does not sound so bad.
So perhaps we might try to understand what exactly is meant by this expression, become like children.
Each year, on 1 October, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Saint who raised Becoming Childlike to a Virtue. St. Thérèse of Lisieux died at the young age of 24. But in her short life, and largely through her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, she taught humanity what it means to be a child of God.
St. Thérèse lived a life of deep prayer. And in those hours of prayer, she discovered something that most of us, somewhere along the way, tend to forget. We are all God’s children; and God loves His children – unconditionally. We do not have to, nor can we, earn God’s love.
Thérèse came to understand that living as a child of God meant allowing herself to be loved unconditionally by God, and then loving Him in return.
Most of us had this same perspective when we were children. We did not question our parents’ love; it was just accepted, and we did not question whether we were worthy of being loved. And we learned to respond with that same unconditional love, clinging to our parents, holding their hands in a crowd, falling asleep in their arms, returning love for love.
But, as we mature, life can diminish our capacity to love others, including God. Worse yet, through life’s trials and difficulties, we might mistakenly come to see ourselves as unlovable. We may begin to accept what the world tells us about our need to be someone other than who we are in order to be accepted. We may come to believe we will only be worthy of being loved when we become a different person.
God does not base His love for us on our becoming someone else. If that were true, then God would have made Himself subject to the actions of one of His creatures. His Love is not a dependent love, it is unconditional.
The Truth (John 18:38) is that God loves us just the way we are. He loves our hair, our eyes, our mind, and the sound of our voice (especially when we speak to Him). God loves everything about us. How could He not? He made us, and He made us in His own image.
This is the genius of what St. Thérèse discovered, and it became the central focus of her entire life. But St. Thérèse’s willingness to allow herself to be loved like a child was anything but childish.
Her short earthly life was not without its trials and sufferings. And she learned to embrace it all in love. St. Thérèse learned to elevate her unquenchable desire for love to the virtue of a Spiritual Childhood. In doing so, she discovered within herself an unquenchable desire to love in return.
We each have an unlimited capacity to love and to be loved. We must, as St. Thérèse did, reclaim our inherent lovableness. We need to learn to be Spiritual Children before God. We need to allow Him to love us. And in knowing we are loved beyond anything we could ever imagine; we will find within ourselves the desire to return love for love. For the Love of God.
Copyright © 2024, Deacon Mark Danis
Image credit:“Thérèse au pied de la croix (Thérèse at the Foot of the Cross,” Sister Marie of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D., Archives du Carmel de Lisieux, https://archives.carmeldelisieux.fr/