“you have revealed them to little ones.”
The Gospel reading speaks of faith like a child. The first reading for today is from the prophet Zechariah as he proclaims the coming of the Messiah and how jubilant the event is to be. For some people it was a great jubilant time when they recognized Christ as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. However, many people did not see Jesus this way. Their shortsightedness kept them from being open to who He truly is, which is the Son of God. The first lines of the Gospel today are similar to that of the Magnificat. Jesus says to the Father, “for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones.” This is similar to a line of the Magnificat when Mary said, “You have cast down the mighty from their thrones, and have lifted up the lowly.” [1]
What does “childlike” mean? Being “childlike” refers to those who are opened and receptive to what someone is telling or teaching them. There are sayings we use that reinforce this meaning, such as “childlike wonder” and “blind faith.” When we were taught things as children, we took them as truth because we trusted those who taught us. We were taught colors, objects, letters, and numbers by an authority that we held as credible and who revealed these things as truth. We trust whole-heartily that what was taught to us is true. For our faith, we believe the truth because God revealed it to us.
Does this mean we should be gullible? No, this does not at all mean we should be gullible. As Most Rev. Henry Grey Graham said, “We believe the truths of our most holy religion not because we can prove them or have experienced them, not because we think them reasonable or beautiful or consoling (though they are all that). These are all Protestant reasons for believing. We believe the truths of the Catholic faith solely because almighty God has taught them to us. This is what theologians call the formal cause or motive of faith: the authority of God revealing.” [2]
Being gullible means believing anything that anyone tells you, whereas childlike faith means trusting in God the same way that children trust their parents. God guides our hand like a parent guides a child. Many times parents have to tell their children the same thing over and over again until they understand or accept what they are saying. Revelation comes from the Latin revelatio, which means an uncovering. Parents uncover for their children the mysteries of life. Our Heavenly Father uncovers the mystery of life for us.
How does God uncover the mystery of life, the mystery of Himself? There are three ways. First, is through nature, this is called natural revelation. It can be known to all through reason. “For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse.” [3]
The second way God revealed the mystery of Himself was by speaking through the prophets of the Old Testament. The third and complete revelation of Himself happened when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Both the second and third ways are considered supernatural because our natural reason could not have come to these truths without God communicating with humanity. The Catholic Church has always taught that both faith and reason work together. “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.” [4] The first way God revels Himself is through reason, the second and third are through faith. This is why Jesus tells us that we must have faith like a child. “There are two levels of supernatural revelation, as capsulized by the author of Hebrews: ‘At various times in the past and in various ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he has spoken to us through his Son, the Son that he has appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made everything there is. He is the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of his nature’ (Hebrews 1:1-2). The difference between these two kinds of supernatural communication lies in the fact that, before Christ, God spoke but only indirectly through the prophets who were inspired to tell others what Yahweh had told them. In the person of Christ, however, it was no longer God speaking merely through human seers chosen by him; it was God himself speaking as Man to his fellow members of the human race.” [5]
We see Jesus as the Son of God through the Father, but we must be open to receive this knowledge. This is the childlike faith. We can’t be arrogant, haughty, or closed-mindedness when it comes to our faith. If we are closed-minded then it can chip away at our core beliefs. For example, the Eucharist: if we only look at it as a piece of bread and look for a way “to be moved” emotionally then we miss the point when Jesus said, “This is my body”. As Saint Thomas Aquinas said, “Faith will tell us Christ is present when our human senses fail”. [6] When our human intellect cannot comprehend what is taking place, it is God who instructs us to have faith of a child to accept His Will. God does not expect us to grasp everything with our natural reason (first way) alone and so He graciously gives us faith. This faith is reveled in the Old Testament, through messengers and events and in the New Testament by God Himself, the Word made flesh. Faith is supernatural because it is an infused grace that is above our nature. When we are children we are not able to easily do things that come naturally for us, we must be aided to walk, talk, read, eat, etc. We must become like little children in regard to Faith by becoming humble, poor in spirit, and obedient. It is only through these ways that we will come to know God through Faith.
Make a list of all the ways to communicate: TV, radio, cave drawings, twitter, texting, smoke signals, etc. Out of all the ways that we communicate, the most effective way is communicating in person. How can texting, phone, e-mail be sometimes unclear? Why is person-to-person communication the clearest way to communicate? John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.” God does not want to simply remain the spoken or written word, instead He wills to become flesh in order to speak and live with us person to person. This reaches its highest level in the fulfillment of His promise to send the Holy Spirit, which is the third person of the Blessed Trinity. We have a personal relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, because God communicates with us person to person.
Why would God hide something from the wise and the learned? God wishes to show himself, but only if we understand that we are nothing before Him. All the wisdom we gain, and all the knowledge we have is only given to us because God allowed it to be. However, no amount of wisdom and knowledge on this earth will enable us to completely understand the fullness of God and His Church. The mystery and unity of the Father and Son is expressed in the words of Christ in the Gospel reading. If we are to truly know God the Father we must go to His Son, the Word made flesh. This was too difficult for many people to believe then and is still hard for many to believe today. God stays hidden from them until they come to believe in Him. If we accept God, He will make it easier for us to believe in Him. The Law of Contradiction states that something cannot be both true and not true at the same time. God cannot be true and not true, you believe one or the other. If you believe that God does not exist, then the opposite, “God exists” is hidden from you. “Jesus then said to those Jews who believed in him, ‘If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” [7] When we know the truth, we are free and nothing is hidden. This is why we are reminded each Sunday night during Night Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours, “They shall see the Lord face to face and bear his name on their foreheads. The night shall be no more. They will need no light from lamps or the sun, for the Lord God shall give them light, and they shall reign forever.” [8] In Heaven, the Beatific vision, nothing is hidden. We can begin now, through faith, to be set free by the truth, walking on the path of perfection to heaven, where nothing is hidden.
How should we act? “If we are to be faithful followers of Christ we have to ask him unceasingly to give us a heart like his, capable of feeling sorrow for all the evil that man drags along behind him.” [9] We cannot be ones who are too self-absorbed in our own world who fail to look to help others. As Saint Leo the Great said, “Certainly look on everyone who suffers with a general benevolence, but be especially concerned about those who are members of Christ’s Body and are united to us through the Catholic Faith. For we owe more to those who belong to us through the union of grace than to strangers through the community of nature.” [10]
Why should we have childlike faith? To have “childlike” faith means to see, understand, and accept God more simply and more completely. When living with childlike faith we see the heart of Christ and we see how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit want us to act. The ability to have this type of faith goes against our ordinary human intellect. We are at times constrained by certain truths that we cannot escape. Math equations, certain sciences, history of events, these are simply truths and we have no choice in the matter. However, our faith in God presents a free choice to our will to either accept or reject the teachings of the Catholic Church. We are free to accept or reject matters of faith, such as the Sacraments, the Eucharist, Mary, and The Church. Many have accepted these and many have rejected them, but we all face the consequences of our choices. We see the Pharisees and Scribes today reject that Jesus is truly God, and Jesus praising those who believe in Him like a child. [11] He tells St. Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe” [12] Children trust. This is why the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy and the words inscribed below the Divine Mercy image are so important in our time, “Jesus, I trust in You!”
[1] Luke 1:52
[2] http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0404clas.asp
[3] Romans 1:19-20
[4] Saint Pope John Paul II; Fides et Ratio
[5] Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.; Modern Catholic Dictionary; page 468
[6] Tantum Ergo
[7] John 8: 31-32
[8] Revelation 22:4-5
[9] In Conversation with God 4, 10.2
[10] St. Leo the Great, Sermon 89
[11] http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0404clas.asp
[12] Jn 20:29