“I have learned to become a little child of God”

Our will, strengthened by grace, is all-powerful before God.

If, for instance, as we travel in a bus, we are struck by the thought of so many offences against God and say to Jesus, backing our words with our will 'My God, I wish I could make an act of love and reparation for every turn of the wheels carrying me', in that very instant, in the eyes of Jesus, we really have loved him and atoned just as we desired. Such 'nonsense' is not pushing spiritual childhood too far: it is the eternal dialogue between the innocent child and the father doting on his son: 'Tell me, how much do you love me?'... And the little lad pipes out: 'A mil-lion mil-lion ti-mes!' (The Way, 897)

In our interior life, it does all of us good to be quasi modo geniti infantes, like those tiny tots who seem to be made of rubber and who even enjoy falling over because they get up again right away and are once more running around, and also because they know their parents will always be there to console them, whenever they are needed.

If we try to act like them, our stumbling and failures in the interior life (which, moreover, are inevitable) will never result in bitterness. Our reaction will be one of sorrow but not discouragement, and we’ll smile with a smile that gushes up like fresh water out of the joyous awareness that we are children of that Love, that grandeur, that infinite wisdom, that mercy, that is our Father. During the years I have been serving Our Lord, I have learned to become a little child of God. I would ask you to do likewise, to be quasi modo geniti infantes, children who long for God’s word, his bread, his food, his strength, to enable us to behave henceforth as Christian men and women. (Friends of God, 146)

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