Become a Child

“Widen the door, Father,

for I cannot enter.

You made it for children,

and I have grown up.

If you do not widen the door, have pity and make me smaller.

Take me back to that age in which

to live was to dream.”

(Miguel de Unamuno)

To be saved, according to Jesus, is to gradually become a child. To the wisdom of the world, this is something completely strange because it implies an inversion of values and judgments. In human life, according to psychology, the secret of maturity (salvation) is in gradually getting away from maternal dependence and any other attachment, until we arrive at complete independence and the ability to stand on our own two feet.

However, in Jesus’ plan, a veritable Copernican revolution, salvation consists in becoming more and more dependent, not standing alone but supported by the Other, in working not on our own initiative but on that of the Other, and in a gradual progression toward an identification, until ó if it can be done ó we cease to be ourselves and are one with God, because love is unifying and identifying; in short, to live the

Other’s life and the Other’s spirit. This dependence, of course, is utmost liberty, as will be seen shortly.

If you do not become like a child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18:1-4). Become a child! Children are essentially poor and trusting, trusting because they know that their weakness needs someone else’s strength; in other words, the poverty of the child is wealth. By them-selves, children are neither strong nor virtuous nor secure. They are like the sunflower that is always open to the sun; from there, all hope comes, everything is received from it: heat, light, strength, life...

Sensing your hidden presence, chapter VI, Spiritual childhood