2 December 2014 - a child to guide them

“I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike. 

The coming of the Divine Child calls us all to embrace the call to childlike simplicity. We need to be like the calf and the lion and learn to browse together. We need to embrace the peacefulness of children. We need to follow in the procession of the infant Prince of Peace.

Jesus shows us that true peace is more than just neutrality. It is not simply dividing the lion and the calf into separate grazing areas. Just as children would, these two browse together without any apparent concern for their own self-preservation. The lion foregoes a meal and the calf accepts what would otherwise be a significant danger. 

No one insists on his own rights. Adult ideas about fairness are forgotten. The forgetful forgiveness of children is embraced. This is only possible because Jesus himself guides us and makes it possible. When we are tempted to eat like the lion or run like the calf we instead follow Jesus into green pastures and beside restful waters. 

Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.

We need to trust in him like children trust their parents. Let us surrender ourselves into his arms. Only in this embrace do we have the peace we need to live the self-abandonment to which we are called.

He shall rescue the poor when he cries out,
and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.
He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor;
the lives of the poor he shall save. 

When we are poor and childlike he rescues us from anything the world can throw at us. No wonder he tells the disciples how blessed they are. This is the peace that the angels announce at his birth. It is not peace as the world gives it or even understands it. It is peace that only the childlike can share. This is what the world has been waiting for since the time of Adam.

“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. 
For I say to you,
many prophets and kings desired to see what you see,
but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.”