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.
As Mary sang, "he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate" (see Luke 1:52). Paul understood this reversal as well, writing, that "since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe" (see First Corinthians 1:21). It was not that God despised the wise and the learned. Rather he was simply a mystery too great for human understanding. His nature transcended that which accessible to even the greatest human wisdom. But since God desired to reveal himself to the world, people great and small alike would need to become childlike in order to receive that revelation.
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father.
The Son himself was perfectly childlike, open to receive from the Father whom he trusted completely. What he first received from the Father he was willing to share with those whom he would make his brothers and sisters, adopted children of his Father. He would reveal what the Father had given him to reveal by allowing others to share in his own intimate relationship of communion with the Father. They would not experience the pride that comes from the illusion that one is firmly rooted in one's own strength. But they would experience the peace and the love of knowing that their source was in God, that they were known by God, and loved by him. This was not a bridge that could be built by human wisdom nor a tower that could be erected by human ability. It was an invitation to divine life that could only be received as a grace.
No one knows who the Son is except the Father,
and who the Father is except the Son
and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.
What the Father and the Son chiefly desired to reveal was themselves and their Holy Spirit. This might have seemed less interesting from an outside perspective to devotees of mystery cults who pursued layer after layer of secret and hidden knowledge. We might imagine people in our own day obsessed with conspiracy theories, aliens, and the paranormal, would find those other things much more interesting than coming to know God as Father. It was not a revelation designed to appeal to curiosity. Nor was it secret knowledge that led to being prideful as a consequence of being an insider. To be sure, people would approach Catholicism in that way. But such an approach would not lead toward the core of what Catholicism had to offer. What we were meant to come to know was not mere trivia. It was God himself, revealed in Jesus Christ that was both source and summit of revelation.
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.
We are among the blessed who have been given the grace to see and to hear what even the greatest of prophets and kings only saw and welcomed from a distance. They were those whom the author of Hebrews said had "seen them and greeted them from afar" (see Hebrews 11:13). They "did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect" (see Hebrews 11:39-40). Or we can be among them. But we must allow ourselves to become small and childlike, and learn to trust and to receive. We can look to Jesus and his own relationship with the Father to see this lived out perfectly. And we can be confident that to the degree that we embrace smallness we will receive the same strength and confidence that Jesus possessed because of his own trust in the Father. It was a world of people who had embraced such trust about whom Isaiah prophesied in today's first reading.
Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
The calf and the young lion shall browse together,
with a little child to guide them.
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