Meditation for January 24, A Childlike Spirit

Pauline Reynolds, an English convert, wrote the following resolu­tion during a retreat at Montmartre before her entrance, at the age of fifty, into Carmel de Saint Pair in Normandy:

"Our Lord has sustained me all morning in the thought that in view of my age and what my life has been, I need most of all to acquire a childlike spirit, to be a five-year-old child; more than that, to be a child in arms who can neither speak, walk nor help itself, that is turned any way without being consulted and without being given a reason. I had not a very clear idea of this state of holy childhood. I meditated on it more assiduously, while listening to Jesus the Teacher: You must be born again...Unless you become as little children...

"I looked at Jesus the Model, Jesus of the Incarnation, of the crib, of the flight into Egypt, of Nazareth. What silence! What dependence! He is silent with the shepherds and the Magi when He could have told them so much; He is silent in the Temple in His Presentation, not breathing even one word of praise to His Father. Then, what a mystery is the flight into Egypt! He is suddenly awakened and carried off in the darkness. He permits it all. At twelve He seems to break His silence, to emerge from His obscurity. But at the first word of His Mother, He goes back again to dependence on His creature and remains unknown and submissive, which is more than obeying, until the age of thirty.

"And now, He is still a child in the Host. They do what they will with him, and sometimes they are malefactors, robbers, and even alas! unworthy priests who outrage Him. He is a child, He is helpless, He is dependent, He is a minor.

"What a lesson for me! Until now, through the grace of God, I have abandoned myself to Him and His Providence. In the future my aban­donment will include His creatures. I ought to have given myself up to every superior as I have given myself up to Him.

"O Jesus, I thank You for Your divine instructions! Speak to me again. Tell me what You wish of me, and make me what You want me to be. Give me the light to see, the will to do and the power to act."

_________________
Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)