“On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.”

“As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.” - C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)

Gospel Text: (MT 18:1-5, 10, 12-14)
The disciples approached Jesus and said,
“Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?”
He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said,
“Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children,
you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Whoever becomes humble like this child
is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.
And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones,
for I say to you that their angels in heaven
always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.
What is your opinion?
If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray,
will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills
and go in search of the stray?
And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it
than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.
In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father
that one of these little ones be lost.”

Today, once more, the Gospel reveals to us God's heart. It helps us to understand the feelings the Father in Heaven has for his children. Of these children, His most impassionate concern is for the “small ones”, those, which nobody ever pays any attention to, those who do not attain wherever the rest of the world does.

To become like little children means to return to our true dependence on the Father and begin to allow him to continue to raise us to become perfected as he himself is perfect.

Back in 1997, the Church proclaimed as a doctor of the Church St. Therese Lisieux because she was precisely an expert in the way to grow in spiritual childhood. That way begins, she said, with grounding oneself in who the Father is, how much he loves us, and responding with love and trust as a child does to his or her parent.

Pope John Paul II said in 1997 about Therese, "The way she took to reach this ideal of life is not that of the great undertakings reserved for the few, but on the contrary, a way within everyone's reach, the "little way," a path of trust and total self-abandonment to the Lord's grace.”

St. Therese once wrote to one of the two priests she spiritually adopted, "My way is all confidence and love." She added, "I hope that one day Jesus will make you walk by the same way as me."

Today in the Gospel Jesus makes it clear that he wants us all to walk that way.