Ave Maria Meditations
This spirit of divine sonship in the Christian soul gives rise to simple devotions, to countless little deeds honoring our Father God, for a soul full of love is unable to remain inactive. Since he has required all his strength to become childlike, the Christian can give small devotions their true meaning. Each of us must have ‘the piety of children, but the doctrine of theologians’, as Monsignor Escriva used to say. A solid grounding in Christian doctrine helps to give meaning to the mere glance we make at a picture of Our Lady, or to a kiss we give a crucifix; it helps us, moreover, to turn such a glance or kiss into an act of love so that we do not remain indifferent, for example, before a scene from the Way of the Cross. This denotes a solid and deep-rooted piety, real love, which has a need to express itself in just such ways. Then God looks upon us benignly, as a father gazes at his child whom he loves more than all the business ventures in the world.
A simple and deep faith always finds expression in particular acts of piety, whether collective or personal, which are valid for human and divine reasons. Some of them have become the pious customs of Christian people, passed on from generation to generation in the intimacy of the home and within the heart of the Church. So, along with the desire to improve our knowledge of Christian doctrine more and more – as much as our personal circumstances permit – we must also have the determination to live the simple details of piety which we have discovered on our own, or which people of various nations for generations have found useful and natural in their desire to express their love for God; with such expressions of piety they pleased God, because they in practicing these devotions had become like children.From the beginning of the Church it was customary, for example, to adorn altars and images of the saints with flowers, to kiss the crucifix or the rosary, to bless oneself with holy water …
Out of failure to appreciate the love that inspires these simple, pious customs of the Christian people, in certain parts of the world they are rejected by some who mistakenly consider them to be peculiar to a ‘childish Christianity’. Apparently such disapproving critics have forgotten those words of Our Lord: whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it; they are unwilling to recognize that, in God’s sight, we are all like little and needy children, and that in human life love is frequently expressed in small, unimportant ways.
When observed by an outsider with detached and critical objectivity, but without understanding and love, these tokens of affection may well seem meaningless. Nevertheless, how often was our Lord’s heart moved by the prayer of children and of those who became like them! The Acts of the Apostles have left us a clear record of how the first Christians used many lamps to light up the rooms where they celebrated the Holy Eucharist, and of how they liked to leave small oil-lamps burning above the graves of their martyrs. These manifestations of piety are fitting, appropriate to the purpose for which they are used, and come naturally to us as human beings. Our human nature employs the help of visible things to address God and adequately express its needs and desires.
At times simplicity will be shown in daring: when we are recollected in prayer or simply walking down the street we can tell Our Lord things which, out of embarrassment, we would not dare say in front of others, since they belong to the intimacy of our interior life. Nevertheless, it is necessary that we know how – and be daring enough – to tell him outright that we love him, even that we want him to have us love him ‘madly’, and that we are ready, if he so desires, to be more fully nailed to the Cross and to offer him our life once more … This daring of the life of childhood should issue in specific resolutions.
Simplicity is one of the principal manifestations of spiritual childhood. It is the result of having become defensless before God, like a vulnerable and trusting child before its father. Either to disguise or to make a false show of our defects and mistakes is completely out of place when we are in front of God. We should also be simple when opening our soul to receive personal spiritual guidance, in acts of love, of reparation and thanksgiving, in aspirations to the Blessed Virgin, to Saint Joseph, to the Guardian Angel…
Our Lady shows us how to get to know the Son of God, her Son, without resorting to complex formulas. It is easy for us to imagine her preparing a meal, sweeping the house, taking care of the clothes … and in the midst of these tasks turning to Jesus with immense love and confidence, with delicate respect – knowing well that he was the Son of the Most High! To him she revealed her needs, or those of others – “They have no wine.”’, she will tell him at the wedding of those friends or relatives of hers in Cana;. she took care of him, doing him the little acts of service that are expected of a mother by her child in their daily life together; she gazed at him, thought about him … all this was perfect prayer.
We need to show God our love. Frequently we will express it in the Holy Mass, through the prayers the Church gives us in the Liturgy, through a momentary visit made in the bustle of daily activity, or by lighting a candle or placing some flowers at the foot of a statue of Mary, Mother of God and our Mother. Today let us ask her to give us a heart that is simple and full of love, so that we can converse with her Son – and also learn from children, who go to their parents and the ones they love with such overwhelming confidence.
Fr. Francis Fernandez (In Conversation with God)
