To be saved, according to Jesus, is to gradually become a child.
The kingdom is given only to those who trust, to those who hope, to those who surrender in the hands of the Father. All is Grace. Pure Gift. Everything is received. To receive, we have to surrender.
Those who surrender are only those who are “small.” It is necessary to become small, like a child, a “minor.” But once we have placed ourselves in the orbit of God, surrendering ourselves, then all barriers are broken and we share in the infinite power of the loving Father, in His eternity and immensity.
If you do not become like a child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18:1-4). Become a child! Children are essentially poor and trusting, trusting because they know that their weakness needs someone else’s strength; in other words, the poverty of the child is wealth. By themselves, children are neither strong nor virtuous nor secure. They are like the sunflower that is always open to the sun; from there, all hope comes, everything is received from it: heat, light, strength, life…
To become a child, to live the experience of the Abba (dear Father) not only in prayer but most of all in the circumstances of life, confidently surrendering to what the Father wills. All of this seems to be an easy and simple thing to do, but in reality it means the most fantastic change, a real revolution within the old castle built up in self-sufficiency, self-centeredness, and delusions of grandeur.
Technology has conquered and transformed matter. Psychology seems to have dominated us. A vain illusion. At the time of diagnosis, psychoanalysis achieves good results; but at the time of healing (salvation), the individual, in his profound complexity, is an ever-fleeing and unreachable shadow. We are daily witnesses to the powerlessness of psychiatric therapy for any interior liberation.
No other “science” has been invented nor any other plan for the transformation of humanity than that revelation brought by Jesus: to renounce dreams of omnipotence, to recognize the impossibility of salvation by purely human means, to be conscious of our smallness and fragility, to surrender confidently and unconditionally into the powerful hands of God.
This surrender into the Father’s hands is a seemingly passive attitude. But whoever begins to live it will realize that all the Beatitudes are contained in it. I would say that this spirit of childhood is the synthesis of all of the active virtues. It is as if someone had conquered all of the castles of the soul and, once taken, they were surrendered to the Lord of the castle, as sole owner. This is how we can be, day after day, completely passive in His hands, to be transformed from the very roots of our being. God alone is Power, Love, and Revolution.
Extracted from the book Sensing your Hidden Presence by Fr. Ignacio Larrañaga
