Widen the door, Father,
for I cannot enter.
You made it for children,
and I have grown up.
If you do not widen the door,
have pity and make me smaller.
Take me back to that age
in which to live was to dream. (1)
To be saved, according to Jesus, is to gradually become a child. To the wisdom of the world, this is something completely strange because it implies an inversion of values and judgments. In human life, according to psychology, the secret of maturity (salvation) is in gradually getting away from maternal dependence and any other attachment, until we arrive at complete independence and the ability to stand on our own two feet.
However, in Jesus’ plan, a veritable Copernican revolution, salvation consists in becoming more and more dependent, not standing alone but supported by the Other, in working not on our own initiative but on that of the Other, and in a gradual progression toward an identification, until ó if it can be done ó we cease to be ourselves and are one with God, because love is unifying and identifying; in short, to live the Other’s life and the Other’s spirit. This dependence, of course, is utmost liberty, as will be seen shortly.
“When we keep little we recognize our own nothingness and
we expect everything from God, exactly as a
little child expects everything from its father. Nothing worries
us, not even the amassing of riches…
Being little, means that we do not attribute
to ourselves the virtues we may possess, in the belief
that we are capable of something. It implies, on the contrary,
our recognition of the fact that God places the treasure
of virtue in the hand of his little child for him to use,
although it is always God’s treasure”. (2)
We find ourselves in the very center of the revelation brought by Jesus, the revelation of God the Father (Abba). 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.”
By them-selves, 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.
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.
Extracted from the book “Sensing your Hidden Presence” by Fr. Ignacio Larrañaga.
(1) Miguel de Unamuno
(2) Saint Therese of Lisieux
