Thursday, December 27, 2018

Spiritual Childhood

"... We must conclude then that the Divine Master was particularly anxious that His disciples should see in spiritual childhood the necessary condition for obtaining life eternal.
"Considering the insistence and the force of this teaching it would seem impossible to find a soul who would still neglect to follow the way of confidence and abandonment, all the more so, we repeat, since the divine words, not only in a general manner, but in express terms, declare the mode of life obligatory, even for those who have lost their first innocence.  Some prefer to believe that they way of confidence and abandonment is reserved solely for ingenuous souls whom evil has not deprived of the grace of childhood.  They do not conceive the possibility of spiritual childhood for those who have lost their first innocence.

"Any such thought as that of reassuming the appearance and helplessness of early years would be ridiculous; but it is not contrary to reason to find in the words of the Gospel the precept addressed alike to men of advanced years to return to the practice of spiritual childhood.  During the course of centuries, this teaching was to find increased support in the example of those who arrived at heroic Christian perfection precisely by the exercise of these virtues."~~Pope Benedict XV, quoted in Boylan, This Tremendous Lover, ch.17.

"Unless a man be born again …"

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