Sunday in Octave of Christmas 31.12.06 Innocence
One of the features of Christmas is the theme of innocence. The Child, the Mother, St Joseph, the humble shepherds, even the animals, the peaceful scene, plus our own sense of wanting to be better and wanting a better world – all adds up to an admiration for and desire for innocence.
We want to be delivered from evil in all its forms and taste the goodness of the Lord.
Innocence is good in itself because it is a freedom from evil.
Innocence is also very useful because it is a powerful weapon in getting the desired result.
When we pray for things to happen we have much more chance of having our prayer heard if we pray with pure hearts.
For example we cannot sincerely pray for world peace if we have war in our hearts.
Then also when our hearts are pure we are in communion with God and we are close to Him. We do not have to shout our requests across a chasm but can whisper in His ear.
Lile children on their father’s lap (Abba, Father).
So we ask the Lord (and Mary) to give us pure hearts, to take the sin out of our system, so that we can pray with the innocence of children.
Unless you become like little children you cannot enter the kingdom.
Child-like but not childish. The quality of children that we seek is their relative innocence. And their capacity to trust. They just assume that they will be looked after.
So we should trust God in the same way.
When we look at the world in all its complexity we might propose various solutions. More study, more dialogue, more education, more meetings, more troops, more spending…
but none of those could match innocence. Be childlike; be good; trust in your heavenly Father, come to Him with all your needs.
See how we labour to find worldly solutions for worldly problems. We make the problem through our sin, and then we try to relieve the problem through worldly ways. eg education on how not to get Aids.
When all we need is pure innocence to avoid getting into trouble in the first place and then to get out of trouble if we are in it.
Simple to understand, not easy to achieve. How to get to be pure when we have been otherwise.
Ask the Lord to make us so, to cleanse our hearts of malice, envy etc and our minds of worldliness in all its forms.
Need to make frequent and heartfelt Confessions, and serious purpose of amendment.
Humble ourselves before the Crib now and before God all the time.
Wonderfully simple that we can solve all our problems just by acknowledging we can’t solve them!
When we pray like this we are getting in touch with a great power, without obstructing it with needless complication. Not being naïve but very smart. Not neglecting responsibilities but approaching them in right way. Doing what God asks of us, after all.
Abba Father! Call on Him, and the more fervently we do that, the more trustingly, the more He will hear.
Go back to the start, halt at the crossroads, look well what path it was that served you long ago. That path follow…(Jer 6,16)
