Sunday in Octave of Christmas 30.12.07 Adulthood
Our Lord tells us we should be like children if we want to enter the kingdom of heaven. Some have explained this requirement for adults as meaning we should be child-like but not child-ish.
It does not mean all the adults must suddenly start playing chasey or hide-and-seek, but it does mean that we should all be innocent of sin, and retain or regain that sense of childlike wonder in the presence of the majesty of God.
When we look at the wonders God has done, we should be amazed (cf Psalm 8) and that should apply to any age group.
Children achieve this spontaneously; adults may have to work on it, because adults are subject to cynicism and tiredness. We can lose that sense of wonder and become bored and disenchanted.
Any adult who tries to explain this world without God has definitely lost the childlike quality.
St Paul in the epistle speaks of our being heirs with Christ. We have been like children in the sense of having to learn our lessons. Now we are moving into adulthood and ready to take over full responsibility for our inheritance.
We enjoy being children (we hope) but we must become adults. It need not be a sad loss of innocence. It should actually be a progression in holiness. With the innocence of childhood retained we can then take a more mature part in understanding and cooperating with God’s will for us.
The best part of being adult is that we have a more mature understanding.
Ironic that ‘adult’ bookshops or films means the opposite of mature understanding but let us talk about adult Christianity as meaning someone who has the wisdom of the years but still childlike wonder and innocence.
So with adulthood we develop our various gifts and talents. We take on new responsibilities such as marriage, religious vocations, studies, careers, missionary activity etc.
The saints will give us examples of adult fulfilment, and the variety of ways in which the will of God can find expression in different people.
God does want us to think for ourselves, but not in a rebellious way as that phrase is often taken. Think for ourselves how good and wise God is, and come to see His hand at work in all things. Think through His word to us; His providence for us; read the signs all around us.
Think how things could be different if we responded differently. Think about Christ at Bethlehem and being presented in the Temple, and how the humility of God should guide us.
Think about the people who reject God and why they do that, and think how to answer them. There is much need for Catholic apologetics in the present world.
You might say, I am no academic. I cannot read books, or in any case I don’t have the time. Adulthood does not mean you have to be an academic, only that you be mature and responsible in the approach you take.
Sometimes it is not the book answer that is required but the answer comes from straightforward charity. Look after the hungry man sleeping outside, and that is being adult in the true sense, and will answer critics of our faith.
Various answers to various questions, but all of them expressing the best of childhood and adulthood – innocence combined with wisdom.
But I have lost all claim to innocence, some will say. It can be reclaimed through repentance and Confession. And once reclaimed it can be retained.
We are forever rejuvenated in Christ. As we say at the beginning of each Mass: Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam. Unto God who giveth joy to my youth. All that we may have lost comes back to us; and without getting old we grow into our full stature as adopted sons of God.
