I Bless you Father

by Gilles Côté

 

 

"I bless you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children." -- Matthew 11:25

God is present in every part of our lives. There is not a moment, not a fold, not a sigh of our existence that he does not fill with his love. And yet we so seldom see him there.

What can we do to recognize the mystery of God's grace in our lives? Jesus' answer is, "be like little children." But what does that mean?

It is my daughter Marie-Claude who, when she was three years old, helped me begin to understand.

I was walking down a very steep, very high flight of stairs in the turn-of-the century house where we were living at the time. I had just reached the bottom step when I heard a tiny voice behind me calling, "Papa!' I turned around, looked up, and saw a flying grin hurdling towards me. My daughter had seen me at the bottom of the stairwell and spontaneously decided to take a shortcut. After all, why walk when you can fly? There was no long debate in her tiny little head as to whether or not the "old man" could catch her, or on the wisdom of flying without a license. She simply saw with the eyes of her trust in me. There was no doubt in her mind that "papa" could catch her. Jumping was not folly and the present could and should be lived with a big grin on ones face.

My daughter is now 24 years old, but I am still learning from what she did over 20 years ago what it means to be "like little children". It is letting go and jumping into the arms of our heavenly "abba". I must confess, though, that I have not yet learned how to do it with a big grin on my face.

©Gilles Côté, 2001