16. Third Monday of Advent

Meditations no. 16 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The mystery of divine adoption; our dignity as God’s children.

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

The mystery of divine filiation, the foundation of our spiritual life, is the crowning achievement of the Redemption. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. With a view to his Son’s coming, God said: Then I will welcome you, and I will be a Father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters.

Although we are unable to behave even as good servants, God’s grace has made us divinae consortes naturae, sharers in the divine nature. This in itself is sufficient to ensure that the way we are, and the way we act, are supernatural, provided we make good use of our freedom. Furthermore, in order to adopt us as his children, God wished to ransom us not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

We are God’s children now. It is important for us to be aware of this wonderful reality so as to behave with the tone and bearing of good children in our dealings with God and with those who represent him.

Divine filiation is a joyful truth, a consoling mystery. It fills all our spiritual life, it shows us how to speak to God, to know and to love our Father in heaven. And it makes our interior struggle overflow with hope and gives us the trusting simplicity of little children. More than that: precisely because we are children of God, we can contemplate in love and wonder everything as coming from the hands of our Father, God the Creator. And so we become contemplatives in the middle of the world, loving the world.

Divine filiation, our Father concludes, transforms us into something far beyond people who merely put up with one another. Listen to what our Lord says: Vos autem dixi amicos. We are his friends and, like him, we give our lives for each other, both when heroism is called for and in more everyday moments.

Making divine filiation a reality in our lives: being good children of God.

God has adopted us, in Christ, as his children. This divine filiation entails a transformation far surpassing the effects of merely human adoption. Divine adoption, St Thomas says, is superior to human adoption, for God, by the gift of grace, fits his adoptive son for his heavenly inheritance. A man cannot make his adopted son fit in this way; he must choose for adoption one who is already worthy. Divine filiation enables us to lead the very life of Christ and become heirs to his glory. Heavenly glory is the heritage awaiting God’s children, the chosen portion belonging to them alone. We should strive to live with that inheritance in mind, and learn to act in keeping with our new status.

Our interior life is centred on imitating Jesus and acquiring the sentiments and habits of a good child, an authentic and tender filial piety towards God. We are led directly to that goal by the Norms and Customs of the Work. As our Father wrote: These pious practices will lead you, almost without your realizing it, to contemplative prayer. Your soul will pour forth more acts of love, aspirations, acts of thanksgiving, acts of atonement, spiritual communions. And this will happen while you go about your ordinary duties, when you answer the telephone, get on a bus, open or close a door, pass in front of a church, when you begin a new task, during it, and when you have finished it: you will find yourself referring everything you do to your Father God.

The formation which the Work imparts to us helps us to be simple and transparent towards God, the Directors, and the others in the Work. And knowing we are God’s children leads us straight to this goal. The piety which is born of divine filiation is a profound attitude of the soul which eventually permeates one’s entire existence. It is there in every thought, every desire, every affection. Haven’t you noticed in families how children, even without realizing it, imitate their parents? They imitate their gestures, their habits; much of their behaviour is the same as that of their parents.

Well, the same kind of thing happens to a good son of God. One finds oneself acquiring - without knowing how, or by what means - a marvellous godliness, which enables us to focus events from the supernatural viewpoint of faith; we come to love all men as our Father in Heaven loves them and, what is more important, we become more fervent in our daily efforts to come closer to God.

The fruits of divine filiation: spiritual childhood.

If God himself wished to become a child, if our Saviour is soon to arrive as a new-born baby, how can we not want to become childlike as well? Before our Father God, it would be silly to presume to be grown-ups and adopt the self-sufficient airs of an adult. Besides, in any family aren’t the youngest children always the father’s favourites? Not content with winning the grace of divine filiation for us, Jesus also wanted to teach us that spiritual childhood - becoming like little children - is an indispensable condition for entry into the kingdom of heaven.

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them, and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” St Jerome interprets our Lord as saying: Just as this child whom I hold up as an example … does not think one thing and say another, so must you be. Without such innocence and pure intentions, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

Be very childlike, our Father urges us. The more childlike, the better. I speak from my experience as a priest, who has had to pick himself up many times in these past thirty-six years (how long and yet how short they now seem to me!) which have been spent striving to fulfil a very precise requirement of God’s will. There’s one thing that has helped me always, the fact that I am still a child, and am always climbing onto my Mother’s lap and finding refuge in the Heart of Christ, my Lord.

This is the sort of simplicity that is so important for a child of God in his Work. Our asceticism has the simplicity of the Gospel. We would complicate it if we were to be complicated ourselves, if we left our heart in darkness and failed to be totally sincere. We practise this virtue when we are sincere with our Directors and when we show natural, affectionate charity towards the others in the Work, without excessive familiarity or affectation.

Achieving this may well entail ascetical struggle, and we will often experience the need to conquer ourselves. But this self-conquest is very pleasing to God. It also fits in well with the spirit of Christmas, when our family life is particularly warm and affectionate.

Let us ask Mary to help us be as simple as children. Then we will know how best to treat her Son, the infant Jesus, whose arrival is imminent.