Who You Trust

Becoming child-like and trusting in God

10/05/2020

Matthew 11:25-30 - At that time Jesus exclaimed: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

Everyone loves babies and small children, and babies, in turn, bring out the best in us. If you post a cute picture of your chubby baby with their fat rolls on Facebook, you immediately get 100 “likes,” and caring compliments. They also bring out the best in us because we know instinctively how vulnerable children are so our desire to provide for and protect them surges in our hearts. Dr. Janet Smith, a professor I had at the University of Dallas, calls having a baby “induced maturity.” Almost overnight new parents become more kind and patient and hard-working.

This is one reason why abortion is so abhorrent. Fear flattens all these good and godly instincts as we put ourselves above protecting the defenseless baby in the womb. Babies have to put their total trust in us adults, and abortion viciously violates that trust. Babies teach us to be more trusting; Satan teaches us to be more selfish.

In the gospel today, Jesus is also irresistibly drawn to the child-like. He exclaims: “I give praise to your Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.” What precisely has God revealed to the “childlike” and hidden from “the learned and the wise”? Well, we see it every time we gaze at a picture of a vulnerable, defenseless baby or small child, namely, trust. Children trust in adults and ultimately they trust in God because they have to; adults, on the other hand, too often just trust in ourselves. We trust in our smarts, we trust in our money, we trust in our good-looks, we trust in our strength, and the last One we truly trust is God himself.

But when young parents have their own baby, they discover their own need for God, in a word, they experience “induced maturity.” That is the point when many young Catholics start to go back to church. They may still not be entirely convinced they themselves need God, but at least they can see their baby needs God in his or her life, and they are back on the right road. Eventually, we all learn that we could not raise our little pinky finger without the help of God. Total trust in God is what is revealed to the childlike and hidden from the learned and the wise.

October 5 is the feast of St. Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun who promoted the devotion to the Divine Mercy. In 1931, while praying in her convent cell, Jesus appeared to her wearing a white tunic and with red and pale blue rays coming from his heart. He said to her: “Paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the signature ‘Jesus, I trust in you’.” Jesus continued: “I desire that this image be venerated, first in your chapel, and then throughout the world. I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish.”

That image was unfurled on the fascade of St. Peter’s Basilica for all the world to see and venerate on April 30, 2000 when Sr. Faustina was canonized a saint by Pope St. John Paul II, who you will recall was himself from Poland. If you want to become a saint, “it’s not what you know, but who you know.” And all the saints know Jesus, and more importantly, the saints trust in Jesus. Why? Because all the saints have learned to be like little children, indeed babies, who are vulnerable and defenseless, and so put their total trust in Jesus.

My friends, on the feast of St. Faustina, we should ask ourselves: who do I trust? The currency of our country says: “In God we trust.” But is our real trust in our money or in our Maker? Perhaps we should ponder why we are attracted so irresistibly to those pictures of chubby babies on Facebook. Maybe they can teach us to trust in Jesus, like St. Faustina did. Because at the end of our lives, it will not matter what you know, but only who you know, and more precisely, who you trust.

Praised be Jesus Christ!