List of points

For reasons that I need not go into now (but which Jesus, who is presiding over us here from the Tabernacle, knows full well) my life has led me to realise in a special way that I am a son of God and I have experienced the joy of getting inside the heart of my Father, to rectify, to purify myself, to serve him, to understand others and find excuses for them, on the strength of his love and my own lowliness.

This is why I want to insist now that you and I need to be made anew, we need to wake up from the slumber of feebleness by which we are so easily lulled and to become aware once again, in a deeper and more immediate way, of our condition as children of God.

The example of Jesus, every detail of his life in those Eastern lands, will help us to fill ourselves with this truth. 'If we admit the testimony of men,' we read in today's Epistle, 'the testimony of God is greater.' And what does God's testimony consist of? Again St John tells us: 'See how God has shown his love towards us; that we should be counted as his sons, should be his sons… Beloved, we are sons of God even now.'

Over the years, I have sought to rely unfalteringly for my support on this joyous reality. No matter what the situation, my prayer, while varying in tone, has always been the same. I have said to him: 'Lord, You put me here. You entrusted me with this or that, and I put my trust in you. I know you are my Father, and I have seen that tiny children are always absolutely sure of their parents.' My priestly experience tells me that abandonment such as this in the hands of God stimulates souls to acquire a strong, deep and serene piety, which drives them to work constantly and with an upright intention.

Quasi modo geniti infantes… It has made me very happy to spread everywhere this attitude of being children, little children of God, an attitude which enables us to savour those other words we find in the liturgy of today's Mass: 'all that is born of God overcomes the world'; it conquers difficulties and achieves victory in this great battle for the peace of souls and of society.

Our wisdom and our strength lie precisely in our being convinced of our littleness, of our nothingness in the eyes of God. But at the same time He himself is prompting us to get moving, to proclaim confidently his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, even though we have errors and miseries, provided, that is, that, as well as being weak, we are fighting to overcome our weakness.

You must have often heard me repeat the following advice contained in Scripture: discite benefacere, for there can be no doubt that we need to learn how to do good and to teach others to do the same. In this, we have to begin with ourselves, by striving to discover which particular good we should be aiming at, for each one of us, for each of our friends, for each and every man. I know no better way of considering the greatness of God than to start from this inexpressible and simple fact that he is our Father and we are his children.

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 realising 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. Our wretchedness, I insist, doesn't matter, because we have the loving arms of our Father God to lift us up.

Have you noticed what a great difference there is between a child falling and a fall by an adult? In the case of children, most falls are unimportant; they are always falling over! If they do start crying, their father tells them: 'Look here now, men don't cry.' And the incident ends with the child trying earnestly to please his father.

But what happens if an adult loses his balance and falls awkwardly to the ground? If it weren't so pitiful, his misfortune would provoke merriment and laughter. Besides, the fall may have serious consequences and, if it's an old man, it might even give rise to a fracture that will never heal. In our interior life, it does all of us good to be quasi modo geniti infantes, like those tiny tots who seem to be made of rubber and who even enjoy falling over because they get up again right away and are once more running around, and also because they know their parents will always be there to console them, whenever they are needed.

If we try to act like them, our stumbling and failures in the interior life (which, moreover, are inevitable) will never result in bitterness. Our reaction will be one of sorrow but not discouragement, and we'll smile with a smile that gushes up like fresh water out of the joyous awareness that we are children of that Love, that grandeur, that infinite wisdom, that mercy, that is our Father. During the years I have been serving Our Lord, I have learned to become a little child of God. I would ask you to do likewise, to be quasi modo geniti infantes, children who long for God's word, his bread, his food, his strength, to enable us to behave henceforth as Christian men and women.

Be very childlike! 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 I am always climbing onto my Mother's lap and finding refuge in the Heart of Christ, my Lord.

Serious falls, of the kind that can do great damage to the soul, at times almost irreparable damage, can always be traced back to the pride of thinking oneself to be grown up and self-sufficient. In such cases, people seem almost incapable of asking for help from those who can give it: not only from God, but also from a friend, or from a priest. And the poor soul, alone in its misfortune, sinks into confusion and loses its way.

Let us beseech God, right now, never to let us feel self-satisfied, but rather to make us grow ever more desirous of his help, his word, his Bread, his consolation and his strength: rationabile, sine dolo lac concupiscite, foster your hunger, your ambition to be like children. Believe me, it is the best way to conquer pride; and it's the only way to make our conduct good, great hearted, divine. 'Believe me, unless you become like little children again, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.'

The scenes of my student days come back to me again. What a demonstration of faith it was! I can almost hear the liturgical singing, breathe the smell of incense, see those thousands and thousands of men, each with his own misery — but each with a childlike heart; a little child who may perhaps be unable to lift up his eyes to meet those of his father. 'Know and see that it is an evil and bitter thing for you, to have forsaken the Lord your God.' Let us renew our firm decision never to forsake Our Lord for the cares of this world. Let us increase our thirst for God, making specific resolutions for our daily conduct, like little ones who recognise how needy they are and who therefore keep looking and calling for their Father.

But, let me go back to what I was telling you before: we have to learn to behave like children, we have to learn how to be God's sons. At the same time, we have to pass on to others this outlook which in the midst of our natural weaknesses, will make us 'strong in the faith', fruitful in good works, and certain of our way, so that no matter what kind of mistakes we may make, even the most embarrassing, we will never hesitate to react and return to the sure path of divine filiation which ends up in the open and welcoming arms of our Father God.

Which of you here does not remember the arms of his father? They probably weren't as caressing, as gentle and tender as those of his mother. But our father's strong and powerful arms held us tight and safe and warm. Lord, I thank you for those tough arms. Thank you for those strong hands. Thank you for that sturdy and tender heart. I was going to thank you also for my errors! No, you don't want them! But you understand them, and excuse them and forgive them.

This is the wisdom God wants us to practise in our dealings with him. This indeed is a good mathematical lesson to learn to recognise that we are really a zero, but that our Father God loves each one of us just as we are, yes, indeed, just as we are! I — who am nothing but a poor man — love each one of you as he is, so just imagine what God's Love will be like! That is provided we struggle, provided we are determined to bring our life into line with our conscience. a well formed conscience.