AS A LITTLE CHILD

AS A LITTLE CHILD

“If you do not become like one of these little ones, you will not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” Jesus is very clear. He points out the way to mystical union with him for all of us: he invites us to become like little children. But we so easily misinterpret what he meant by this. He wasn’t talking about remaining children forever, nor of maintaining an innocence — and an ignorance — that we may have long since lost. Father Ravier shows us who these “children,” these “little ones” of the Gospel are about whom Christ speaks and after whom he invites us to model ourselves. They are those who “hear the word of God and keep it,” who choose to comport themselves as true children of God. The Father then fills them with his graces and reveals to them the “secrets of the Kingdom.” From that time on, each day and for all their lives as men and women, these “little ones” work with Jesus to bring about the coming of the Kingdom.

About the Author: André Ravier, SJ, was born at Poligny (Jura), a French province near the Swiss border, on June 3, 1905. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1922, and was ordained a priest in 1937. In 1968, Father Ravier began to write books and articles dealing exclusively with spirituality and hagiography. Prior to that date, he was well known in France as an authority on the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, thanks to his widely acclaimed two-volume work on the author of Emile. At the outbreak of World War II he was mobilized into the French army where he served with such distinction that he was afterward awarded one of France’s highest honors. From 1951 to 1957, the years that corresponded with Henri de Lubac’s persecution at the hands of his fellow theologians, he was the Provincial of the Province of Lyon, and as such became the staunch defender of de Lubac. Ravier maintains that de Lubac’s great modern classic, The Splendor of the Church, published at this time, was “written in blood,” and should be more often read and better known by contemporary Catholic theologians. Some of Ravier’s books have been translated into English: Ignatius of Loyola and the Founding of the Society of Jesus (1987); Francis de Sales, Sage and Saint (1988); Saint Jeanne de Chantal: Noble Lady, Holy Woman (1989); Do It at Home Retreat (1991) and St. Bruno, the Carthusian (1995).