Nearer my God to Thee

 Another gospel (Matthew 18: 1-5, 10) and another pair of mysteries that complement each other. When we read the gospels, we are often dumbfounded by how transparently vainglorious the disciples can be. Today they ask Jesus, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” We just know that this is not a simple, objective question posed by honest and peaceable minds reflecting on the things of God. This is a question most likely about their own status. Who knows, they might even have established a pecking order amongst themselves before approaching Jesus on the question.

                As is so often the case, Jesus’ response entirely wrongfoots their assumptions and turns the disciples’ attention to one of the ways in which our path back to God mirrors the path He took towards us. As the second person of the Trinity lowered himself to become man, so we must ‘lower ourselves’, putting aside all our wrongful pretensions of independence and swagger, to become instead who we really are: children of the loving Eternal Father.

                That littleness that Jesus praises in this gospel passage seems to evoke several things. Many would associate it with the action of the gift of Piety which enables us through the Holy Spirit to embrace God as our father. This gift was most active in the life of a saint like St Therese of Lisieux. Yet it seems to me that this littleness also evokes the importance of even very small things.

Nothing under God's heaven or in the reality that God created is meaningless. Meaningless has only ever been created by human beings. Curiously enough, modern science has shown how important the microscopic level is. The microscopic is not a blank and faceless dimension but one that is full of detail and ingenuity. Likewise a child that has truly learned how to play (not one inanely gawping and swiping at a tablet screen) enters a world of miniature drama and happiness. Jesus’ praise of the child is a reminder that only a world seen with childlike eyes reveals the rich symphony of meaning that God's love planted in the world. Here is an antidote to all the resentment that simmers in our fallen hearts. When we have these eyes, not only can we do the humble and unimportant things with gusto, but they make our hearts sing for joy because done through love. My friends - the relief! We no longer need to seek the glory of being the greatest because we now realise that God invests our smallest actions with a glorious eternal dimension. We realise that one day spent in the courts of the Lord is worth more than a thousand days spent in the courts of men.

The second mystery in today's gospel that complements this mystery of the greatness of little things is what Jesus says about the angels of the little ones (today being after all the feast of the angels). It is a wondrous enough thing that we have angels as guardians in the first place. It is a truth revealed in the gospel that is oddly honoured in secular culture just as it has become a dead letter in much of Christian culture. When was the last time you heard any senior Christian figure talk about the angels? But if it is a wondrous thing that we have angels in the first place, it is a still more wondrous thing to my mind that those very angels possess the beatific vision of God. As they accompany us through life, they are never deprived of the vision of the homeland of us all. As they perform their duties by our side, their minds remain wrapped in joy by seeing the Blessed Trinity in all its glory.

In other words, the reality of the angels who see the Father even now shows us the nearness of the eternal – that nearness that we only grasp when we can become like little children. It is as if we are climbing a hill with them and they have already reached the crest from where they turn to us and urge us on, so that we too might see what they can see.