What does it mean to be childlike?

Freshman Orientation
Credit: Matthew Cox '19

“I give you praise, 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.”
~Luke 10:21

What does it mean to be childlike? I cannot help but laugh at this at first glance, given where we work. I am surrounded by children every day. What could Jesus possibly mean by saying that God’s wisdom will be revealed to those who dispose themselves like children?

A professor of mine boiled it down to two related characteristics: dependence and expectation.

For all their self-assertion and masks of confidence, our students are wildly dependent. They rely on community for order, meaning, identity, care, success…and so on. There is so much that still have to learn. There is so much in their lives that are taken care of for which they have little awareness. The challenge, then, for the Christian is to embrace this position and celebrate it! We are not self-sufficient creatures. We are radically dependent on so many things. Jesus calls us to bask in that dependence because it is a core dimension of who we are.

With that dependence, and often to our dismay, is the blunt expectation that our students will be cared for, supported, loved, and lifted up! This is evident in every young child who can only but expect that she will be feed day to day, because she certainly cannot feed herself. This reminds me of when my niece was a toddler. She was playing with a toy and bumped her knee. She began to cry and looked around at me, full of expectation that I would comfort her in her pain.

Now, I’m not saying the Gospel is asking us to abandon our necessary psychological coping mechanisms that allow us to function as productive and contributing members of our communities. The lesson is deeper: Jesus instructs us that we must cultivate these two attitudes. First: acknowledge, accept, and celebrate your dependence. And second: cultivate the hopeful expectation that life is meaningful and that God will provide through wondrous and surprising means. In other words, we stand before God in humble dependence with outstretched arms in the blunt expectation that we will be lifted up.

Therese of Lisieux, Revered Saint and Mystical Doctor of the Church, expressed this well when she wrote: “Your arms, My Jesus, are the elevator which will take me up to Heaven. There is no need for me to grow up; on the contrary, I must stay little, and become more and more so.” (sites.nd.edu)


Author: Daniel Dion, Theology Department