“….although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to little ones.” (Mt 11:25)
Have we ever wondered that our Eternal Father who knows all, who has seen humans from age to age would say this? Well, why wouldn’t He? It was HE who created us from the womb of our mother and has seen us transform ever since, from an infant to a ripe old age. “Science has proven that if we compare our ability as adults to that of the child, it would require us sixty years of hard work to achieve what a child has achieved in these first three years.” ~Maria Montessori, “The Absorbent Mind”
As an infant the baby transits from the womb to a new environment with much pain to its bearer and equal discomfort to itself. All he or she needs to hear is the heartbeat of the mother to feel comfortable and secure again. He or she acclimatises to the surroundings with a leap of what would be known later as faith. Have we wondered what goes on in the small brain of the foetus? Right from the mother’s womb, the baby learns to listen to her voice and starts to trust that voice. He or she continues to learn the tones and the anxiety the mother feels and reciprocates in his or her own way.
I remember when my wife met with an accident while she was pregnant, she told me that she could feel the baby spinning inside her and every time she felt anxious the reaction of the baby was the same. She managed to control her emotion and react less to the surroundings and her baby was well behaved inside her. The baby follows the mother’s lead and he or she follows in sync with the mother’s heartbeat that he or she finds comfort in.
The Infant has simple instinctive faith, and as we learn and grow, we move on to intellectual faith. Our life is never ever the same, we search for reasons in everything. As the saying goes, everything happens for a reason, with intellectual faith we want an answer for everything. We do not want to let go, as we have forgotten our time when we were babies. Recently, when my wife was due to give birth, our intellectual faith was tested. All the checks were positive leading up to the hour of birth until the hour when we had to make a decision to go for an emergency operation. We wondered why and started searching for reasons. Medically, we were given the explanation that it happens with no reasons.
We turned to our community of believers for prayers. We were blessed in abundance. A miracle did happen the baby was born being blessed with simple faith.
So how do we enjoy this simple instinctive faith in our day-to-day life? On the day of his Ascension, Jesus explained all that has happened is to fulfilled in the scriptures. The disciples asked him ‘Lord, has the time come for you to restore the kingdom to Israel?’ Jesus replied, ‘It is not for you to know times or dates that the Father has decided by his own authority, but you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit which will come on you, and then you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and Samaria, and indeed to earth’s remotest end.'(Act 1 : 6-8 )
We must trust in the Holy Spirit to guide us and engage our simple faith like an infant to feel one with our Lord. Let us surrender our emotion and anxieties to rest in Him. Our challenge remains – how do we balance the simple instinctive faith with the intellectual faith. When do we move from one to the other.
Jesus says
“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.” (Mt 11:28-30)
Jonas Matthew