“At that time Jesus answered and said: ‘I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones. Yea, Father; for so hath it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered to me by my Father. And no one knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal him.’”
Jesus begins His praise of simplicity by praising the Father, who is Lord of all things, for in His love and wisdom He holds all things in His hand and orders them beautifully; though the individual brushstrokes may be unseemly, it adds to the greater loveliness of the masterpiece of creation, which you will see when you go to Him: “We see now through a glass in a dark manner: but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). There are four ways that will be looked at as to how to interpret what follows in the revelation of “these things” to little ones. The first is that he is targeting the proud, who glory in their wisdom: “Hast thou seen a man wise in his own conceit? There shall be more hope of a fool than of him” (Proverbs 26:12), whereas the humble, those that are little in their own eyes know their own brokenness and how little they can do on their own, but they also know how loved they are, knowing that God’s perfect love upholds them always, and so praise does not lift them up, as they know what they are, but nothing brings them down, because they have docked their boat of the port of God’s love. The second sense is that “the wise” denotes those that are great in learning, but not in heavenly wisdom: “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (1 Corinthians 3:19), for in the Catholic interpretation of Sacred Scripture, you can know the Sacred Heart of Jesus, for Scripture is Christ, and in putting down other fields of knowledge, you can come to know your God, which is deeply pleasing to Him: “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God more than holocausts” (Osee 6:6). The third is that of innocence, for St. Thomas Aquinas lived a life of incredible learning, and when his last confession was heard, it was compared to that of a five-year-old, thus Jesus here calls you to be simple in malice and evil but abounding in understanding of the ways of love: “Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves” (Matthew 10:16); “I would have you be wise in good, and simple in evil” (Romans 16:19). The fourth is that it is said of St. Bonaventure that another friar would occasionally come to him and remind him that there were little old ladies that loved God more than him, and the simple, pure love of God that children have is something more beautiful than founts of heavenly doctrine: “Thy breasts,” which is the love of God and neighbor in the heart, “are better than wine” (Canticle 1:1), which is indicative of wisdom. The point of wisdom is to draw the one that seeks deeper into the love of God: “You shall seek me, and shall find me: when you shall seek me with all your heart” (Jeremias 29:13); “If I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge… and have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2), and then be able to share this love in a way that is beautiful and wise: “So you also, forasmuch as you are zealous of spirits, seek to abound unto the edifying of the church” (1 Corinthians 14:12); “Thy lips are as a scarlet lace: and thy speech sweet” (Canticle 4:3); “The words of the mouth of a wise man are grace” (Ecclesiastes 10:12). All of this is a wondrous look into what is truly important, because His disciples may have been enthused considering the great work they did in being sent out to preach, heal, and exorcise, when in reality it is not the work itself that grasped the Father, but the simple love with which they worked and clung to Jesus: “Rejoice not in this, that spirits are subject unto you; but rejoice in this, that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20), engraved upon the Sacred Heart: “For he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of my eye” (Zacharias 2:8). The gift that you are is in the hands of the Father and the Son, for all things are committed by the Father to the Son; the Father is not without, but like two hands holding one object, all things are held by both, but it is through the Son that God is truly known: “Have I been so long a time with you; and have you not known me? Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father also” (John 14:9). This can also mean that the hearts that love Jesus have been given to Him by the Father, and all things that pertain to them are in His hand: “My sheep hear my voice: and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them life everlasting; and they shall not perish for ever, and no man shall pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28); “Now this is the will of the Father who sent me: that of all that he hath given me, I should lose nothing; but should raise it up again in the last day” (John 6:39). Because all things were made for Jesus, God fashioned you that you may be Christ’s, and He may be yours: “My beloved to me, and I to him who feedeth among the lilies” (Canticle 2:16), thus you are the Father’s gift to the Son, your soul being His garden in which to walk: “My beloved is gone down into his garden” (Canticle 6:1), His resting place: “While the king was at his repose, my spikenard sent forth the odour thereof” (Canticle 1:11), the pillow on which He may rest His head: “And he was in the hinder part of the ship, sleeping upon a pillow” (Mark 4:38), having so few hearts that will allow Him this: “The Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). Now, married couples often say that, after many years of marriage, it seems as if they are only just beginning to know the other, whereas in the love between the Father and the Son, there is complete, perfect understanding. To know the Father is greater than being Lord of all: “Choose knowledge” of God’s endless love “rather than gold” (Proverbs 8:10), and the Father is revealed to you in coming to know the Son to the extent you can; you will never grasp Him fully, for “The light” of His love “shineth in the darkness” of your humanity, “and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:5), which is a total, full understanding. This is because God the Father is the essence of love: “God is love” (1 John 4:16), and is perfectly expressed through the Word; for your words express what you wish to convey, and so too does the Word convey the Father’s love for you: “As the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love” (John 15:9). It can be thought of like this, that the Father says, “I love you,” through Jesus, that in much consideration of Jesus, you will come to understand love itself and how loved you are. In the beginning, the only knowledge of the Father and the Son was in their mutual knowledge: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1), but in the coming of Jesus, both are revealed, with the Holy Spirit being given in His own time, the fullness of what love entails being expressed through Jesus, and the gift of this same love being given at Pentecost: “And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:3-4).