What’s it Like to see Heaven through the Eyes of Children?
“Allow the little children to come to me! Don’t forbid them, for God’s Kingdom belongs to such as these. Most certainly I tell you, whoever will not receive God’s Kingdom like a little child, he will in no way enter into it.” — Mark 10:14–15 (WEB)
In the eyes of a child
Have you ever wondered how children see the world and everything else around them? Children seem to see many things we can’t see anymore. Many times, they would call our attention to have us look at something that seem so significant to them but seem so ordinary to us. We’d pretend we saw it, too, but deep inside, we think there’s nothing special at all to that. “They’re just children,” we say to ourselves, “and that’s why they see things that way.”
But what do they really see? They see wonder.
In the eyes of a child, there is wonder everywhere. The world is filled with things to discover and appreciate. A world that is full of beauty and awe.
Blessed are the children. Blessed are the innocent. Blessed are those who can see beyond the things we usually see.
It’s no wonder then that heaven is visible only to those who are like little children. In a child’s eye, there is no prejudice yet and there is no resentment. They don’t see things the way other people say they should. They see things as they are.
“So now you must choose… Are you a child who has not yet become world-weary? Or are you a philosopher who will vow never to become so? To children, the world and everything in it is new, something that gives rise to astonishment. It is not like that for adults. Most adults accept the world as a matter of course. This is precisely where philosophers are a notable exception. A philosopher never gets quite used to the world. To him or her, the world continues to seem a bit unreasonable — bewildering, even enigmatic. Philosophers and small children thus have an important faculty in common. The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder…” — Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World
Who are the little children?
If we wish to see the world again in a whole new way, we need to be like little children. Children who are craving to see the beautiful things around them. Children who know what they lack and who are not ashamed to ask for what they need. Children who are little enough to be amazed by great things they are yet to find.
It’s the same with spiritual things. To see heaven, we need to set aside our prejudices and our judgments. We need to keep an open mind. We need to be humble enough to acknowledge that we don’t know everything yet. We must be little enough to discover the bigger things God desires to bestow upon us.
These are the little children:
1. They are those who are poor in the eyes of the world.
They are the ones who are empty, those who know that the only things they can possess are those that could come from the Hands of God.
“Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter into God’s Kingdom! It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into God’s Kingdom.” — Mark 10:24–25 (WEB)
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
— Matthew 5:3 (WEB)
“Remaining little means — to recognise one’s nothingness, to await everything from the Goodness of God, to avoid being too much troubled at our faults; finally, not to worry over amassing spiritual riches, not to be solicitous about anything. Even amongst the poor, while a child is still small, he is given what is necessary; but, once he is grown up, his father will no longer feed him, and tells him to seek work and support himself. Well, it was to avoid hearing this, that I have never wished to grow up, for I feel incapable of earning my livelihood, which is Life Eternal.”— St. Therese of Lisieux
2. They are those who know how to trust and love.
They are not afraid because they know they are greatly loved.
Is our confidence based alone on what we possess or in what we can do? A child’s confidence is firmly based on who he or she is. A child doesn’t have to prove anything to be worthy of love.
“For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” — Romans 8:15 (WEB)
“Then you do not share the feeling of the hermit who said : ‘While a quarter of an hour, or even a breath of life still remains to me, I shall fear the fires of hell even though I should have spent long years in penance?’”
“No, I do not share that fear; I am too small. Little children are not damned.”
— St. Therese of Lisieux
3. They are those who could not even pay to get the things they need.
And with this comes gratitude and joy.
When we always need to pay for something, we’d always be seeking for rewards and we’d always try to compete with others. But when we receive something free, we are filled with a grateful heart. We are not bound by anything but love.
“My patrons and my special favourites in Heaven are those who, so to speak , stole it, such as the Holy Innocents and the Good Thief. The great Saints won it by their works; I wish to be like the thieves and to win it by stratagem — a stratagem of love which will open its gates both to me and to poor sinners.” — St. Therese of Lisieux
“Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed. But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works,
‘Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin.’”
— Romans 4:4–8 (WEB)
“But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus; for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast.” — Ephesians 2:4–9 (WEB)
For we don’t come to God with our pride and our self-righteousness. We don’t come to God claiming our self-sufficiency. We come to Him with empty hands, and it is only with empty hands that we can fully receive His blessings.
“Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven.” — Henry Ward Beecher
Jocelyn Soriano is the author of Mend My Broken Heart, Defending My Catholic Faith and 366 Days of Compassion.
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