At noon the children gather at the lake, to bathe in the sun and in the water.
O Lord, how all nature marvels at innocence! Toilsome and tormented laborers in the presence of sinners — the lake and the sun are transfigured in the presence of children. How magnificent a temple of the Lord the lake becomes when children are upon it, and how stirred a high priest is the sun, when its rays cross with the rays of a child's soul.
Suffer the children to come unto me, whispers all nature, and you will understand that I too am a child. Before robbers I too make myself a robber; before children I too am a child. To the heartless I too seem heartless; to the saints I am an altar. Whoever seeks a beast in me, I will send a beast to meet him; whoever seeks God in me, I will show Him to him. Sinners name me a slaughterhouse, the righteous a sacrificial altar. Only to innocence do I reveal myself as innocence, and to the children of God as a child of God.
Suffer the children to come unto Me, cries aloud the Son of the Virgin, and children alone come to Him. With the fire of hell shall they answer, who bar children from coming to the Son of God. For they neither come themselves, nor let others come.
Why children, O Lord, why children dost Thou seek? ask the created and unborn of the Born and Uncreated. Like statues of stone are the created and unborn, and they are moved by the winds of the world. But the Born and Uncreated is moved by life from within, and the winds of the world flee from Him.
Because I too am a child, therefore I seek children. Deceivers see in Me a deceiver, the godless a godless man, and the holders of power a usurper of power. The Pharisees ask: who is this? and cannot fathom it, and the wise men of this world hunt Me with their earthly wisdom.
Only children know Me, for I too am a child. As a child I am not My own, and as a child I seek no glory for Myself. As a child I think nothing of Myself, and speak nothing of Myself, and do nothing of Myself. But as a child I think what My Father teaches Me, and speak what I hear, and do what I see.
Children cease to be children, but I never cease to be a child. Children cease to be children because of their evil leaders, who forbid them constant abiding with Me, and teach them the aged wisdom of the world. But I never cease to be a child, for I am nourished by the eternally young wisdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who in old age shake off their evil leaders and their wisdom, which makes them old, and sick, and dead. Whoever turns to Me, though he has grown old with the world, I will make him a child, and as an eternal child he will reign in My kingdom, into which the old men of the world have no entrance.
I say to you: My kingdom is a kingdom of children.
Verily, the created shall not see the light of the kingdom of God, but only the born. What is Mine, what is like Me, that shall be with Me.
The stone statues, which the winds of the world move, shall be broken to pieces, and their ashes shall be the play of the winds. But the children, who are moved by life from within, shall enter into eternal life.
O Radiant Lord, Eternal Child in the bosom of the Holy Trinity, help me by Thine innocence, the greatest power in all the worlds, that I may be born of the Holy Spirit.
Lest, like a stone statue created by this world, I be broken to pieces and scattered to the wind.
But that, as a born babe, I may be inseparable from Thee in Eternity, O Prince of innocence and of all the innocent.