Caryll Houselander - Little Way of the Infant Jesus

The Little Way
of the Infant Jesus

How the Christ Child Leads You to God

Caryll Houselander

SOPHIA INSTITUTE PRESS
Manchester, New Hampshire

The Little Way of the Infant Jesus was originally published under the title The Passion of the Infant Christ by Sheed and Ward, Inc., in 1949. In 1995, Sophia Institute Press published a hardcover edition titled Wood of the Cradle, Wood of the Cross, which incorporated minor editorial revisions and some additional notation to the original text. This 2000 paperback edition by Sophia Institute Press has revised chapter titles, as well as a new title and subtitle.

Copyright 1995 Sophia Institute Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Jacket design by Lorraine Bilodeau

On the cover is Guido Reni's St. Joseph with the Jesus Child, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (photo courtesy of SuperStock).

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Sophia Institute Press
Box 5284, Manchester, NH 03108
1-800-888-9344
www.sophiainstitute.com

Nihil obstat
Patrick Morris, S.T.D., L.S.T.

Imprimatur
E. Morrough Bernard, Vicar Generalis
Westminster, January 25, 1949

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Library of Congress has catalogued an earlier edition of this work as follows:Houselander, Caryll.[Passion of the infant Christ]Wood of the cradle, Wood of the Cross : the little way of the infant Jesus : formerly entitled The passion of the infant Christ / Caryll Houselander.p. cm. Originally published: The passion of the infant Christ. London : Sheed and Ward, 1949.ISBN 0-918477-32-8 (alk. paper). ISBN 0-918477-33-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)1. Jesus Christ Devotional literature. 2. Jesus Christ Childhood.3. Spiritual life Catholic Church. 4. Catholic Church Doctrines.I. Title. BT306.49.H68 1995232.92 dc20 95-31351 CIP

Editor's Notes:

The numeration of the biblical references in the following pages follows that of the Douay-Rheims edition of the Old and New Testaments. Quotations from the Psalms and some of the historical books of the Bible are cross-referenced with the differing names and numeration in the Revised Standard Version using the following symbol: (RSV = ).

When Caryll Houselander quotes the Old Testament, she most often refers to the Douay-Rheims translation: The Holy Bible, Translated from the Latin Vulgate (TAN Books and Publishers, Inc.: Rockford, IL, 1971).

When she quotes the New Testament, Houselander frequently cites the translation by Fr. Ronald Knox: The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: A New Translation (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1945).

All references to the Liturgy are to the Tridentine Rite, the Liturgy of the Church when this book was written.

Introduction

Some truths need to be told over and over again. Our Lord repeated certain truths about Himself and used certain images of Himself over and over again, like the rhyme in a song. Repetition not only instills an idea into our minds, but it has the same power that rhythm has to make the idea part of us and dear to us, even when it is hard in itself and this gently and easily, just as a tune heard many times, sometimes quite unconsciously, becomes part of us and dear to us.

But there is a difference between Christ's repetition and ours. He speaks creative words because He is God, and because, as man, He is a poet whom no other poet has ever come near to: His words echo and re-echo through the human heart. We, on the other hand, tend to become tedious in repetition, even when the thing that we are saying concerns God and is beautiful in itself.

Yet everyone who writes about the Christ-life knows that unless certain things are repeated in every book he writes, much of it, or all of it, will be almost meaningless to many who read it.

This is just such a book, and since the basic fact of the Christ-life, which is the key to everything in it, is the indwelling presence of Christ in us, I will repeat not something I have written about it before, but our Lord's own words telling us of it, on the night before He died:

"It is the truth-giving Spirit, for whom the world can find no room, because it cannot see Him, cannot recognize Him.... He will be continually at your side, nay, He will be in you."

"When that day comes, you will learn for yourselves that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you."

"You have only to live on in me, and I will live on in you."

"I am the vine, you are its branches; if a man lives on in me, and I in him, then he will yield abundant fruit; separated from me, you have no power to do anything."

"I have bestowed my love upon you, just as my Father has bestowed His love upon me; live on, then, in my love. You will live on in my love, if you keep mycommandments, just as it is by keeping my Father's commandments that I live on in His love."

Allow Christ to dwell in your soul

"Here is an image," He said, "of the Kingdom of Heaven. There was a man who sowed his field with clean seed."

The farmer is not impatient because the season of flowers and fruit is swiftly over and the winter is so long. He comes in early from his fields, to doze content while firelight weaves the long dusk with gold. He is as conscious of life in winter, when the crust of the earth is iron and not a leaf is on the hedges, as when the fields are green and the bough is white.

He has lived through cruel winters and heard old wives moaning, full of foreboding for the spring; he has seen frost and flood and driving wind alternating through the dark months; but he knows that with spring the snowdrop comes again, and the pale drift of crocus, and the delicate green blade of his early wheat.

He knows that the life sleeping in the earth is stronger than anything that can assail it, that the life that is in all living things is stronger than death. That is the knowledge which is the root of his peace.

The mystery of the seed is his. It is one, but multiple; dry, but contains the water of life; little, but fills the earth; black, but is white bread. It is within the ripe ear of wheat, and the ripe ear of wheat is within it. Scattered on the wind, it is not lost, but carries life wherever the wind blows.

It sows the meadows and the woods. It sows the cleft in the rock. It sows the roadside and the ditch. It sows the dustheaps in the cities.

Buried, it springs from the grave, a green herb of life. It is the symbol of Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven.

While the seed sleeps it grows. The season of the sleeping seed is the season of man's rest. Rest is the condition of natural growth; equally it is the condition of supernatural life.

If Christ is to come to flower and bear fruit in individual lives, there must be seasons of rest in which there is almost no activity but the giving wholly of self to nourish the supernatural life, just as the earth in which the seed is buried is given to nourish the bread. But, and this is even more important, there must be a permanent state of inward rest, founded in the peace of mind which comes from complete trust.

Next page