When all the poor people hear this, they hurry in most grateful faith into their half-destroyed homes and cannot marvel enough when they find the tables covered with good and sufficient food, and likewise clothing of every kind for old and young, great and small, and different for both sexes. Each asks the other to give an explanation!
But when they also find their pantries well supplied, the women and children say to the men: ‘God has done this! He who let manna rain in the wilderness for forty years and thus fed His children well upon stones and sand where no grass grew—how should He now have wished to let us languish, when we have pleaded with Him now as always!? Oh, this is certain! God never abandons those who plead with Him.
‘David the great king pleaded with God when he became miserable, and God helped him out of his great distress, and it has never been heard that God did not hear those who sought help from Him. But it would be an unprecedented miracle if God had not heard us in this greatest distress of ours! For God is always full of love for those who call to Him: Abba, dear Father! Therefore, from now on, we too want to love Him above everything, everything, everything!!! He entirely alone is our rescuer! From the heavens our most holy Father has sent us all this through His holy angels!’
The old man, who belonged to this very family, to which the whole village always gathered to hear his wisdom, for he was indeed versed in Scripture, says: ‘My children, friends and brothers! Scripture does say: “Out of the mouths of the little ones and those not yet of age I will prepare praise for Myself!” And look! Here we have it before our eyes and ears. The dear Father has looked upon us in His great mercy and has done this for us! To Him, therefore, all our love and all praise from the mouths of our infants. The praise of our mouths is not pure enough to please the Most Holy One; therefore He Himself prepares the mouths of our infants for Himself. But now let us go out to the young man who directed us into our houses and surely knew what God has done for us?! He must be a great prophet—perhaps even Elijah? The one who is to come once more before the hoped-for Messiah, promised long ago!’
A little child who had scarcely begun to speak says: ‘Father! What if this man himself were the great Promised One?!’
The old man says: ‘O child, who now loosened your tongue so clearly?! For you now spoke not like a child, but like a wise man in the temple in Jerusalem!’
The little child says: ‘I do not know that, dear father; but that speaking was difficult for me before and now is exceedingly easy, that I do know! But how can this surprise you now, when we are standing amid nothing but miracles of God?!’
The old man, pressing the little child to his heart, says: ‘Yes, yes, you are right—now everything is a miracle, and you certainly have not been mistaken if you even regard the young man as the Messiah! For to us he certainly is! But now let us go out to him and also offer him, in Jehovah’s name, the thanks most fully due! For He has manifestly been sent to us by God!? And so now let us hurry out to him!’
Now they all hurry out to Me, and the little children are the first to fall at My feet and wet them with their innocent, purest tears of thanks and joy!
But I look up to the firmament and say aloud: ‘You heavens! Look down here and learn from these little children how your God and Father wishes to be praised! O creation, how endlessly great and old you are, and how countless is the great multitude of your wise citizens—and yet you could not find the way to the heart of your Creator, your Father, as these little children did!!! Therefore I tell you: whoever does not come to Me like these little ones will not find the Father.’
After this I sat down and blessed and embraced the little children, and the little child said to the old man, who, quite unable to make sense of it, exclaimed: ‘How is this, how so, how are we to comprehend it!?’—‘Father! Here is more than Elijah, more than your Messiah! Here is the Father Himself! The good Father who has brought us bread, milk and clothing!’
The old man begins to weep; but the little child lays its little head upon My breast, begins to kiss and stroke it, and says after a while: ‘Yes, yes, I hear it; here in this breast beats the true, good Father’s heart! Oh, if only I could kiss it too.’ The old man says: ‘But little child, do not be naughty!’
I say: ‘All of you become so naughty; otherwise you will never come as close to the Father’s heart as this dearest little child!’