Christ loves the Childhood that he first took up in both soul and body. Christ loves childhood, the teacher of humility, the rule of innocence, the image of gentleness. Christ loves childhood, to which he directs the characters of older people, to which he brings back old age. Those whom he would raise up to an eternal kingdom he disposes to follow his own example.
So that we may be able to recognize clearly how this wonderful change might be accomplished and by what alteration we might return to the level of childhood, let blessed Paul teach us and say, "Do not be made into children with respect to your senses, but become very little with respect to wickedness." It is not to the amusements of childhood and to our imperfect beginnings that we must return, but we must extract from childhood something fitting for later years....
[Pope Leo I, Sermons, Freeland & Conway, trs., CUA Press (Washington, DC: 1996), p. 161 (Sermon 37.3-4).]
