Friends, in today’s Gospel, we see Jesus praying to his Father. We are being given a share in the inner life of God, the conversation between the first two Trinitarian persons. 

And what are the “things” that have been concealed from the learned and revealed to the little ones? Nothing other than the mystery of the inner life of God.

Now why, precisely, is this knowledge concealed from the learned and disclosed to children? The clue is in the next statement: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father.” What is the essence of the divine life? It is a play of giving and receiving.

The Father, forgetting himself, gives rise to the Son, and the Son, refusing to cling to himself, receives from the Father. The Holy Spirit is this mutual sharing of the Father and the Son. God’s own inner life is a looking toward the other in love.

From Adam and Eve to today, the fundamental human problem is that we seek something other than God. We seek to fill up the ego with stuff, such as sex, pleasure, power, honor. But this will never work, because we’ve been wired for God, and God is love.