Feast of the Guardian Angels: “Unless you become as little children you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

From the Holy Gospel according to Matthew

Matt 18:1-10
At that time, the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Who thinkest thou is the greater in the kingdom of heaven? And so on.

Homily by St. Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers.
Comm. on Matth. xviii.
Unless ye become as little children, saith the Lord, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven, that is, unless by the uprooting of bodily and mental depravity, we bring our souls to the innocency of childhood. But He giveth the name of children to all such as believe by the hearing of faith. Children follow their father, love their mother, know not how to wish evil to their neighbours, are not careful for earthly riches; they insult not, they hate not, they lie not, they believe what they are told, and take for truth what they hear. Us then it behoveth to return to the simpleness of little children, for when we are well rooted therein, we shall so far bear about in ourselves an image of the sublime simpleness of the Lord Jesus.