The Circle and the Square

I recently watched a presentation from a child psychologist about the results of an experiment she performed on children who were just 6 months old. The infants were shown a skit using three shapes: a circle, a square, and a triangle.

First, the circle was depicted trying to climb a hill before sliding back down each time. A square would then appear at the base of the hill to help the circle reach the top. Then, a triangle would appear at the top of the hill to push the circle back down.

After repeating this a number of times, the entire skit would end and the child would be removed from the room. Later on, the psychologist would appear again before the child presenting a square and a triangle on a tray saying, “Go ahead; take one.” Almost all of the children reached, without hesitation, for the square.

We are definitely born with a God-given sense of good and bad, which we apparently associate closely with the difference between helpful and harmful. And yet, that same God entrusts us to parents for the development of that sense, a truth about the design of our humanity so fundamental that the Son of God allowed Himself to be formed into a good and helpful man by parents.

Did you ever wonder if Jesus would have been able to accomplish His mission were it not for the formation He received from his mother and father? Without taking anything away from His being fully divine, is it possible His divinity could have gone to waste (or fallen into the hands of the devil) were it not for the virtues that Our Lady and Saint Joseph sowed into His humanity?

What if Our Lord was not formed into the kind of man who could actually do God’s will unto death? What an incredible (and terrifying) thing to consider. And why would God take such a risk?

In any case, He most certainly did. He sent His Son into the world like that circle, unable to climb Calvary on His own. Instead of self-sufficiency, He chose dependency on his parents to help Him, as the square helped the circle, to ascend that hill.

What an extraordinary privilege given to our Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph. And yet, we share it with them, even now. When Christ gives Himself to us in that little circular Host, He is asking us to care for Him, to nurture Him, and to offer Him our humanity to be of service to His divinity.

The world is full of triangles trying to push our children down the hill of Calvary. Ever since the fall of our first parents it’s been a risk for every child in every generation. But because God redeemed the world by first assuming that risk Himself, I think we should be sure that the restoration of our culture must begin with the family too. +