Matthew Mac DonaldTheology of

RecapitulationFr. Joseph Koterski,

S.J.May 7, 2013

Becoming “Like a Child” in Christ: The Theology of Recapitulation and Spiritual Childhood

In speaking about human salvation in the Gospels, Jesus

states, “Truly, I say to you unless you turn and become like

children you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Mt 18:3)1

Jesus would also state later to his Apostles “Let the children

come to me, and do not hinder them for to such belongs the

kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 19:14; Mk 10:14) What Jesus implies by

these statements is that becoming “child-like” is central to

obtaining the everlasting life of heaven and that this call to

spiritual childhood is a central vocation to the life of every

Christian. Yet what exactly does this becoming like a child mean?

Does this notion of Our Lord imply that one remain a child

forever in the natural sense? To answer this question and thus

understand this central spiritual and theological tenant to human1 All scripture citations shall be taken from the Revised Standard Version –

Catholic Edition unless otherwise stated.

salvation that Jesus is speaking about properly, one needs to see

the link between a theology of spiritual childhood and the

theology of recapitulation. Paul Quay lays out a clear picture of

a theology of recapitulation and its link to a theology of

spiritual childhood for us in his work The Mystery Hidden For Ages in

God. Here he states in defining what is recapitulation that God

intends through the power of His grace, each Christian “relive in

Christ, during the first portion of his life, all that He led his

people through from the fall of Adam to Christ’s death and

resurrection.”2 When an individual Christian does this, he is

then able thereafter to live as a son or daughter of the Father

in Christ in the full freedom of the Holy Spirit, thus giving God

glory in the Church and making him known to all humanity through

the power of the Holy Spirit.3 One can see that what is central

to the living of the theology of recapitulation is a

developmental spiritual childhood, in which one is gradually

conformed, perfected, and united to the inner Trinitarian life

through Christ in faith. This faith is received in baptism and

2 Paul M. Quay, The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God (New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, 2002) 7.

3 Quay, The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, 7.

2

the various stages of developmental spiritual childhood unfold

over the lifetime of an individual Christian. One can see the

different dimensions of developmental spiritual childhood within

the theology of recapitulation of Quay by looking at his theology

of original sin and how Christ fulfills and perfects the life of

Israel in His own life.

An important factor that this theory of developmental

spiritual childhood in Quay’s theory of recapitulation rests upon

is the ordering of divine love in the subsistent relations

between the persons of the Trinity. Within this relationship, the

Father gives the entirety of His divine nature to the Son in such

a way that “the Son is identically what the Father is, but not

who the Father is.”4 This act of giving to the Son by the Father

is then an act of total love for it is an act of pure, total

self-gift. The Son, in His divinity from all Eternity as well as

in time through His humanity, then chooses to receive in love

“all that He is without changing or altering it in any way.”5 It

is in this way that Jesus Christ is truly the Son of the Father

and is worthy of all the Father gives him because “he does not 4 Ibid., 27.5 Ibid., 29.

3

have or seek to have in or of Himself any independent root of

being, neither independence of origin nor diversity of

attribute.”6 It is then from the mutual giving of the Father in

love to the Son all that He is and the mutual receiving from the

Son all that He is in love from the Father that the glory of God

which is Holy Spirit proceeds. Quay defines the Holy Spirit

within this context as the perception and delight of the Father

of the Son’s exalted divine excellence as equal to His own.7 The

Father the glories in the Sonship of the Son, “in the perfection

of His likeness to the Father, a likeness of simple identity of

essence…and this Glory proceeds from the Father as the very

Breath of His life.”8 It is in this sense that the Holy Spirit

can be said to proceed from the Father through the Son. According

to Quay, this divine love is reflected in man both in the natural

and supernatural orders. This is due to the fact that Adam, the

first man, was created “in-the-Image” of God, who is Jesus Christ

“the soul, complete and undamaged exemplar of man’s natural

being.”9 Adam is also made “in-the-Likeness” of God, representing6 Ibid.7 Quay, The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, 43. 8 Ibid., 44. 9 Ibid., 6.

4

the divine life of grace within Jesus in which He is the Christ

by the Holy Spirit. It is also through this reality in which “he

was made son of the Father and brother to Jesus, living by the

Divine life itself.”10

What Quay’s theology of original sin shows us is how the

image and likeness of God is distorted within us in natural,

supernatural, and psychic levels. At the heart of original sin is

the temptation to pride a desire to be self-sufficient and

independent from the love of God. (cf. Gen 3:1-24)11 Original sin

is a reality for every human person at the moment of conception

and it brings about both a lack of charity through sanctifying

grace. It also distorts the image of God within man without fully

destroying it in that he now lives like an animal, living on pure

instinct rather than on the love and the example of the life of

Christ that his nature is designed to live within through grace.

12 This state then closes him off from God, his fellow human

beings and the rest of the world around Him. Quay describes these

10 Ibid. 11 Vernon Johnson, Spiritual Childhood: The Spirituality of Saint Therese of Lisieux, (San

Francisco, CA, Ignatius Press, 2001) 149-150. 12 Ibid., 122-124; Catechism of the Catholic Church, (New York, NY: Doubleday,

1997) n. 705, 953. This will be abbreviated hereafter as CCC.

5

psychic effects of original sin as causing the child to govern

his life solely by his own needs, desire and emotions, seeking

his own individual satisfaction like an animal would do so,

rather than by a life of divine charity through grace.13 This

then upends the psychic structure intended within his nature to

support the living out of the Great Commandment, disposing the

child “to love God inasmuch as it is [sic] good for himself…for

his own happiness, not to love himself as beloved by God and made

for Him.”14 It is in this sense that original sin can lead us to

living lives that are “childish,” living for ourselves in a

spiritually infantile state that shuts us off from God and the

world around us. (cf. Heb 5:12-13; 1 Cor 14:20)15 Original sin

then deprives us of communion with God through grace and makes us

incapable of eternal life, bringing upon us corporeal and

spiritual death through which we become enslaved to sin and the

power of the devil. Adam has passed down the reality of human sin

to our age through human generation and this plagues our very

nature as human persons.16 13 Quay, The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, 123.14 Ibid., 124.15 Ibid., 221. 16 Ibid., 133-134, 139; CCC, n. 1472.

6

We are freed from the spiritual effects of original sin

through the sacrament of Baptism, which gives us a participation

in his passion, death and resurrection. It is through this that

our identity as spiritual sons and daughters of the father are

restored, and the divine life of the Holy Spirit through charity

is rekindled within us.17 It is in this sense that one can say

that baptism along with confirmation, enable us to be born again

so that we may again have access to the Kingdom of God through

our adopted spiritual childhood in Christ. (Jn 3:5)18 Quay, in the

following, describes how our baptismal innocence is restored to

us and how it relates to spiritual childhood:

For, those who have been baptized (or otherwise given the life of grace) and who have committed as yet no actual sins are truly innocent, with an innocence deeper and stronger than any we are drawn naturally to perceive in a baby. Nothing deserving condemnation remains in the baptized; and the psychic wounds that original sin inflicted have had little time to develop in an infant. The baptismal innocence of the little child is, indeed, a marvelous representation of what the Christian must become.19

Quay’s insight into baptism here implies two things: (1) That the

sacrament of baptism truly restores the human person to the 17 CCC, n. 1997.18 Quay, The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, 99. 19 Quay, The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, 140.

7

original spiritual childlike innocence that is the likeness of

God, or the life of the Holy Spirit; and (2) that this innocence

can still be lost despite what the restorative graces of baptism

achieve in a person’s life. This is because some of the effects

of original sin are still present in human nature through

concupiscence, a derangement of the psyche, which includes the

mere “spontaneous activity of the will that inclines us to moral

evil.”20

The effects of baptism over sin are fully achieved through

maturing in a life of faith. This is symbolized in passage of the

Israelites out of slavery through the waters of the Red Sea to

the Promised Land as told in the Book of Exodus. Thus baptism

only makes us begin to live the life in Christ as an adopted son

or daughter of the Father and to grow through the recapitulative

process. 21 Quay notes that the completion of this process as

represented by the entering of Christian adulthood is only

reached when the following is achieved:

But one can only be thought to have entered into Christian adulthood when he has actually lived what baptism principally symbolizes, i.e., when he has

20 Ibid., 135-136. 21 Ibid., 231-232.

8

endured an equivalent of death, has become crucified tothe world and to whom the world is crucified (Gal 6:14), and has, nonetheless, been granted continued life on this earth…Baptism both symbolizes and gives the power to live through the paschal mystery; it is not itself equivalent to this living through.22

What Quay is driving at is that recapitulation is a lifelong

process of man cooperating with grace and living out the identity

we have been given in Christ through the Spirit in baptism. In

light of this insight, he highlights the point that we can still

squander or distort the graces we received baptism, leading us to

regress into a spiritual “childishness” and even everlasting

death. This is where there is a necessary link to a theology of

recapitulation that is activated through a serious, day to day

living out of the faith in love. Quay reminds us of this reality

again when he states that throughout the ages, the Church has

always admired “those saints who, though they sinned, never

sinned gravely and never lost the grace of their baptism.”23 This

shows that an authentic spiritual childhood is continuing to

maintain and mature in that humility and authentic holiness in

22 Ibid., 232. 23 Quay, The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, 140.

9

which one truly becomes and remains a son or a daughter of the

Father in Christ through grace.

A second aspect that Quay uses to explain the link between

recapitulation in Christ and developmental spiritual childhood is

in the way Jesus fulfills God’s promises to Israel and perfects

her life in His own life. It is in this that one can see the

practical aspects of how the individual Christian grows within a

developmental spiritual childhood through cooperation in the life

of grace and gains the full maturity of faith. This can be

clearly seen in how Jesus fulfills and perfects the stages of

Israel’s spiritual infancy and adolescence in his own life. In

his typological analysis of the Old Testament, Quay delineates

the period that is covered in Gen 4-11 as the pre-patriarchal

period, which delineates the spiritual infancy of the human race

through which he examines in light of psycho-spiritual

development. It is during this period of time that “man could not

write, when no history was possible, was like the life of the

newborn infant given over wholly to the effort to live and grow

and learn the most basic features of the strange world around

10

him.”24 Quay notes also that during this period man is slowly

making his way back to God after the onset of original sin and

could not act on his own at all. Any spiritual life is only

inherent in him as a life-principle that is not yet made fully

active, and during this infantile stage he seems “wholly unaware

of God and is psychologically structured so as to be ready to

reject him.”25

The incident of Cain and Abel (Gen 4) represents an ongoing

development as acquiring enough reflex awareness to be likened to

a small child in which he is able to remember, express and

converse with others about his experiences.26 The murdering of

Abel by Cain represents the development of original sin brought

about by the actions of Adam and Eve. Cain’s actions do not just

represent a mere sibling rivalry, but “a sin of petulant and

infantile hatred springing up against his brother simply because

the latter was more acceptable to God than he.”27 Cain had no

sense of God’s gratuity but rather relied on his own inner value

and “could no longer see himself as worthy of any love, since it 24 Ibid., 204; 25 Quay, The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, 205. 26 Ibid.27 Ibid., 206.

11

was God was rejecting his sacrifices,” and thus he would sulk at

God’s punishment rather than accept it in love.28 Jesus perfects

this stage of Israel’s history by his Focus on his relationship

with God the Father and trusting in His love. This profound

loving relationship between Him and His Father can be seen in His

instruction to his disciples on how to pray. (cf. Lk 11:1-13)

This relationship made Jesus generous with God and grateful,

trusting and at ease at who the Father made him to be as well as

with the various people and environments that he came across.29

Quay also views the story of Noah during this time period as

corresponding to when a child comes to his first spiritual

contacts with other people and with God. This encounter also

awakens the child to his first clear moment of understanding of

morality as being binding upon all humanity. Moral principles are

then viewed at this stage in basic black and white terms, in

which the good are rewarded and the wicked are wiped out as

represented by those destroyed by the flood. This awareness is

also encapsulated in the primary principle of the Noachic

covenant: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood28 Ibid., 207. 29 Ibid., 255; Vernon Johnson, Spiritual Childhood, 105.

12

shall be shed” (Gen 9:6). This views destruction of the dignity

of the human person who is created in God’s image and likeness as

a sacrilege.30 In each of these episodes, a common theme that is

seen is that of doing something deeply shameful, from which

people think they are unworthy of love but wrongly think they can

no longer be loved by anyone who know of their wrong doing, thus

resulting in an inner annihilation and isolation from others.31

Jesus perfects this stage in his own life through his

identification with his earthly father, Saint Joseph, in which he

learns what it means to be an authentic man of God. This was

enabled both through the grace of God and through a sound

relationship that Saint Joseph had with Mary.32

The Patriarchs, starting with God’s covenant with Abraham

(Gen 15), mark off the second period of development. It is within

this period that one sees God freely choosing one man who is

ready to enter a special relationship with Him and grow under the

actions of his grace at a much faster pace than those around

him.33 Abraham at this stage represents one who has a basic but 30 Quay, The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, 211. 31 Ibid., 213. 32 Ibid., 256.33 Ibid., 216-217.

13

imperfect view of morality. He also has a childlike and

unquestioning faith towards God to the point where recognizes

God’s uniqueness that he takes for granted what the beliefs of

others, saying what he says and doing what he does without

virtuous refinement.34 As Jesus reached this level in his own

life, His knowledge of God the Father and His own mission not

only involved his natural, human and emotional development but

also and intellectual response and feelings to felt grace. This

development would occurred within Jesus as He grew and it would

engage His freedom in such a way that it would reach its proper

natural potentialities and capacities in cooperating with grace

of His own inner Trinitarian life. 35

The third stage of spiritual adolescence within

developmental spiritual childhood can be seen in the Mosaic

Covenant. Quay notes that after going out from Egypt and the

passing through the Red Sea, the people of Israel are led by

Moses to meet the Lord at Mount Sinai. At this point they receive

the Covenant in which they realize that they are to serve and

34 Ibid., 217-219; Reginald Garrigou Lagrange, Three Ages of the Interior Life: A Prelude to Eternal Life, Volume II, (Rockford, IL: TAN Books & Publishers, 1989) 433.

35 Quay, The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, 257.

14

worship the Lord alone and this worship includes morally right

behavior as well as obedience.36 The people of Israel also have a

new sense of sin, which they now view as an affront to the

overpowering holiness, and goodness of the Lord. Sins such as

idolatry are viewed now as within the context of sexual

infidelity, such as the worshipping of the golden calf (Ex 32:1-

29) or the worshipping of Baal of Peor (Num 23:1-9). Such sins of

apostasy through idolatry if directly willed are now punished

through spiritual death.37

Quay notes that Israel, like the adolescent at this stage,

is preoccupied with play and struggles to take its own sexual

identity seriously within its proper light and this is seen with

its tendencies toward self abuse, partying and boisterous

inclinations.38 There is a sense of identity here but the

adolescent realizes that there must be an attempt to go beyond

themselves and integrate properly with the world around them. Yet

this leads to a struggle with inner rebellion through following

such inclinations as well as a sense to properly assimilate the

36 Ibid., 233. 37 Ibid., 234. 38 Ibid., 234-235.

15

moral law internally so it does not lead to legalism or

scrupulosity.39 Quay notes that Jesus perfects this stage of the

life of Israel when Joseph and Mary conversing with the scribes

and teachers find him within the temple (Lk 2:41-52). At this

point, the Gospel of Luke notes how even though Jesus was still a

boy at this point he was embracing and living out the

responsibilities that the Law had placed upon adult Jews. This is

also emphasized where Luke states that as Jesus grew, He was

“strong,” and increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor

with God and man.” (Lk 2:40, 52)40 Quay notes that this implies

that Jesus spoke with God as a Son speaks to His Father at all

times, implying that He “listened to His Father speaking,

learning what was desired of Him moment by moment.”41 This is

also brought to light in him saying to Joseph and Mary, "How is

it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my

Father's house?" after they spent three days looking for Him (cf.

Lk 2:49). Jesus’ unwavering, loving obedience and abandonment the

Father’s will was the motivation that drove everything that He 39 Ibid., 235, 237; Reginald Garrigou Lagrange, Three Ages of the Interior Life,

Volume II, 434. 40 Quay, The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, 258. 41 Ibid., 259.

16

did in His life. He would obediently embrace the plans of the

divine will for us “even unto death, death on the cross” (cf.

Phil 2:8). 42 Jesus, in His own person, exemplified the perfect

giving, receiving and glorifying the Divine will that is at the

heart of His divine nature, which perfected and vivified His own

human nature.

In reflecting further on the meaning of Spiritual Childhood,

Quay notes, “through God’s free gift, the Children of Israel grew

and developed spiritually more rapidly and fully than any other

people,” with the apex of this growth to adulthood taking place

in the post-exilic period.43 Yet a strange reversal takes place

with the dispensation of the New Law under Jesus when He states

“unless you turn and become like children you will never enter

the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Mt 18:3) Quay notes that this implies

that now “Christians must mature enough to become as little

children.”44 This reality implies the universal fact common to

all childhood that we still have to grow and mature spiritually

in Christ, allowing Him to perfect and develop within our lives 42 Ibid., 259-260; Reginald Garrigou Lagrange, Three Ages of the Interior Life,

Volume II, 435-437. 43 Ibid., 222. 44 Quay, The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, 222.

17

the graces of our baptism. This awareness of the spiritual

childhood that is common to all Christians then implies that as

we recapitulate in Christ, we grow towards adulthood, maintaining

our baptismal innocence against the malice of the sins of this

world and growing in likeness to Jesus as the exemplar of life in

the Holy Spirit.45 Laboring for Christ in the world, they realize

that without Him they can do nothing (cf. Jn 15:5) and as they

grow amidst their work they become more fully united to the one

“who can address the Father as ‘Abba,’ much as a child addresses

his father.”46 This imitation and union with Christ through the

power of the Holy Spirit allows the Christian faithful to be

truly called “children of the light” (Eph 5:8), “children of God”

(Phil 2:15). This reasoning also is behind Saint Paul’s urging

the early Christians in Ephesus to mature in the faith unto “the

measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13)

while also urging them to “be imitators of God as beloved

Children” (Eph 5:1).47 It is in this sense that one in baptism is

truly born anew through water and the spirit and that one has 45 Ibid, 223. 46 Ibid.; Reginald Garrigou Lagrange, Three Ages of the Interior Life, Volume II,

438-439.47 Quay, The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, 222, 224.

18

access to the Kingdom of God through Christ. (cf. Jn 3:3,5)

According to Quay, this is the origin of authentic

developmental spiritual childhood that one embraces at baptism

through the life of faith. Yet it is not until one personally

shares in Christ’s paschal mystery in the events of one’s own

life that one reaches the perfection of spiritual childhood in

authentic Christian adulthood.48 Thus it is when one embraces the

daily crosses of every day life that one truly becomes like a

child of God and brought to maturity in this identity through the

Son. It is ultimately in persevering in living out this identity

through grace that Christians shall experience the Beatific

vision of Heaven, and at last achieve the divine embrace of the

Blessed Trinity that Jesus our Lord, Savior and older brother

wishes to give all of us.

48 Ibid., 225.

19

Bibliography:

Catechism of the Catholic Church. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1997.

Garrigou Lagrange, Reginald. Three Ages of the Interior Life, Vol. II. Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, 1989.

20

Johnson, Vernon. Spiritual Childhood: The Spirituality of Saint Therese of Lisieux. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2001.

Quay, Paul M. The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2002.

21