Believing, Belonging and Becoming through Christ

22/09/2024 Year B Mass Book Page 135

Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 Year B

During the days of Jesus, children were considered second-class citizens, along with tax collectors and sinners. Children were considered unproductive and burdensome. For Jesus to receive a child was somehow to lower himself in the world’s eyes and to be considered foolish because of it.

That attitude persists to our day. In conflicts around the world, children have become frontline targets, used as human shields, killed, maimed and recruited to fight, raped, abducted, enslaved and forced into marriage in many countries across the world. We need to pray strongly for this crime to STOP.

Jesus received children, mistreated throughout history, and when the disciples began to bicker and argue about who was the greatest, he set a child before them, saying, “Whoever receives one such child receives me and the one who sent me.” If we want to receive the kingdom, we must receive our king. This king is not received by showiness and circumstance, but by humility and servitude; he is received by those who are willing to receive a child the way he did.

That lesson is best taught by one who doesn’t scheme yet: a small child. Children don’t edit themselves; they don’t calculate, they just tell it as it is. A child can teach us to play, to undo the schemes of our ego. To receive a child is to receive a vision of the way the world is meant to be.

Through Jesus’ powerful words we are all invited to learn child-like attitudes we may have forgotten wonder, faith, simplicity and trust