Dai­ly Reflec­tion
August 17, 2013

The nar­ra­tive in today’s Gospel is fre­quent­ly depict­ed in paint­ings, which evoke emo­tions and thoughts asso­ci­at­ed with inno­cence, nur­tur­ing, and car­ing. We may think of Christ bless­ing inno­cent chil­dren and encour­ag­ing us of being a bless­ing to them. We may think of the King­dom of God promised to those who keep some sort of inno­cence. While such thoughts are appro­pri­ate, they do not high­light oth­er mean­ings and mes­sages implic­it in this nar­ra­tive of Christ pray­ing for chil­dren.

Through­out the Old and the New Tes­ta­ment, ref­er­ences to chil­dren are often times ref­er­ences to those who have no pow­er, who need oth­ers to pro­tect them, and who will not sur­vive unless some­one cares for and nur­tures them. In the Sacred Scrip­tures, chil­dren often stand for the weak, pow­er­less, mar­gin­al­ized and dis­en­fran­chised in soci­ety. In oth­er words, this Gospel nar­ra­tive is not pri­mar­i­ly a sen­ti­men­tal sto­ry about inno­cence but is part of the social teach­ing of Christ. We should not be like the Apos­tles in this Gospel, who did not per­mit the weak and pow­er­less to get clos­er to Christ and receive his bless­ing. Instead, we should facil­i­tate that par­tic­u­lar­ly the mar­gin­al­ized receive Christ’s bless­ing and receive his bless­ing and sup­port through our prayer and social engage­ment. Such an under­stand­ing allows us to con­nect this Gospel sto­ry to the first read­ing. God has lib­er­at­ed Israel from Egypt; he has shown his bless­ings to the under­dog in the Egypt­ian soci­ety. The peo­ple of Israel rec­og­nized that God lib­er­at­ed them and, when asked by Joshua, “decide today whom you will serve,” they answered, say­ing, “far be it from us to for­sake the Lord for the ser­vice of oth­er gods. For it was the Lord, our God, who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, out of a state of slav­ery.” The enslaved Israel was lib­er­at­ed by God. Sim­i­lar­ly, Christ promis­es to the weak, pow­er­less, and mar­gin­al­ized – the chil­dren in the Gospel – lib­er­a­tion from what­ev­er makes their life dif­fi­cult and cum­ber­some. He promis­es them ulti­mate­ly the King­dom of God.

Pope Fran­cis recent­ly applied the mes­sage of today’s read­ings to con­tem­po­rary soci­ety. He said the fol­low­ing dur­ing a vis­it to Brazil: “The mea­sure of the great­ness of a soci­ety is found in the way it treats those most in need.”

Let us pray for the Church to be com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing the weak, sup­port­ing the pow­er­less, and improv­ing the well-being of the mar­gin­al­ized.

Let us pray for our­selves that we rec­og­nize the weak, pow­er­less, and mar­gin­al­ized around us, wel­come them into our lives, and use our prayer, skills, and exper­tise to improve their well-being.