GOD’S WORD FOR THE DAY (based on Catholic Liturgical Readings)
DATE: 13TH AUGUST 2016
SATURDAY OF THE 19TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
1ST READING: Ezekiel 18:1-10, 13, 30-32
PSALM: Psalm 51:12-15, 18-19
GOSPEL: Matthew 19:13-15
THEME: CHILDLIKENESS
An unknown author once wrote, “You will find more happiness growing down than up”. Often in our quest to grow up, we lose our “childlike-heart” – that part of ourselves that is docile and ready to learn. Particularly, as we climb the academic ladder and institutions begin to honour us with academic laurels, we tend to think that we have it all and have arrived at the apex of knowledge, and therefore no roadside carpenter can teach us anything.
Well, in today’s Gospel text, Jesus (a son of a carpenter) reminds us of the value of childlikeness. Observing that his disciples were scolding those seeking to bring little children to him, he remarked, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs” (Mt 19:14).
One fundamental disposition of little children is that they are teachable; they are ready to explore. They know they do not have it all and are willing to learn something new.
We often struggle with simple truths that lead to the Kingdom of God because we allow our adulthood to rob us of our childlikeness. What appears as a mystery for many of us “adults in faith” is no headache for those who are adults but “childlike in faith”.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the university of California once said, “There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”
Jesus does not ask us to become childish. No, we need to grow but in doing so, we should not lose our childlikeness.
Prayer: “O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time on and forevermore” (Ps. 131).
Andrews Obeng, svd
DIVINE WORD MISSIONARIES
BIBLICAL PASTORAL MINISTRY
(Ghana Province)