Children in our midst

Saturday, August 19, 2017 19th Week in Ordinary Time 1st Reading: Jos 24:14-29 Gospel: Matthew 19:13-15

Little children were brought to Jesus that he might lay his hands on them with a prayer. But the disciples scolded those who brought them. Jesus then said, “Let them be! Do not stop the children from coming to me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to people such as these.” So Jesus laid his hands on them and went his way.

D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)

This is a generation that has minimal regard for children’s sensitivities. Advertising spills the beans. Years ago a fast-food restaurant was promoting a kiddie school bag spelled as “school bagg”. To most children what adults print is correct. Was it for art’s sake that they intentionally misspelled “bag”? Art is supposed to be formative more than destructive. While it is true that we must suffer a little destruction rather than lose so much art, what is big to children cannot be dismissed by adults as insignificant.

Let’s get to the bigger picture. Gone are the child-friendly ads in the likes of “Go, Grow and Glow!” What are in those billboards lining up our streets? They show little clues of adult sensitivity to possible adverse impact on children. Yes, times have changed and may have revised the definition of obscenity. In the past, peoples’ imaginations would already grow wild seeing models dressed above the knee. Today, these models are hardly dressed at all, and adults presume that, like them, children are not affected by what they see.

The same comes closer to home in the area of family life. Children are God’s ways of saying he is happy working with humans as procreators. But humans have grown tired of working with God in procreating their own kind. “Children are God’s way of saying He is not tired of humanity”. But humanity has long gotten tired of its own children. Sex without responsibility is becoming the order of the day. Good we still have many children in the Philippines. Some European governments with graying population are dangling incentives to couples to encourage them to procreate. There are very few takers, and we understand why. Once having few children becomes a mentality, no incentives can shift it overnight.

Let’s avert the paradigm change. Many couples may have made the “big switch” by limiting their children to one or two even if they are physically, financially and morally capable of raising more. The most that we can do is love the few we still have. Let’s create an environment for them to GO, GROW and GLOW. After all they are God’s heirs – heirs to the kingdom. –(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM