Like little children

Monday, September 30, 201926th Week in
Ordinary Time
First Reading: Zec 8: 1-8
Gospel Reading:
Luke 9:46-50
One day the disciples were arguing about which of them was the most important. But Jesus knew their thoughts, so he took a little child and stood him by his side. Then he said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me. And listen: the one who is found to be the least among you all, is the one who is the greatest.”
Then John spoke up, “Master, we saw someone who drove out demons by calling upon your name, and we tried to forbid him because he doesn’t follow you with us.” But Jesus said, “Don’t forbid him. He who is not against you is for you.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
What’s in children that attracted Jesus? He even identified himself with them. That was when he said in the gospels that those who welcome children welcome him and the Father who sent him. To understand this special regard Jesus had for children let us take a closer look at their situation then and now.
Children today are the stars in our wide screens, the come-ons in our advertisements and the attractions at our parties and gatherings. Those who maltreat them can go to prison. They can commit crimes without having to worry about imprisonment (Republic Act 9344). What a privilege indeed to be children today.
It was not so in the time of Jesus. Children then were powerless. Like slaves they were accorded no rights and there were no special laws protecting them. This helplessness made their dependence on adults more pronounced. This caught Jesus’ attention because it provided an excellent backdrop of his teaching on openness and dependence upon God.
Are children today still open and dependent? Perhaps they no longer are. Ample protection they are getting from the law is ma-king them less dependent for protection from adults. There is even a brewing reversal nowadays in the sense that children can already threaten adults with legal sanction. Adults who are not familiar with technology are also becoming more dependent on their own children. So, what is left with children that makes them deserving of the same pedestal they were held in the time of Jesus? “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them,” wrote James Baldwin. Even this is doubtful today because children have only themselves as their model due to the widening gap between children and adults. The bottom line is: both children and adults are becoming strangers to their own hea-venly destiny. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.