Saturday, March 1, 2014
7th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Jas 5:13-20
Gospel: Mk 10:13–16
People were bringing their little children to him to have him touch them, and the disciples rebuked them for this.
When Jesus noticed it, he was very angry and said, “Let the children come to me and don’t stop them, for the kingdom of God be-longs to such as these. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.” Then he took the children in his arms and laying his hands on them, blessed them.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated
Life Experience)
One important characteristic of children which can help adults grow spiritually is receptivity. Adults need to recover this trait because the older one grows the harder it is for the soul to flourish. This is because the many layers of experience acquired through the years filter new inputs. Since most of these are worldly experiences, they filter out spiritual inputs.
Life experience confirms this. When adults hear nice homilies, for example, they admit being touched but are hardly moved to conversion because their mental screens recognize the homily as appropriate not for themselves but for other people they have pre-judged. One can tear down these filters by reverting to the attitude of receptivity they used to have at childhood. They must become a child again. How? The concept of ‘tabula rasa’ of ancient Rome is instructive.
The Roman ‘tabula rasa’ was a wax tablet used for writing notes which writers would just reheat in order to erase the writings thereon and produce a new blank slate. The concept of ‘tabula rasa’ later found its way to the field of psychology with Aristotle writing about the ‘unscribed tablet’ in his treatise ‘De Anima’. It was further developed in the 11th century by the Islamic philosopher named Avicenna. Philosophers who adhere to the theory of tabula rasa argue that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception.
To become a child again is to revert to this tabula rasa status to the effect that one is open to learn lessons from life no matter how painful. Failing to do so, the mind will always find reasons either to refuse spiritual growth or to hold it until old age. In reverting to the tabula rasa status one needs the humility to challenge his sense of self sufficiency. The resulting friction should provide the sufficient heat that can melt the person’s “wax tablets” of intellectual arrogance and produce a new slate – a fresh tabula rasa. This brings out in him the child to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr. DM. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org.
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