Gospel of Mark, chapter 10:14

When Jesus in Mark 10:30-37 announced His mission to His followers; namely, to fulfill God’s will by being handed over to suffering and death; you could almost feel the tension in the air. The scene quickly deteriorated into ironic comedy. The disciples not only did not get it; they began to bicker among themselves about who was the greatest in the Lord’s kingdom.

Jesus doesn’t allow his disciples to get away with their misinterpretation and ensuing childishness. Instead, He takes advantage of the situation to teach them that true greatness is coextensive with childlikeness. In contrast to their childishness, Jesus urges His followers to be childlike: to make themselves open and receptive like a child. Jesus rescues His followers from their adult foolishness by offering them the image of the child and by calling upon all who would follow Him to become like little children in spirit.

This was a revolutionary doctrine in Jesus’ day because children had no rights. But, Jesus was driving at something deep within our spiritual psyches; He was pointing out the need to strip away appearances as does the unassuming child, and to open ourselves up to God’s love. “The child,” as the poet Wordsworth remarked, is “the father of the man,” because the innocence of the child can liberate the adult from the burdens of prejudice and sin; from the accumulation of bad habits and bad influences, acquired through compromise with the ‘world.’

Jesus is asking His followers to awaken to the spirit of the child within.

That is why He says: “unless you become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Fr. Hugh Duffy

* * * Don’t miss tomorrow’s blog on Eucharist  * * *