Like a Child!

Saturday, March 1, 2025

Sir 17:1-15; Mk 10: 13-16

Today’s Gospel highlights that only the childlike can expect to enter the Kingdom of God. 

While the spirit of the time was characterized by negligence toward children because of their lack of physical power or legal status, Jesus turned them into a mainstay of his Kingdom proclamation. 

By making children the center of his mission, Jesus offered the corrective in three ways. 

1.In those days when the children were merely treated as objects to be either controlled or trained, Jesus treated them as subjects of the Kingdom. This is why Jesus was indignant toward his disciples who failed to understand either Jesus or the nature of the Kingdom he was preaching about. 

2. The children were marginalized because they had no physical strength or legal protection to assert themselves. However, Jesus saw in their innocence the moral power that superseded any notion of worldly power. For Jesus, the children possessed the very virtues that made anyone superior in God’s Kingdom (Mt 18:3). 

3. Another notable characteristic that Jesus commends in children is their receptivity. Being the powerless, they received everything as a gift. Jesus makes an example out of the little ones, saying that only those who accept the Kingdom as a gift can expect to enter it. Without overly relying on our strengths, we must accept God’s invitation from the attitude of a humble recipient like a child. 

Let us pray that we may inherit a childlike nature to enter into God’s Kingdom. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar