The Child in Us

26th Week in Ordinary Time - Saturday (6 October 2018)

Job 38:1,12-21; 40:3-5

Luke 10:17-24

“I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.”

At the beginning of chapter 10 of Luke's gospel Jesus sends his 72 disciples out to all the places where he himself would visit. In today's gospel, we see them returning full of joy and satisfaction. “Lord, even the demons were subject to us in your name.” They discovered that, in his name, they were able to do the same things that Jesus himself did. In reply, Jesus says to them: “I saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” The power of evil is being reversed and this was partly the doing of his disciples working in his name. And he further reassures them: “I give you the power to tread on snakes and scorpions and over the power of the enemy: nothing at all will be able to hurt you.”

“Snakes and scorpions” represent evil powers. Evil has no power over us. Nothing, as Paul says, can separate us from the love of God. The love that God extends to us is not an idea, but a reality that touches us at every moment of every day. God is our Parent, we are His Beloved children. That's why Jesus tells his disciples the real reason why they should be happy. It is not because they have special powers over evil spirits but “because your names are written in heaven.” In other words, their blessedness comes not from what they are able to do but because they have been chosen as the instruments for God to do his work, to make the Kingdom a reality. That is the origin of our blessedness too.

Then follows a beautiful prayer of Jesus to the Father. He thanks the Father because all that is coming into the world through Jesus is being made known not to the wise and great ones of this world but to “the little ones”, the people who, in the eyes of the majority, are of no account. No one really knows the Son except the Father. And no one really knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son reveals the Father.

This is an amazing statement: the Lord of heaven and earth reveals “these things” to “mere children.” Jesus shows a fascination with little children, those who bear the full genius of the human personality, the ones who are able trust readily, who are joyfully prompt and ready for action at all times. But here Jesus is speaking of you and me. It is in ourselves that we can trace God’s kingdom. We all carry within ourselves the little child that Jesus talks about. It is a matter of finding that child in us again and freeing it, of recapturing our original joy and trust.

Try to remember your first religious experience. Was it praying with your mother? Was it at your first Holy Communion? Revive it in your mind and heart. Was it helping someone in need? Was it when you saved your money to help the poor or a missionary in a far-off land? Was it silence experienced as joy and peace? Revive it in your mind and heart. It will connect you to your own spiritual roots. It will help you to drink from your own spiritual well. Write it down to make it a lasting memory.