Week 07 Saturday (Year 2)

Readings: James 5.13-20; Psalm 141; Mark 10.13-16

Learning to receive is key to any successful human relationship. This seems to be the message of what Jesus has to say about children. He speaks of receiving them and of receiving like they do. They have no claim to power or status to defend or to confuse the purity of their receiving. Creation itself is such a gift if only we could restore in ourselves the wonder of a child's soul and receive it with the same wonder and joy with which Adam received Eve: At last! Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

Would that we could bring the same cry of joy into our relationship with Christ. He is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones. And we can imagine him saying the same thing to us: you are flesh of my flesh and bone of my bones. This is the great grace, the remarkable gift of his coming among us, to be of the same flesh and blood as ourselves. It is a kind of fraternity, even of marriage. And because it is, first and last, a matter of grace or gift, entry into the kingdom he establishes can only be by way of receptivity. This is why it is a kingdom that can only be entered when we become like little children.

For Jesus the children are not unreasonable creatures or objects to be trained, they are persons who receive good things with spontaneity and gratitude, with joy and wonder. By receiving children in the way Jesus did - acknowledging them, respecting them, blessing them - we learn from them how to receive. And so we are made ready for the greater gifts, made ready to join Christ in his kingdom.