19th Week, Saturday, August 17
Ezekiel 18:1-10, 13, 30-32 / Matthew 19:13-15
God speaks about judgment; "I will judge each by what he has done."
Ancient Jews believed that God rewarded and punished in this life. This created problems because many good people seemed to suffer and many evil people seemed to prosper. Three explanations were offered to explain this.
1. The good suffered because of secret sins.
2. The good suffered because God treated the people of
Israel as one body; thus, the good suffered because they belonged to a guilty
whole.
3. Finally, the good suffered because of the sins of parents
or children.
Today's reading refutes the last two explanations. Each
person will be judged according to his or her own sins, not another's.
***
Do we, at times, blame our suffering on others? "For
when the One Great Scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks-not that you won or lost
But how you played the game.
(Grantland Rice, "Alumnus Football")
***
Introduction
It is true that we often suffer the consequences or enjoy
the benefits of the deeds of others, good or bad, that there is a solidarity in
sin. Yet, Ezekiel points out for us today, that each is personally responsible
for the good or evil one does. And so, he calls the people out of their
fatalistic attitude. As God’s sons and daughters, we should renew ourselves and
personally commit ourselves to all that is good.
Few people today take Jesus’ words seriously when he says:
“To such as these little children the kingdom of heaven belongs.” Many, for
example, discredit the spirituality of the little way of St. Therese of
Lisieux. We speak of adulthood in Christ, of a human and spiritual maturity.
And yet, true adulthood consists in what God wanted us to be in Jesus Christ,
in being receptive to the Gospel. To the disciples, who have no use for
children and who want to cut the Gospel to the measure of their petty ideas,
Jesus holds up the child not as a sign of innocence but as a model of openness
to God and to the Good News of his Son. It is the entrance ticket to the
kingdom.
***
The gospel passage of today is very heart-warming, yet at
the same time, rather perturbing and maybe also disturbing. It was
heart-warming to see that people were bring their little children, and probably
even the infants in their arms, to Jesus for Him to lay His hands on them and
say a prayer. It goes to show that people see Jesus as a holy person, as one
who has the heart of love, and so they ask Him to pray and bless their
children.
What is perturbing and disturbing is that the disciples were
turning them away. Why would the disciples want to turn away such humble and
commendable requests? Well, if anything, the preceding passage was about
marriage and divorce and the difficulties of marriage.
With the discussion of such a serious topic being broken by
such commendable, mundane requests, the disciples thought it was an appropriate
time for such thing. Yet Jesus deemed it important enough to attend to such
requests. And indeed, it was important enough, and just as important as the
topic on marriage and divorce.
Children are the fruits of love of a marriage union, and
certainly the parents would want their child to walk the right path and grow
into a good and God-loving person, and hence, their request for Jesus to bless
their children. But if ever the parents view their children as security for the
future and with other selfish motives, then it would not be likely that they
would ever care about their children's spiritual growth.
So, by all means bless your children, and whenever possible, have them blessed by the priests too. Although the proverb in the 1st reading is ruled out by the Lord Himself (the fathers have eaten unripe grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge), yet another way of looking at it can be this ...
The parents have tasted the sweetness of the Lord's blessing, and may their children continue to taste the sweetness of the Lord.
