Sunday's Bible Commentary

27 OT YEAR B (Mk 10:2-16)
 
A Children-centered World
 
·
- This happens outside the house, Jesus notices the scene.
- the people “kept bringing” their children, and the disciples “kept rebuking” them
- Most of them were probably parents, fathers and mothers
- The disciples ‘threatened’ them, a very harsh rebuke… All three evangelists use the strong verb ἐπιτιμᾶν, “to rebuke,” “to threaten.”
- The disciples proceeded to interfere and probably succeeded until Jesus, looking out, saw what they were doing and stopped them.
 
· they brought their children not out of superstition ‘for a magic touch’. Jesus would have rebuked them for this. No.
- Matthew describes this touching as the laying on of hands, a symbolical act that denotes blessing, and combines it with praying, invoking heavenly, spiritual blessings upon the children.
- the disciples stopped these babes from being brought to Jesus is found in the word of Jesus, which shows that the disciples did not yet realize the relation of babes to the kingdom. They considered his time too valuable to be wasted on infants,
· [REFLECTION: This is not a secondary scene in the Gospels. Something vital happens here. Jesus reveals ‘the entry point’ into the Kingdom. ‘The portal opens up’, a special grace is given, when parents love and bring their children to Jesus.
-·[ ‘Blessing of the children’ = perhaps, as a local church, we should contemplate to bless children on every last Sunday of the month…
 
 
v.14
· 14) But having seen it, Jesus was indignant and said to them: Let the little children be coming to me! Stop hindering them! For of such is the kingdom of God. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child in no way shall enter into it. And having taken them up in his arms, he went on fervently blessing them, having placed his hands upon them.
 
· Jesus appears as the great Advocate of babes who opens his mouth for the dumb, out of whose mouth, by his grace, he perfects praise. It has been well said that without these words of Jesus and his attitude toward infants the Christian Church would have been far different from what it is.
·[ Mohammed committed violent acts in his life. It influenced radicals to use violence as a means to achieve their goals. This act of Jesus, his love towards the children, is the coat of arms of his Mission as Messiah.
· children, and this includes babes (βρέφη), are ready to come to Jesus and need only that men let them do so. And this coming has the same purpose as the coming of any adult to Jesus, namely, to receive from him the Messianic salvation. Their affinity for Jesus lies in their need of him, which is due to their inborn sin.
· REFLECTION: children need the love and presence of Jesus. Consciously, unconsciously… As adults, we need to respect this ‘core’ of their yearning.
- That is why it is important to pray for the work of nurseries, pre-schools…
- I also think, that in our Sunday School, consciously-unconsciously, they meet Jesus… and are marked by His love. It will develop into a full response when they are adults… 
 
Pank writes: “As the flower in the garden stretches toward the light of the sun, so there is in the child a mysterious inclination toward the eternal light. Have you never noticed this mysterious thing, that when you tell the smallest child about God, it never asks with strangeness and wonder: ‘What or who is God? I have never seen him!’—but listens with shining face to the words as if they were soft, loving sounds from the land of home? or when you teach a child to fold its little hands in prayer, that it does this as if it were a matter of course, as if there were opening for it that world of which it has been dreaming with longing and anticipation? or tell them, these little ones, the stories of the Saviour, show them the pictures with scenes and personages of the Bible—how their pure eyes shine, how the little hearts beat!”
 
· If Jewish children, who were already in the covenant and kingdom, needed to be brought to Jesus in order to be blessed by him as the Messiah, how much more should all other children, to whom no grace has as yet been applied, be brought to him! Jesus once for all bans every obstacle which our blind reasoning about babes may raise against their coming to him.
- It sheds a fresh light on the question of baptising children. Jesus’s teaching here fully justifies infant-baptism!
- Jesus goes much farther, he adds his reason (γάρ) for this command: “For of such is the kingdom of God”,  the great class to which children as such belong.
 
· It is their receptivity to which Jesus refers. In them sin has not yet developed so as to produce conscious resistance to the power of divine grace. To be of this kingdom is to have God’s grace
operative in us.
- Jesus reveals here something crucial. We tend to think that adults are the models for faith, that children has to grow into adults, in order to be fully receptive to God’s grace. No! THE CHILD IS THE MODEL!
- This is true despite the fact that children themselves need redemption. It is in vain to deny original and inborn sin, the total depravity of our race, and to call babes “innocent and pure” in the
sense of “sinless.” Yet, they are the model of faith for adults.
- We would think, as adults, instinctively that  think that a babe must receive the kingdom as an
 adult does, but absolutely the reverse is true. The child is the model and not the man. It is the unassuming humility and unquestioning trustfulness of the child that make it the pattern for all adults. This humility and trustfulness, when they are directed to Christ, become the very essence of saving faith.
- REFLECTION: Parents, grandparents, all of us, quietly, could have a different look at their children, and contemplate their own right attitude in order to re-establish their living relationship with God.
 
v.15
· Jesus shows his disciples how “of such is the kingdom of God,” for no one shall enter that kingdom unless he receives it as a little child. The statement is astonishing in every way.
- Matthew adds only that Jesus went on placing his hands on the children, Luke adds nothing, but Mark describes fully. Jesus took them up in his arms. It was not enough for him just to place his hands on them while others carried these babes. He took them in his own arms as his own children—what a highly significant action! Then he put hands upon them, which symbolized the bestowal of his blessing.
· REFLECTION: we can tell our children, how unique and precious they are for Jesus. Mission should start with this loving, positive confirmation.
- As a local Christian community, we should really be challenged by making children’s being loved by Jesus as the blueprint and model of mission. It would ground a very positive mission…
 
·  How can we find of engaging with parents with babes? The children received what the words of Jesus stated, for his words are never a mere wish. No child was left unblessed!

 





I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever, and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.’ Life is something, which we take for granted. Life is such a wonderful gift that it is ok if we have got used to that it is ‘always there’. As in our illustration imaginatively shows, God’s heart, full of the fire of his love, has continuously creating the world. The playful dance of the tongues of fire show this: God, out of love, every moment re-creates our world and keeps it in existence.

The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, however, is a reminder, that this gift is not to be taken for granted. Corpus Christi Sunday invites us to think about ‘God’ as our daily Bread. Just as we have got used to food (somehow there is always something to eat and drink), it is just as easy to take God’s ‘Creation’ and our life to be granted. Have we thought of the fact that ‘bread’ is our most important, and most frequently used word?
John’s Gospel explains why, if we are attentive, God’s Name and Bread are synonymous. We Christians can recognise that it is the same Gift, it is the same source of Life. Ó artos ó gon, ‘The Bread of Life’, that is, the ‘Bread that belongs to the true life’, the Bread that is full of the life it is intended to impart, the Bread which lives and makes everyone alive who partakes of it.

Our painting shows this complex mystery. God wants to share his Life with us. The Holy Trinity ( candles, holy spirit, redeemer-Son) offer the same life that they have for the Earth Community, for the whole of Creation. God has been holding our Earthly home (history), keeping us on his breast, transforming us into his Life. The Cross expresses us the Biblical truth: Jesus is full of Life and the Giver of Life. He ‘has come down from heaven’. This bread is coming down from Heaven. This ‘vision’, as our painting shows, appears from among the gentle clouds which surrounds this Life-Giving Heart, which look like a rich table…
Can we live without eating and receiving this food? Can our faith remain alive? Can our love and compassion be renewed without this daily, weekly sustenance?

When we are eating the Body and Blood of Christ, to eat means to ‘believe in Jesus’. That explains why it is God’s purpose that we eat this Bread, or literally that we believe in his Son.  ‘If anyone shall eat this bread he shall live for ever.’ As our painting shows, God reaches out to everyone and offers this Bread, this faith. But the wording shows that there shall be those who eat. Some will refuse to eat, but many will be moved to eat!

Those who eat this Bread, those who believe, they ‘shall live for ever’. Wow! One act of eating bestows life! So, we can recapitulate today’s gospel expressed in our painting. The Bread lives. Those who believe, who eat this Bread, have life eternal. The wonderful circle of salvation is closed: Jesus, the Life, is the centre. All who are made one with him by faith and the Sacraments, are joined to him and are made full partakers of his life, all what he has, or what he does, of what he himself is.   

The centre of our image is the Cross. Worth noticing, it connects the continents: Jesus’ Cross unites all peoples. ‘And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.’ The Bread of Life, come down from Haven was the Father’s gift… The Incarnation of the Son and his saving mission. ‘and the Bread which I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world’. This is the gift that Jesus presently gives! It is the gift of his flesh and his blood in the sacrifice upon the cross. This is the gift Jesus himself makes, and will make in every Eucharistic celebration.

The ‘body of Christ’ always one with his sacrificial death on the cross. Jesus By giving himself into death Jesus gives himself to us as the Bread of Life. The Bread, the flesh, the act of giving, all together have one purpose: they intend that the world may have the true heavenly life.

Let us go back to our starting point. Today’s feast (with the help of our image and today’s Gospel) encourages us to see the Source. All the life, all the food, we receive, heavenly and earthly Bread, is the gift of Jesus’ saving death and Resurrection. Let us see the person of Jesus, our friend and Redeemer, as if through a window, in every gift of our lives.
 
11.05.2023