Monday – 26^th Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel – Luke 9:46-50

The Child In All of Us

Every Child Matters PowWow

Life got you down?  Struggling to find enough money to buy the groceries or gas up the car?  Feeling lost or abandoned?  Everywhere you turn, you see sadness or anger?  Overwhelmed by senseless violence in the neighborhood or the insensitivity of people to the plight of the downtrodden?  Getting kicked while you were down and you wonder why bother even getting up?    Feeling like you lack the patience of Job (first reading today)?

Jesus gives us the answer to these questions in today’s Gospel!  Be a child!  Welcome others!  If you want to be the best, you must be the least.  You must accept this child in My name and, if you do, then you have accepted Me.  Stop arguing and treat everyone like you would a child.

The Kateri Center and American Indian Health co-hosted their annual Every Child Matters PowWow yesterday!     While I couldn’t make it, it certainly brought back memories of the event from previous years, especially the PowWow in 2021; it was the first one in almost 2 years that we were able to celebrate after Covid.  An outdoor festival of music, dance and food!  Finally an opportunity to gather together with friends and family to celebrate and to commemorate all those children who lost their lives and their innocence in the tragedy of the residential school system in Canada and in the US!

 In addition to the dancing, the drumming, the regalia and the Indian tacos, I remember we had a guest speaker sharing her horrifying experiences as a child in one of the residential schools, schools that tried to strip every last vestige of dress, language, culture and beliefs from the native children, enforcing the rules with blatant physical and mental abuses.

A very clear counterpoint to those terrible stories was, as always, the presence of all the children playing and dancing (to their own tunes)!  Their sheer exuberance and laughter, their bubbling-over joy as they ran around and played, drew pictures in coloring books and ran over to you with a big smile just to say hi!  You would have to be made of stone not to respond to them with the same child-like joy! 

And isn’t that the message of today’s Gospel?  Jesus realized the intention of their hearts and took a child and placed it by his side and said to them, "Whoever receives this child in my name receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.

Great Spirit, give us the wisdom and grace to see the world with the eyes and heart of a child.  Give us a child-like humility, faith and joy.  And help us to discern the child in all of us.