The Little Ones
Tuesday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time C-2
Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 74 (73): 20, 19, 22, 23 Look to your covenant, O Lord, and forget not the life of your poor ones for ever. Arise, O God, and defend your cause, and forget not the cries of those who seek you.
Collect Almighty ever‑living God, whom, taught by the Holy Spirit, we dare to call our Father, bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters, that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which you have promised. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Scripture today: Ezechiel 2:8-3:4; Psalm 118; Matthew 18:1-5, 10, 12-14.
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety‑nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety‑nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost. (Matthew 18:1-5, 10, 12-14)
The Little Ones Let us imagine that I am travelling in an air-liner. I am seated in the aircraft, and of course with me are travelling various classes of persons. I notice ahead there is seated a prominent politician with his parliamentary assistant. Immediately my gaze lingers on that person – this is because he is well-known, popular, a good man and is likeable. As the plane begins to descend and before the instruction is announced to fasten seat-belts, he stands up at the front and turns to all, merely to be viewed. This helps his electoral appeal, and is obviously deemed by all to be acceptable. Many appreciate this opportunity to see him, and several would have been happy to meet him briefly. Perhaps on some other occasion I have not just seen but briefly met a person of similar status in society, and I always remember the occasion, partly because I have felt honoured by that meeting with him. But observe this: I took very little notice of anyone else in that aircraft. I especially did not bother to linger on the thought of one or two in that plane who were obviously not of much account in the eyes of others, let alone of society in general. They dressed very poorly. They gave the impression of being a bit helpless and incompetent. One or two might have seemed a little hopeless, even though they were enjoying the luxury of traveling by air. In all this, I was perceiving persons in a certain way, noticing but certain things about them, and interpreting what I saw in but certain ways and according to certain values. Now, in viewing persons thus, I may have been very much mistaken in allowing myself spontaneously to rate that politician highly and ignore the person of no prominence. Let this example introduce us to the obvious fact that there are various ways of viewing and judging persons and things. Indeed, one of the very striking things about mankind and human societies is the range of radically different and opposing judgments on all sorts of things. One person will notice one aspect of something, another a different aspect, and then each will interpret what is noticed according to different criteria, values, expectations and ethos. We take all this for granted – because it is so common and normal. But reality is objective and is not a just subjective construct, and man has the power to judge what is objectively the case. The very fact of so much variety of view and disagreement ought give us pause as we think of how we tend to view persons. Let this be the object of our reflection, because Christ has something to say on it.
What is my point here? In that aircraft, I was looking at persons according as the world in general might be expected to view them. But is this the truly objective way to look at things? As already said, I may have been very much mistaken. The real question is, How does God the Creator of heaven and earth look at things? How does he look at those persons in the aircraft among whom I was traveling? Is not that the properly objective way to look on persons, and indeed everything? Now, to know how God looks on things we must turn to his beloved Son, for God the Father said on the Mountain during the Transfiguration, Listen to him! If there is one thing which is clear in the words and teaching of Jesus Christ, it is that for God the most important object of our attention should be the unnoticed person, the one who is on the margins of the world’s attention, the one who is straying from the best pastures, the one who is, in a word, poor. It is the poor whom we must especially notice – and of course we must recognize that the rich person can be poor too in the real treasures of life. But it is the afflicted one whom God is especially concerned for, and we as his children must strive to be like him in this. The striking thing about God as he has revealed himself to be is that he is full of mercy, having a special attention for the least. Indeed, Jesus who is the Teacher of mankind has said that he regards the least person as his brother and will regard what we do to the least (of his brothers) as having been done to him. Jesus Christ, of course, being God is the greatest of the Prophets of Holy Scripture. He is the one Moses said would come and to whom we should listen. One of the many distinctive features of his prophetical teaching is his teaching about the Judgment on all and the Hereafter. He tells us that he will be the Judge. At the end he will come in glory and all the nations will be assembled before him. He will separate the sheep from the goats and then judgment on all will be given with definitive results. He will say to the wicked that he was hungry and in need, and they did nothing about it. How was this? “Whatever you did to the least of these brothers of mine, you did to me”. They will then be punished for neglecting to serve him in the least of his brothers. So that is how we ought look on those we see about us. We must discard a worldly way of seeing things, and look on everything with the mind of Jesus Christ.
This is surely one aspect of our Lord’s teaching in the Gospel of today. See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety‑nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety‑nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost (Matthew 18:1-5, 10, 12-14). Let us learn to notice and be especially concerned for the “little ones”, for the one who “wanders away”, and for “any of these little ones” who gets “lost”. Thus shall we be like Christ, our Brother and our God.
(E. J. Tyler)
---------------------
Comments