How I dread it when I get the Gospel reading for today on a weekday when the school children are in the church for Mass! Many of them have parents who are remarried divorced or living in all sorts of family arrangements. The children listen to the reading and with the simplicity of the young immediately put 2 and 2 together to make 4. Does this mean my mother is committing adultery? Is my father breaking God's law by living with his new girlfriend? For children who are yet to encounter the complexities of life the Word speaks directly to them. They trust implicitly in what the Lord says and listen with open minds. I cannot deal with the issues they raise apart from their parents and the circumstances of their lives. Nevertheless, their attitude remind us why Jesus can say at the end of the passage the Church gives us: "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it" (Mk 10: 14)
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