Sirach 5: 1-8; Psalm 1; Mark 9: 41-50
Does Sirach know how unconditional God’s love is? He warns, do not postpone turning back to the Lord. This is not for children, who need discipline, or as Paul writes in Galatians, a tutor so they know what is good and what is bad. God’s unconditional love is good news for us who have a formed conscience. Now Jesus who embodies God’s unconditional love has to warn as well. Notice how the last few days we have had “a child in our midst.” Jesus continues the theme, but with a negative twist. Decades (probably centuries) before there was a priest scandal there was incest. Jesus promises that if we “put a stumbling block, skandlon, before one of these little ones…it would be better for you to be drowned with a millstone around your neck.” He ends this pericope of warning with: “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
Pray for the little ones who have suffered incest from those charged with loving them; for children orphaned by wars we started; for children unwanted and neglected by parents; for very little ones aborted as a convenience; for….. Keep your imagination open as you look all around the world for its children. Pray for those who are starving or thirsting to death anywhere. Can you teach a child to open his/her heart to one of these little ones, a far neighbor?
We give you, Jesus, all the children of the world that you might bless them with your love and kindness. Forgive us our sins against your little ones.