Today's Gospel

Have the Heart of a Child

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where each day we listen to the gospel, allow the Holy Spirit to guide us to a word or a phrase or an idea that he can use to anchor our days, the activity of our everyday in the gospel. Today's reading comes from the Gospel of Mark chapter 10 verses 13 through 16. "And they were bringing children to Him, that He might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, He was indignant. And He said to them, Let the children come to me. Do not hinder them. For to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them. What jumps out at you today is the invitation to be childlike, to have a childlike heart, but not to be childish. That's a different thing. But what is the heart of a child and how does a child experience life and experience God and experience the kingdom? One of the things that I think being a father has taught me is that their worlds, they're much smaller than our world.

So if Simon breaks his toy and that's his favorite toy, then like the equivalent for you and me is like if our house burnt down. Like that's how he's experiencing that. And we think, oh, it's just another toy, he's got other toys. What's the big deal? It's just a toy. But for him, it's different, right? Because his perspective is, this is the most important thing in his world? And of course, if you're a house burnt down, you'd probably be in some sort of state. And so we learned to understand children's perspective through this. But how do children receive gifts? Well, sometimes well, sometimes poorly.

But when they're in a sort of a good natural state, they tend to be very it tends to bring great joy to their life, and it tends to bring great gratitude. And so as we think about entering the kingdom of God today, we think about that joy, we think about that gratitude. But the other thing that struck me today in the reading was, do we actually think about entering the kingdom of God? And I'm not sure we do think about it that much, and I'm not sure we talk about it that much. And I think if you ask people like, "Do you want to enter the kingdom of God?" People are like, "Yes, absolutely. Just not now."

And of course, we don't want to think about it until the time comes, but you don't know when the time is coming. And that's also one of the central messages of the gospel. And so today, let's think about what is it like to enter the kingdom of heaven and to stoke our desire for that. Because that is where we're headed. We're pilgrims on a journey. We're just passing through this world. We are just passing through this world. And too often we forget that. Have a great day. And remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.

I hope you're enjoying the Daily Gospel Reflections. So one of the things I love doing, spending this time with you each day. Recently, I released a book called 33 Days to Divine Mercy. If you haven't had a chance to check that out yet, I encourage you to do that today.