The gospel for Saturday of the 19th week in Ordinary Time is taken from St. Matthew 19th, chapter 13 to the 15th verse. Children were brought to Jesus that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked them, but Jesus said, let the children come to me and do not prevent them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. He placed his hands on them and he went away. It’s hard to imagine exactly how children were held in the imaginations of those around them.

But what Jesus is using them for is a beautiful, beautiful example of what it means to be in his kingdom. He’s just given them rules and regulations about relationships that are, for some, very harsh and hard. And now he says, you know, children are the best example of who I long for my people to be. They’re open, receptive, filled with wonder, awe, imagination. They can believe stories that they don’t have to figure out how they happen. They’re such a gift and such a model for who we are to become when we work in the kingdom of heaven.

Closing Prayer Father, we can be blinded by our responsibilities, by our obligations, by all the things that preoccupy us. Help us to return often to a childlike state of awe and wonder. It’s easy for us to lose it as we think about the way the world is going. But if we could just be more like children, knowing everything, being cared for us by God, and we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.