The Gospel for Tuesday of the first week of Advent is taken from Luke 10th chapter 21st to the 24th verse. Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. For although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.

Turning to his disciples in private, he said, blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. The image of the childlike being able to receive the message of Jesus is so powerful when you understand means that you have a faith that is not worried about what you’ve thought before. It is wide open to whatever is being presented. The beautiful thing of children is they have nothing to get rid of in order to take something on as a new idea. They are receptive, open, interested, not needing proof.

Just the idea itself moves a child to believe in things that many adults resist. It’s a great gift. We must work on being childlike and radically receptive to everything that Jesus teaches. Satan. Satan. Satan.

Closing PRAYER Father, we struggle with new ideas, new ways of seeing. We are caught so often in what we’ve learned in the past or how we’ve been trained to see things. Free us from all of that and give us childlike enthusiasm and imagination. These are the gifts we need to know the Father and to know the Son. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.