16 July 2014
Wednesday of the 15th Week in Ordinary Time
Yesterday, we saw through St. Bonaventure one example of having a total focus on God. Jesus today provides another with his distinction of the “learned” and the “childlike.” A crude reading would just have Jesus promote ignorance over knowledge. Given the diversity in intellect of Jesus’ followers, though, He seems to be speaking more about a fundamental attitude than any level of knowledge. The difference between the learned and childlike is not what their level of knowledge is, but what their world is.
A small child’s whole world is its parents. Children latch to their parents in new situations, depend on them for everything, and few things are as monumental as the approval or disapproval of the parents. Five year olds can climb into bed on their own, but it is simply better when Mommy or Daddy tuck them in for the night. The learned know better. They are independent. Their world is their own, and they are too sophisticated to depend on another. This is our choice: whether we will make God our whole world, with all the vastness entailed, or continue to dwell in our own worlds, with all the narrowness entailed.