9 August 2022
Tuesday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Jesus constantly calls us to recalibrate our ways of thinking and acting and to proceed “not as human beings do” but rather “as God does” (Matt 16:23). Today’s Gospel reading (Matt 18:1–5, 10, 12–14) is no exception. Instead of aspiring to be powerful or self-sufficient, like a pagan hero, Jesus urges the disciples to be like little children, dependent in all things upon their heavenly Father. And of course, our Lord himself provides the perfect example of this childlikeness. He is the perfect Son of the Father, who rests in peace even in the midst of storms (Mark 4:37–38), whose food is to do the Father’s will (John 4:34), and who takes his confidence in the Father to the ultimate extreme, going to the utter forsakenness of his death upon the Cross in obedience to the Father. Can we or any child that we know live out such perfect dependence?
In our prayer today, let us meditate on Jesus’ childlikeness in all things, asking the Spirit to give us this attitude of dependence on the Father, so that we might be filled with his peace and his love.