Embracing the Truth Like a Child
May 25th Readings Reflection: Saturday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s Gospel contains the well-known passage, “Let the children come to [M]e; do not prevent them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.”
St. Bede the Venerable is a 7th century English monk whose feast the Church celebrates today. In his writings, St. Bede wrote about today’s Gospel passage and the lessons that we the faithful should learn from it:
[I]f ye have not innocence and purity of mind like that of children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. Or else, we are ordered to receive the kingdom of God, that is, the doctrine of the Gospel, as a little child, because as a child, when he is taught, does not contradict his teachers, nor put together reasonings and words against them, but receives with faith what they teach, and obeys them with awe, so we also are to receive the word of the Lord with simple obedience, and without any gainsaying…. Having embraced the children, [Jesus] also blessed them, implying that the lowly in spirit are worthy of His blessing, grace and love.
St. Bede’s words are beautiful and powerful. Little children have the humility and docility to accept what they are taught. They do not seek to contradict those who teach them but instead simply accept their instruction. This childlike simplicity and humility is what Jesus calls us to in today’s Gospel. We must strive to cultivate the virtues necessary to “accept the Kingdom of God like a child,” as Our Lord said.
This does not mean that we should blindly accept everything we are told. Jesus Himself told us to be discerning, to “[b]eward of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Mt 7:15 DRB). However, Jesus also gave us a method by which we can discern truth from falsehood: “By their fruits you shall know them…. [E]very good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit” (Mt 7:16-17).
A particular instruction or way of life is bad if it yields bad fruit, that is, if its effects lead people farther away from God and His objective truth as taught in Sacred Scripture and the Church’s unchanging Tradition. If, however, a particular instruction or way of life yields good fruit, leading us and others closer to God, if it is in conformity with the objective divine truth as found in Scripture and the Church’s unchanging Tradition, then we must accept it as true.
This is not to say that we will never wrestle with the truth, for Original Sin prevents our intellects from fully understanding God and His infinitely good and just ways. However, as Jesus instructs us in today’s Gospel reading, we must pray for the humility and docility to embrace the truth with the simplicity of a child, knowing that in this truth lies our salvation.
