Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Revealing Power

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 10.1.22 | Bishop Robert Barron

[MurphsLaw]

Friends, in today’s Gospel,
Jesus calls his disciples and us “childlike”:
“Although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike.”
How so? Children don’t know how to dissemble,
how to be one way and act another.
“Kids say the darndest things,”
because they don’t know how to hide the truth of their reactions.

In this, they are like stars or flowers or animals,
things that are what they are, unambiguously.
The challenge of the spiritual life is to realize what God wants us to be
and thereby come to the same simplicity and directness in our existence,
to find out what is in line with the deepest grain of our being.

Let me put this another way:
children haven’t yet learned how to look at themselves.
Why can a child immerse himself so eagerly and thoroughly in what he is doing?
Because he can lose himself; because he is not looking at himself,
conscious of the reactions, expectations,
and approval of those around him.
The best moments in life occur when we lose the ego,
lose ourselves in the world, and just are as God wants us to be.

[MurphsLaw]

+++The seventy-two disciples
returned rejoicing and said to Jesus,
“Lord, even the demons are subject
to us because of your name.”
Jesus said, “I have observed Satan
fall like lightning from the sky.
Behold, I have given you the power
‘to tread upon serpents’ and scorpions
and upon the full force of the enemy
and nothing will harm you.
Nevertheless, do not rejoice because
the spirits are subject to you,
but rejoice because your names are
written in heaven.

”At that very moment he 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 who the Son is except
the Father,
and who the Father is except the Son
and anyone to whom the Son wishes
to reveal him.”

Turning to the 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.”+++