WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN?

Saturday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Mt 19:13-15

A number of times I overhear a mother tell her child as I pass by, “Don’t be naughty; Fr. Bob will be get angry at you.” What?!

I am very much saddened by the way some parents or guardians make us, priests, appear like monsters to their children or wards. Many elders often recourse to dropping our names and making our images dreadful when children refuse to obey them. Sometimes it works, other times it does not. But at all times it is totally wrong to do so because priests are supposed to be images of Jesus, not of some monster ready to eat any defiant child alive.

“Let the children come to me,” said Jesus in the Gospel today. He continues to say the same thing to us through our priests. “Do not hinder them,” Jesus ordered His disciples who stood between Him and the children. He still commands us the same today.

So, where are the children?

The blame for their absence, however, falls not only on the elders. We, priests, can be just as guilty as the elders. Perhaps, we have not really become like Jesus to them.