Memorial of the Guardian Angels
Jesus' words in today's gospel (Matthew 18:1-5, 10) - "Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children,you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven" - have been on my mind a lot over the past couple years. I think that's partly because I'm a mother of two young children, and partly because I am a catechist for 3-6 year olds here at Immaculate Conception.
I find myself often looking at my kids, wondering: what is it? What is the secret of childhood? What is it that I'm supposed to be more like, Jesus?
I've heard some people say they think it is children's innocence that we are to emulate: the fact that children aren't weighed down with paying bills and worrying about money and jobs and putting food on the table. Others say what we should be emulating about children is their sheer exuberance and joy. We should be finding the meaning and joy in life, they say, just as our kids encounter each moment with joy. I think there's something to this idea; joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit and we Christians are called to cultivate that joy even in spite of illness and death. Easy to say, hard to do. But I'm not sure that it is really a mark of being a child. My children surely have moments of joy, just as I do. But they often also have moments of anxiety and grief. Their anxieties are different than mine, but they are no less real.
I've often heard people trying to figure out the secret, just like I have been doing, but what I see in today's gospel is that the answer is right there in the passage: "Whoever humbles himself like this child...." That is: whoever takes care not to think of themselves as being bigger or more important than they are. Children, quite simply, know that they are small. That's a fact of their existence.
The irony of trying to think about this is that when I was a kid, I wanted to be more like adults. I worried about whether people thought I was grown up. I remember spending so much time desiring to get out of childhood, to be "big" like my parents were so that I could make my own decisions like they did.
It's normal and natural in childhood to want to "be big" but it isn't good always to want to "be big" and be constantly worried about whether you're adult enough. I think that unfortunately, I am often worried about what other people think even today, and even though I am now "big" with my adult problems and worries.
The thing is, worrying about what other people think about you, trying to be bigger than you are, can be stifling to your own ability to follow God's call. I get this sense from reading today's first reading from Job (3:1-3, 11-17, 20-23). Job is not very humble but thinks he knows better than God about both life and death, to the point that he wonders whether it would have been better that he not be born.
Having humility, knowing that you are small and not big, is an important, good part of spiritual life. C.S. Lewis once remarked, "When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
It is the small and humble who have God's blessings, especially in the angel guardians God has watching over them. It is the small and humble who end up doing great things for God because they have been humble (as Mary was). As we observe today's memorial of the guardian angels, let us reflect on ways we may need to be more humble in our own lives.
- Jana M. Bennett