Parish Catechetical Awareness Week Homily, September 20, 2009

There is an ancient story about a king who “had everything,” as the saying goes: more gold than he could count, an enormous palace, a multitude of servants, and all the rest. Although he possessed all of the creature comforts imaginable in his time the king felt the need for something more fulfilling in his life. As a result, he developed a passionate desire to find God ……

He read books about God, he consulted the great philosophers of his time about God, and he prayed in his gold-trimmed chapel for more enlightenment about God. But always he came up dry, disappointed - - and the search went on.

One night, as he lay on his royal bed of gold, agonizing over his failure to find God, he heard a noise coming from the palace roof. Quickly, he went to his bedroom balcony and shouted, “Who is up on the palace roof? What are you doing up there?” A voice shouted back down, “I am a hermit from the nearby woods in search of my lost goat.” The king shouted back, “You stupid man, what makes you think you’ll find your goat on the palace roof?” To which came the reply, “And what makes Your Royal Highness think you’ll find God while dressed in your fine silk pajamas and laying on your solid- gold bed?”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples how to find God, “If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all. He then took a little child, set him in front of them, put His arms around him, and said to them, ‘Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in My Name, welcomes Me; and anyone who welcomes Me welcomes not Me but the One who sent Me’” (Mk 9:35-37).

It was God’s Will that His love for mankind be revealed to the ultimate degree in and through His Son, Jesus Christ. In obedience to God’s Will, Jesus emptied Himself totally, served Himself up to us on the Cross, gave His life for us, willingly. Jesus on the Cross is God saying to us, “Now do you believe? Now can you see how much I love you?”

Jesus Christ came into the world to personify God — God in Person. And, on the human level, He came into the world to image God. And so it is with you, and with me, and with every other human person born into this world. “Let us make man in our own image,” says the Lord in the Creation Story. And “God created man in the image of Himself,” the story continues, “in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:26,27).

“Try, then, to imitate God, as children of His that He loves,” the Apostle Paul has written (Eph. 5:1).

A mother and father purchased a child’s world globe for their five-year-old son. That evening, in the boy’s bedroom, the father used the globe to take his son on a kind of tour of the world, pointing to continents and oceans and mountain ranges and all the rest. Finally, when it seemed that the child had gone to sleep, the father wanted to tell the boy’s mother what he had been explaining to the child. So he picked up the globe and as he was tip-toeing out of the room, the little boy who wasn’t quite asleep, lifted his head off the pillow and said, “Daddy, what are you going to do with my world?”

Yes, what are we doing for our children’s world? That is the unspoken question of every child to every one of us. Who is Christ, really, for us, and what is He going to do with our world?

We look around and we see the urgent issues that we’re all facing, on all sides — war and peace, economic problems, hunger, poverty, the decline in lasting marriages — and we ask ourselves, “What of our children?” We want to do our utmost to improve the lot of the precious children we bring into this world especially in our church today, but how? What is the key?

The answer, of course, for this Christian Community and for all Christian Communities is Christ. We must allow the Christ Spirit of God to influence and direct our attitude and approach to life and, especially, to the needs and concerns of our children. But How?

Jesus once said, “Let the little children come to Me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs. I tell you solemnly, anyone who does not welcome the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Mk. l0:14-15).
As we celebrate Parish Catechetical Awareness Week, we are all encouraged to reflect on the very words of Jesus, “”Let the little children come to Me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs. I tell you solemnly, anyone who does not welcome the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Mk. l0:14-15).
I would like to ask you my dear parishioners, parents and CCD volunteers, let us help our children know Jesus especially in the Holy Eucharist. Let us introduce God and our Catholic Faith into the hearts and souls of our children. Let us show them the way to heaven. And we can do this if we pray for them and if we support our CCD programs.
A pastor was new to a parish. He walked around to look for the post office to mail his letters. He asked a little boy to show him the way to the post office. The boy gladly gave him direction. Then the priest thanked him and invited him to his Sunday service. He said, “If you come to my Sunday service, I will show you the way to heaven.” But the boy responded, “I don’t believe you, Father, because you do not even know the way to the post office?
Let us show our little children the way to Heaven, let us show them the path to Jesus, let us lead them in their journey to God. Ergo, let us support our CCD/Religious Education Program.
Again please be reminded that Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs. I tell you solemnly, anyone who does not welcome the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Mk. l0:14-15).