Hope in the Love of Children

The psalmist calls out to God for a clean heart to be created within (Psalm 51) in the texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary. The Prophet Ezekiel proclaims a message from God which characterizes some actions of the virtuous person. Fr Pat Brennan comments that Ezekiel addresses a proverb in Israel which is also deal with by Jeremiah (Jer 31:27-30) concerning responsibility for the sins of the father falling on his children. The involvement in Western society of parents with their children is described by Mary Longo as helicopter parenting. It is difficult to separate today the actions of parents and the actions which children may initiate themselves. The truth that God sees our individual lives and does treat us as unique individuals mandates that disciples of Jesus attempt to do the same. The prejudgement of people based on their socio-economic status, culture, religion, race, place of birth, education, wealth and health continues and on the scale of nation to nation conflict presents a deep social threat in our time. Friar Jude Winkler reminds us that there is social sin and social responsibility. When a society is involved in practices which fail to recognize the love and uniqueness of every person in the eyes of God we have work to do! Pope Francis is taking special steps in Korea now to allow us to see the great disparity in industrialized societies between those who have more than enough and those who live on the margins. Our societies will know the consequence of failure to see all its members with the innocent trusting openness of the children who Jesus calls for a blessing in the Gospel from Matthew. Keeping our brothers means we need to work for loving treatment of all God’s children.