Children and Covenant

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to awareness and action to maintain our Covenant that calls us to be attentive to the needs for peace and promise for the least in our society.

Care for Children

The reading from the Book of Sirach praises the Creation of Human Beings.

a. [17:1] Gn 2:7; 3:19.

b. [17:2–4] Gn 1:26–28; Ps 8:4–9. (Sirach, CHAPTER 17 | USCCB, n.d.)

Psalm 103 is a Thanksgiving for God’s Goodness.

* [Psalm 103] The speaker in this hymn begins by praising God for personal benefits (Ps 103:1–5), then moves on to God’s mercy toward all the people (Ps 103:6–18). Even sin cannot destroy that mercy (Ps 103:11–13), for the eternal God is well aware of the people’s human fragility (Ps 103:14–18). The psalmist invites the heavenly beings to join in praise (Ps 103:19–22). (Psalms, PSALM 103 | USCCB, n.d.)

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus Blesses Little Children.

* [10:15] Whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child: i.e., in total dependence upon and obedience to the gospel; cf. Mt 18:3–4. (Mark, CHAPTER 10 | USCCB, n.d.)

Rashmi Fernando comments that Jesus teaches that embracing vulnerability is the key to the Kingdom. To accept the Kingdom of God like a child means to approach our faith with trust, humility, and openness—recognizing our dependence on God and allowing His love to shape our lives. Today, let us ask ourselves:

Who are the "children" in our midst who need our support?

How often do we, knowingly or unknowingly, push away the vulnerable in our communities, dismiss their struggles, silence their voices, or fail to offer the support they need?

How can we be instruments of God's mercy, ensuring that no one is led into sin or despair by neglect or indifference, but let toward hope and belonging in the Kingdom of God? (Fernando, 2025)

Don Schwager quotes “When the reception of grace begins,” by Basil the Great, 329-379 A.D.

"The apostle praised one [Timothy] who had known the holy Scripture from infancy (2 Timothy 3:15). He also instructed that children be reared 'in the discipline and correction of the Lord' (Ephesians 6:4). So we consider every time of life, even the very earliest, suitable for receiving persons into the community of faith."(excerpt from THE LONG RULES 15) (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on Sirach 17:1-15 comments that we belong to heaven—that it is our birthright, an inheritance that our Father longs to see us take hold of.

Today, take some time to reflect on your identity as a child of God. Let him show you how you already reflect his holiness, his beauty, and his glory. Ask him how certain aspects of your personality resemble his character. Let these insights fill you with joy and confidence. You are not just an “ordinary person.” You are a child of God. You have a marvelous destiny. You belong to eternity!

“Father, help me to see our resemblance. Show me who I really am in your eyes.” (Meditation on Sirach 17:1-15, 2025)

Friar Jude Winkler comments on some of the wisdom in the passage from Sirach that presents a proper order of society and the Covenant to avoid evil and serve God. Chapters 8-10 of Mark’s Gospel contain inappropriate responses of the disciples to the actions and words of Jesus. Friar Jude notes the focus of Jesus on the anawim and presents an interpretation of the text that suggests chasing away the children may have been saying they were not good enough to survive.

James Finley offers a practice to help us understand Meister Eckhart’s teaching that we are the image of God. This is a paraphrase of Eckhart: Imagine you’re standing before a full-length mirror, and imagine the image of you is conscious, that it can think.

Eckhart says, “The image owes no allegiances to anything except that of which it is the image.”… There is nothing that has the authority to say what it is except that of which it is the image. And so it is with us, Eckhart says, that we are the image of God. Without God, we are nothing, absolutely nothing. In being the image of God, we owe no allegiances to anything but the Infinite Love in whose image we are made. And the idolatry of diversions of the heart where we wander off into cul-de-sacs with the imagined authority of anything less or other than Infinite Love to name who we are? This is the problem. (Finley, n.d.)

We ponder how the blessing of our relationship with children is a window into the nature of our need to seek transformation by the Spirit to be agents of love and support for the anawim of today.

References

Fernando, R. (2025, March 1). Creighton U. Daily Reflection. Online Ministries. Retrieved March 1, 2025, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/030125.html 

Finley, J. (n.d.). Rhineland Mystics: Weekly Summary. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved March 1, 2025, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/rhineland-mystics-weekly-summary/ 

Mark, CHAPTER 10 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved March 1, 2025, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/10?13 

Meditation on Sirach 17:1-15. (2025, March 1). The Word Among Us. Retrieved March 1, 2025, from https://wau.org/meditations/2025/03/01/1217045/ 

Psalms, PSALM 103 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved March 1, 2025, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/103?13 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). Receive the Kingdom of God like a Child. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 1, 2025, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2025&date=mar1 

Sirach, CHAPTER 17 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved March 1, 2025, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/sirach/17?1 

Trust the Greatest

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to accept the difficult tasks of our journey that open us to experience love and compassion that is the measure of greatness.

Greatest Among us

The reading from the Book of Sirach presents our duties towards God.

* [2:1–11] Serving the Lord is not without its trials (v. 1); but no matter what happens, the genuine believer will remain sincere, steadfast, and faithful (vv. 2–3). Misfortune and humiliation are means of purification to prove one’s worth (vv. 4–5). Ben Sira believed that patience and unwavering trust in God are ultimately rewarded with the benefits of God’s mercy and of lasting joy (vv. 6–11). (Sirach, CHAPTER 2 | USCCB, n.d.)

Psalm 37 is an Exhortation to Patience and Trust.

* [Psalm 37] The Psalm responds to the problem of evil, which the Old Testament often expresses as a question: why do the wicked prosper and the good suffer? The Psalm answers that the situation is only temporary. God will reverse things, rewarding the good and punishing the wicked here on earth. The perspective is concrete and earthbound: people’s very actions place them among the ranks of the good or wicked. Each group or “way” has its own inherent dynamism—eventual frustration for the wicked, eventual reward for the just. The Psalm is an acrostic, i.e., each section begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Each section has its own imagery and logic. (Psalms, PSALM 37 | USCCB, n.d.)

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus again foretells His Death and Resurrection and the disciples ask “Who Is the Greatest?”

* [9:33–37] Mark probably intends this incident and the sayings that follow as commentary on the disciples’ lack of understanding (Mk 9:32). Their role in Jesus’ work is one of service, especially to the poor and lowly. Children were the symbol Jesus used for the anawim, the poor in spirit, the lowly in the Christian community. (Mark, CHAPTER 9 | USCCB, n.d.)

Rev. Martha Slocombe invites us to start noticing how often we are truly listening in a conversation and how often we are simply waiting in a conversation.  

How do you think God listens to us? In Mark 9 Jesus brings a child into his arms, and today God listens to our prayers lovingly and patiently, no matter how childish or whiny or privileged they may be from God's perspective. Jesus shows us what it means to welcome those with the least power. We are called to offer the same welcome to those in our midst whom we deem the least important or powerful: the ones who seemingly have nothing to offer us. So go out this week and use your power to welcome into conversation those whom in the past you would have ignored or brushed off. (Slocombe, 2025)

Don Schwager quotes “Downward roots enable upward growth,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.

"Observe a tree, how it first tends downwards, that it may then shoot forth upwards. It fastens its root low in the ground, that it may send forth its top towards heaven. Is it not from humility that it endeavors to rise? But without humility it will not attain to higher things (Proverbs 18:12). You are wanting to grow up into the air without a root. Such is not growth, but a collapse." (excerpt from THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, SERMON 38.2) (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on Mark 9:30-37 comments that in the kingdom of God, greatness lies not in being noticed or praised but in being a servant.

Service and sacrifice are like any skill; if you want to develop it, you need to practice. So stay up later to put away the dishes or take on an extra responsibility at work without being noticed. Every time you put someone else’s needs ahead of your own, you are setting aside your desire to be great and instead reflecting the greatness of your Savior.

“Lord, give me the grace to desire to be last.” (Meditation on Mark 9:30-37, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments on our sometimes confusion expressed in Sirach as we seek the Wisdom of God. Our trust of God is demonstrated in an attitude of awe and wonder towards the compassion and mercy extended to us. Friar Jude reminds us that serving the child exhorts us to not expect return except in the joy of service.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, and theologian Matthew Fox introduce the life and teachings of German mystic Meister Eckhart.

The inner person is the soil in which God has sown the divine likeness and image and in which God sows the good seed, the roots of all wisdom, all skills, all virtues, all goodness—the seed of the divine nature…. This is the good tree of which our Lord says that it always bears good fruit and never evil fruit. For it desires goodness and is inclined toward goodness…. 

The seed of God is in us. If the seed had a good, wise, and industrious cultivator, it would thrive all the more and grow up to God whose seed it is, and the fruit would be equal to the nature of God. Now, the seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree, a hazel seed into a hazel tree, the seed of God into God…. While this seed may be crowded, hidden away, and never cultivated, it will still never be obliterated. It glows and shines, gives off light, burns, and is unceasingly inclined toward God. (Rohr, n.d.)

We can identify with Jesus' disciples in our concern about who is the greatest and how we process the link with greatness to our care for the least among us.

References

Mark, CHAPTER 9 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved February 25, 2025, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/9?30 

Meditation on Mark 9:30-37. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved February 25, 2025, from https://wau.org/meditations/2025/02/25/1210351/ 

Psalms, PSALM 37 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved February 25, 2025, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/37?3 

Rohr, R. (n.d.). Meister Eckhart: A Mystic Preacher. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved February 25, 2025, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/meister-eckhart-a-mystic-preacher/ 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). Who Is the Greatest in God's Kingdom? Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved February 25, 2025, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2025&date=feb25 

Sirach, CHAPTER 2 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved February 25, 2025, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/sirach/2?1 

Slocombe, M. (2025, February 25). Creighton U. Daily Reflection. Online Ministries. Retrieved February 25, 2025, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/022525.html 

Law and Faith

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to contemplate the consolation and reassurance against fear that our relationship with Christ offers through the inspiration of the Spirit.

The Spirit and the Law

The reading from the Acts of the Apostles describes the events leading to the Arrest of Stephen.

* [6:8–8:1] The summary (Acts 6:7) on the progress of the Jerusalem community, illustrated by the conversion of the priests, is followed by a lengthy narrative regarding Stephen. Stephen’s defense is not a response to the charges made against him but takes the form of a discourse that reviews the fortunes of God’s word to Israel and leads to a prophetic declaration: a plea for the hearing of that word as announced by Christ and now possessed by the Christian community. The charges that Stephen depreciated the importance of the temple and the Mosaic law and elevated Jesus to a stature above Moses (Acts 6:13–14) were in fact true. Before the Sanhedrin, no defense against them was possible. With Stephen, who thus perceived the fuller implications of the teachings of Jesus, the differences between Judaism and Christianity began to appear. Luke’s account of Stephen’s martyrdom and its aftermath shows how the major impetus behind the Christian movement passed from Jerusalem, where the temple and law prevailed, to Antioch in Syria, where these influences were less pressing. (Acts of the Apostles, CHAPTER 6, n.d.)

Psalm 119 praises the Glories of God’s Law.

* [Psalm 119] This Psalm, the longest by far in the Psalter, praises God for giving such splendid laws and instruction for people to live by. The author glorifies and thanks God for the Torah, prays for protection from sinners enraged by others’ fidelity to the law, laments the cost of obedience, delights in the law’s consolations, begs for wisdom to understand the precepts, and asks for the rewards of keeping them. (Psalms, PSALM 119, n.d.)

The Gospel of John presents the Bread from Heaven.

* [6:22–71] Discourse on the bread of life; replacement of the manna. Jn 6:22–34 serve as an introduction, Jn 6:35–59 constitute the discourse proper, Jn 6:60–71 portray the reaction of the disciples and Peter’s confession.

* [6:23] Possibly a later interpolation, to explain how the crowd got to Capernaum.

* [6:27] The food that endures for eternal life: cf. Jn 4:14, on water “springing up to eternal life.” (John, CHAPTER 6, n.d.)

Andy Alexander, S.J. (2012) comments that the Easter message comes back: Work for food that endures for eternal life. Jesus is that food.

In this chapter he will say it quite clearly: feed on me and have life because of me. (John 6:57) We all know, deep down inside that this is the remedy we are looking for. Allowing Jesus back into our consciousness and into our spirits, throughout each day, will be the nourishment we need for that deeper kind of life we've been hungering for. It just feels more peaceful, just to think about it and breathe it in. We can imagine restoring some needed habits, like looking at a cross or crucifix each morning or making the sign of the cross early in our day. We can place our life in his hands as we prepare for the day. Everything starts to re-align. Tensions and anxieties begin to fade. It's hard to feed on Jesus and yell at someone I live with. When I'm being fed by reminding myself of his love and mercy, it's hard to be as impatient and frustrated with everyone. Gradually, Easter returns. We remember that the tomb is empty, Jesus is alive, and we are too. We become alive again with the gift of eternal life he won for us. And, we start giving thanks again, counting our blessings rather than recounting our problems. (Alexander, 2023)

Don Schwager quotes “God is our landlord,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.

"Our wish, you see, is to attain to eternal life. We wish to reach the place where nobody dies, but if possible we do not want to get there via death. We would like to be whisked away there while we are still alive and see our bodies changed, while we are alive, into that spiritual form into which they are to be changed when we rise again. Who wouldn't like that? Isn't it what everybody wants? But while that is what you want, you are told, Quit. Remember what you have sung in the psalm: 'A lodger am I on earth'" If you are a lodger, you are staying in someone else's house; if you are staying in someone else's house, you quit when the landlord bids you. And the landlord is bound to tell you to quit sooner or later, and he has not guaranteed you a long stay. After all, he did not sign a contract with you. Seeing that you are lodging with him for nothing, you quit when he tells you to. And this, too, has to be put up with, and for this, too, patience is very necessary." (excerpt from Sermon 359A,8) (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on Acts 6:8-15 comments that we, too, have been raised with Christ, so we don’t have to be controlled by the fear of death—or of anything else, for that matter. Because whatever difficulties we encounter in this life, we know that one day we will be ushered into God’s kingdom and see our Lord face-to-face. Of course, that doesn’t mean we won’t experience fear from time to time. It just means that fear doesn’t have to dictate how we approach life.

You might never proclaim the gospel as forcefully as Stephen did. But as you live your life without being controlled by fear, you’ll become a witness to the world of the hope of Jesus’ resurrection and of life everlasting just the same.

“Jesus, thank you for the promise of eternal life. May it dispel all my fears.” (Meditation on Acts 6:8-15, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments on the relationship of the Greek speaking Jews with the Law and the Temple in the events leading to the arrest of the Greek speaking Stephen. In the Gospel of John, the great sin is not to believe Jesus is the Son of God. Friar Jude notes the conflict between seeking Jesus' help with material needs and ignoring the deepest needs of our heart.

James Finley comments on the writings and sermons of medieval mystic Meister Eckhart (1260–1327) who counseled detachment from anything that would separate us from God, whom he understood as the very ground of our being. He gives some practical strategies so that we can practice finding our way to the ground in day-by-day consciousness by being sensitive to certain tendencies in our heart.

Every time we catch ourselves getting reactive, every time we catch ourselves acting as if the outcome of the situation has the authority to name who we are, we are to take a deep breath and remind ourselves that it’s not true. That there’s this hidden, unfelt, deep, abyss-like center in which we’re being unexplainably sustained in the midst of the circumstances. [4]  (Finley, 2023)

We are prompted by the Spirit to pause and allow the Love of Jesus and our trust in His care to be the Way to navigate the storms and fears of our journey.

References

Acts of the Apostles, CHAPTER 6. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/6?8 

Alexander, A. (2023, April 24). Creighton U. Daily Reflection. Online Ministries. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/042423.html 

Finley, J. (2023, April 24). God Is the Ground of Our Being — Center for Action and Contemplation. Daily Meditations Archive: 2023. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/god-is-the-ground-of-our-being-2023-04-24/ 

John, CHAPTER 6. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/6?22 

Meditation on Acts 6:8-15. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://wau.org/meditations/2023/04/24/663473/ 

Psalms, PSALM 119. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/119?23 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2023&date=apr24