17 Jul
Tue
15th Week in Ordinary Time
Is 10:5-7, 13-16
Ps 93:5-10, 14-15
Mt 11:25-27
(Ps Wk III)
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Ever ponder why Jesus praised God for hiding things from the learned and revealing them to mere children? To our logic, learned people are better at understanding the values Jesus is trying to teach. Indeed, the Jewish adults are usually able to digest their familiar ancestral knowledge better while children take longer to process and understand them.

Let us look at the context of that era from the Israelite perspective. Adults keep the knowledge handed to them, they will strictly conserve them according to how they were brought up and trained. Children, on the other hand, take in knowledge eagerly as it is presented to them. Granted that they will ask questions in order to help them understand better but adults will try to conserve and critically analyse the new vision presented to them. The conditioning pride in adults hinder the reception of renewed understanding due to their closed-minded way of preservation. It is interesting to find children at play, eager to learn with joy.

Hence, Jesus highlights such comparison because the Scribes and Pharisees rigidly question whatever He teaches and His identity as the Messiah. While it is good to ascertain facts to understand them better, we should not go to the extent of rigidly resisting newness and refuting everything. No knowledgeable adult would claim to have all the answers for the world. Ultimately, there are some things which we can only accept in humility and faith.


Lord, may our childlike openness give us insights of Your providence.



DAILY OFFERING
Eternal Father, I offer You everything I do this day; my thoughts, words, joys and sufferings. Grant that, vivified by the Holy Spirit and united to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, my life this day jul be of service to You and to others. I also pray that all those preparing for marriage discover in Sacrament the source of Christ's grace for living a fithful and fruitful love. Amen.

PRAYING WITH THE CHURCH
INTENTION
For the pastoral care of the sick -
Let us pray that the Sacrament of the nointing of the Sick grant the Lord's strength to those who receive it and to their loved ones, and that it may become for everyone an ever more visible sign of compassion and hope.
Elaboration

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