Daily Catholic Reflection: July 15, 2020, Memorial of Saint Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, Year A,

Reading 1: IS 10:5-7, 13B-16

Responsorial Psalm 94:5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 14-15

Gospel: MT 11:25-27                                            Full Readings

Saint Bonaventure

Being Childlike

Today’s Gospel presents to us Jesus’ prayer for thanksgiving to the Father for revealing things of the Kingdom to the childlike rather than the learned and the clever ones. By childlike, Jesus means the humble and therefore today's Gospel invites us to be very humble as possible.

 

Humility is the greatest Christian virtue which every Christian should have imitating our Lord Jesus Christ who, though He was God, He humbled Himself in the form of man, came to the world, lived and ate with the poor and sinners and even accepted death, death on the cross. It was this humility that made Him to be glorified forever. Imitating Jesus’ humility will also make us great.

Brethren, if we want to know more about things of heaven, experience God’s love and savor His sweetness, then humility and having a childlike heart are our pathways. The Lord hates the proud hearted and such people will be humbled. Jesus Himself tells us that unless we become like the little children, we shall not inherit the Kingdom of God and moreover it costs us nothing to be childlike but rewards us with exaltation.

One of the main barriers to accepting and experiencing love from God is pride. Pride is a devil's tool aimed at distancing us from Christ. When we feel that we know everything (intellectual pride) and that we don't need any divine intervention in our lives, we put aside Jesus, and we cannot receive His love and even God will not reveal Himself to us. That is why in the Gospel Jesus thanks the Father for revealing these things to the childlike not the learned and the clever. 

Being childlike is being humble enough to accept the fact of human limitation and need for divine intervention. This doesn't mean we should not learn and become clever and even become scholars, in fact in the present world we need educated clergy. Jesus means that our being educated or being wise should not stop us from believing and accepting Jesus as our Lord and savior. St Bonaventure whose memorial we celebrate today, was one of the most learned bishops and promoted a lot to the teaching of the church. This however didn't stop him realising Jesus as His saviour. Inspired by Him, let us become humble despite who we are. 

Our invitation today is to copy from Jesus' humility and practice it in our lives. By doing this, we accept Jesus who is the sole revealer of God's love to humanity because nobody knows God except the Son and nobody knows the Son except God and those whom he has chosen to reveal. Are you among them? 

Reflect today on your readiness to become childlike and humble despite your status and who you are and all the levels of education you have as well as the positions you hold in the society. These should bring you more to God than distancing you from Him through pride. Ask the Spirit to always give you a childlike heart.

Let us Pray. 

Lord I offer my whole self to you, who I am, what I do, what I have and the person I am to be. May all these help me come closer to you rather than distancing me from you through my pride. Curb my pride so that I'll always be humble. Amen.

Be blessed.