Gen 2: 18-24; Ps 127 (128); Heb 2,9-11; Mk 10: 2-16

Responding to the Pharisees, Jesus shifts the reflection from the Law – what is lawful to do – to God’s original plan: what he promises. “It is not good for man to be alone”, so says Genesis, at the beginning of human life, the desire for God who makes himself a promise for us. Whoever accepts the logic of the Kingdom is offered a new possibility. The Law of Moses took on man’s sin by offering a merciful remedy for the hardness of his heart. Jesus is greater than Moses and offers us not only a remedy, but a new possibility within our impossibility. It is therefore significant that, to these words on the radical nature of marriage, Mark adds what Jesus says blessing children, a symbol of those who are weak, small, impotent, those rely not on their own strength, but on what they receive from others. Thus the kingdom of God is welcomed—as a gift to be received, not conquered. Jesus welcomes children and at the same time underlines our duty to welcome them. The Church is called to become a sign of this logic. On the one hand she must announce a radicalism, such as fidelity in marriage, which becomes possible in Jesus because he heals the hardness of the heart; on the other hand, she must remain like Jesus welcoming the impossibilities that men experience, symbolized by children.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey