17 August 2024 - Saturday of the 19th week ‘B
Ezekiel 18:1...32; Matt 19:13-15
Homily
Throughout the Gospel, Jesus shows particular concern for those who are most in need, those who are most destitute, those who are least. Usually, the sick and the possessed are brought to him so that he can heal them and deliver them from their demons. In today's Gospel, we simply bring him little children who don't seem to need anything in particular. They simply ask him to lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples, who seem to want to be Jesus' protectors against intruders, want to keep them away. Instead, Jesus tells them to let them come to him, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like them. You will remember that in last Tuesday's Gospel Jesus said that unless we become like little children we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. So he laid his hands on them before leaving.
Perhaps we could reflect a little on the meaning of the laying on of hands and prayer. It is a physical contact between two people; between the one who prays and the one for whom he prays. Just as in the healings performed by Jesus there is always a physical gesture accompanying the word, so it is here for the prayer. In this way, the link between the person praying and the person for whom they are praying is expressed. Through this physical contact, the grace obtained by the prayer of the one praying is transmitted to the one for whom he is praying. The unity that makes us all ONE in Christ is, in a way, physical as well as spiritual. We all came from the hands of the same Potter, according to the image in Genesis; or again, according to the image of the Psalmist, the same hands wove us all in our mothers' wombs. This is why, in all the sacraments, the prayer or the word is always accompanied by a physical gesture. When the priest gives absolution, for example, he extends his hand towards the penitent, a gesture by which he implores the grace of forgiveness to descend upon him (or her).
The problem addressed by the prophet Ezekiel in the first reading is of a similar nature. The traditional Jewish religion had developed a very keen awareness of solidarity in good and in evil, of the fundamental unity of all human beings, particularly within the same clan and the same family. There was something beautiful and good in this, but it could lead to erroneous consequences. We could absolve ourselves of personal responsibility by considering that the misfortunes that afflicted us were due to the sins of our ancestors. Ezekiel calls for personal responsibility. Each of us is responsible for practising justice and charity. And when someone sins, it is they who bear the consequences, not their children.
In the teaching of the Old Testament and of Jesus, then, there is a fair balance between the personal responsibility of each of us for good and for evil; and, on the other hand, the deep bonds that unite us all in the same humanity and which mean that the graces obtained through the prayer of one can be passed on to the other -- something that is expressed sacramentally in the gesture of the laying on of hands that accompanies the prayer.