Let them

Growing up, my mother often reminded me of how I would sing the “Hosannas” very loudly at Mass as a little boy. “You would belt it out,” she would say. “It was very cute.” I must have been very little because my memories of growing up in the church are all shrouded in shyness. How short lived is that first fearlessness of childhood.

As Jesus made His way into Jerusalem the people cried out, “Hosanna!” as His coming signaled to them the fulfillment of what had been promised through the prophet Zechariah and the Psalms, and even through the Book of Genesis: a ruler shall come from Judah. All four Gospels make it clear that the people of Jerusalem believed they were welcoming the Messiah into Jerusalem, their king, humble, and mounted on a donkey [cf. Zech 9:9].

The children too were crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” but when they were scolded for it by the scribes and pharisees Jesus defended the children saying, “Let them,” quoting the 8th Psalm, “for out of the mouths of children and infants [comes] perfect praise.” Then Jesus cleanses the Temple by driving out the moneychangers with a fatherly condemnation of the greed that steals the praise of God from man’s lips by reducing his life to a marketplace.

When people compliment our parish, for example, they will usually make some reference to the children. Of course the very little ones are just adorable, and the children’s choir and altar server ministry are cause for rejoicing. But there’s also the fact that a community’s willingness to suffer the little children to come to Him can be received as a word of encouragement to those who are exhausted - those who are looking for a Messiah to enter into their Jerusalem.

We tend to think that only the ancient world needed a Messiah, while we moderns need only WiFi and oil. But that’s the point. We too were created by God to sing His praises and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him. But are we willing to cry out to Him as we did when we were very little? Or will we let discouragement and disappointment hold our joy hostage?

Being invited to learn from children how to pray means we need to be restored to our forgotten origin and destiny. The children have not yet forgotten, and they fearlessly proclaim their intuition that Christ comes to restore us to both, as both are in Him. That the children would teach this to us is unexpected, but then so is the thought of how Christ’s crucifixion could lead to His glory. +