A reading of the holy gospel according to Matthew. The disciples came up to Jesus with this question. Who is of greatest importance in the kingdom of God? Jesus called a little child over to him and stood the child in their midst and said to them, I assure you, unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter into the kingdom of God. Whoever makes himself lowly, becoming like this child is of the greatest importance in that heavenly reign.
Whoever welcomes one such child for my sake welcomes me. See that you never despise one of these little ones. I assure you, their angels in heaven constantly behold my heavenly father's face. What is your thought on this subject? A man owns a 100 sheep and one of them wanders away.
Will he not leave the 99 out on the hills and go in search of the stray wanderer? And then if he succeeds in finding it, believe me, he is happier about this one sheep than about the 99 that did not wander away. Just so, it is no part of your heavenly father's plan that a single one of these little ones shall ever come to grief. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. This particular excerpt from Saint Matthew always intrigues me for many reasons. This business of becoming like a little child, that needs considerable and careful analyses. Yesterday, in reading the latest issue of The New Yorker where I get my most theological, philosophical, economic, and sociological opinions, I found this statement from no less a person than John Updike. Now John Updike, need I mention, is one of our most outstanding writers.
If you want to learn to write, read him. He knows how to handle work. More than that, he with beyond a doubt, speaking for our especially the the Eastern Part of The United States and spreading westward, he can be accepted as a spokesman for the climate of the times. As you know, his novels are are all of that type. They're commentaries upon life chiefly, of course, on the New Northeast Corridor.
But the point is he's a novelist, that's for sure. But he is also a keen observer of the morays of contemporary society as he sees it. And in this in the latest issue of The New Yorker he he says in reviewing a book that our times are very congenial to indeterminism, to relativity, and agnosticism. Now that's not coming from a preacher in a pulpit, this is John Updike. That's what he thinks of the the temper of our times, in that it's congenial to indeterminism, relativity, and agnosticism.
All three of them absolutely contrary to a little child. From time to time, we talk about the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world. Notice, Christ is talking about the kingdom of God. He says right off, he says, who is of the greatest importance in the kingdom of God? He's not talking about this world.
Now you say, what do you mean when you say this world? That's not easy to define. I say, get your morning's paper and there it is. But here is one sort of characterization of it coming from John Updike, that this world, and Christ said, my kingdom is not in this world. That this world is characterized today by indeterminism with this whole business of saying, oh, there's no real there are no absolutes, none at all.
See, that's what it means. And not only in physics, not only in speed, not only in other realms of the material universe, but of course this idea of relativism has been carried over, as you all know, into morals so that there are no absolutes. And when now let's let's not throw any stones here. There are good, sincere Catholics today who will agree with this, who throw out all natural law theories as regards the moral law and are existentialists, situation ethics people. And one of their books came out of the American Catholic Theological Society.
So we are in no position to throw stones, folks. So there that's the indeterminism part. Then there's relativity. You know, again, it bears on this point. But you see, how can there be relativity unless there's something to things to be relative to?
Think about that. I know this is getting into deep water, but there Aristotle thought a lot about the impossibility of an infinite regress. And then you have this agnosticism. See, I've told you many times, I can respect a good honest to God atheist. What can you do with an agnostic?
Nothing. Have a drink with him, make him pay for it. And so and I I repeat, this isn't coming from philosopher, it's not coming from a preacher, it's not coming from a rabbi, it's coming from John Updike. That our age, our times are characterized by indeterminism, relativity, and agnosticism. That doesn't mean that's all they are, but that's what his summary of the thing is.
And as I say, he is in a position to know what he's talking about. Now if as I say, if there's anything opposed to a little child, it's all of those three, singly or collective. Now when Christ says you ought to become as a little child, as I say, I have difficulties here. But what our lord is saying is that we shouldn't become kids. He certainly isn't saying that because there are plenty of other texts where he tells us to be quite the reverse.
He there's at least one very good text where he tells us to be very smart. But I want to point out how this this dichotomy, this chasm, which is is which is bottomless between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world. We don't think about it enough. And I say bottomless because there's no way the two go together. You cannot compromise.
And yet you find Catholic theologians talking about secularized man as if that were something good. Now I know we're dealing with words here. I am well acquainted with Humpty Dumpty. But this idea of man and the world so that we have some of our great brains, minds, people speaking and writing with authority telling us that the good news is to make this a better world and to make us love one another more, that that's the impact of the good news of Jesus Christ. That's coming from Catholic theologians.
And I can annotate it and give you names, dates, and numbers. It'll give me a time to look it up. So when Christ is telling us to be as little children, children, he's asking us I want to bring in just another idea. Been reading some stuff about Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan who was her great teacher. And Anne Sullivan, she didn't take any courses in how to teach.
She never went to a normal school, but she probably was one of the greatest teachers, if success counts, that we have seen in The USA in a long time. And after all her years spent with Helen Keller with such marvelous success, thanks also to a lot of other people including Helen Keller, her conviction is that a little child is eager to know to know, and that our educational systems for the most part are stunning that light. Pardon that mixed metaphor. As I say, this is coming again, it's not coming out of a pulpit. A little child has an open mind, and I'm not exaggerating this.
I'm not making little kids into angels. Anybody who's been acquainted with children know that they're not. They're not devils either. Most parents think they are at one occasion but they change their minds. But the thing is that a child has an open mind if you get it early enough.
And certainly, Anne Sullivan was thoroughly convinced of this after years and years of working in this field. Because remember, after she attained a certain amount of success with Helen Keller, together this became their mission in life. So what she was saying wasn't based on exclusively on her experience with Helen Keller. And so this is what something maybe Christ had in mind when he was telling us to be like little children, to have open minds, to have to to be receptive to what's out there, not what's just inside, but let us look out and absorb the world. Now if that's what you mean by secularism, wonderful.
No complaints at all. But to be lost in it, there's the trouble. Now Edith Stein, that may may mean something to you, but she was a Jewish girl in Paris, son the daughter of a physician there, a French woman of course, during the last war who moved from as I say, I respect the atheist. She moved from an atheistic position when she was a devout communist to becoming what? I can't answer it.
That young lady had tremendous religious experiences of various sorts. She died by a commitment of her own life to a cause on principle. But her I was reading recently, thanks to one of you, an account of her last days. And you see, she she became a Catholic in all her thinking even to the even to accepting the reality of the holy Eucharist, but she would never be baptized. Why?
The best answer given by one who was very in a good position to know her was that she always prided herself on having an open mind that she couldn't commit it absolutely to anything without closing it on something else. Now you see, this is what Chesterton nailed solidly on the head. He said the whole purpose of having an open mind is to close it on something. You see the difference? But this good lady never got to the point where she felt that she could close it.
That's interpretation. Although this part of it is certain that she prided herself on this idea of having an open mind towards everything. Everything. Everything. Well, a little child begins with having a very open mind.
But you see, that's not enough. Having an open mind is not enough. Because, you see, without getting too dialectical, if you say, I'm going to keep an open mind because I don't want to close it on something, that's taking a firm position. You have closed your mind when you accept that principle to some extent. See, this is the reduxio ad absurdum of this position, the same as the logical positivist.
And so today when we listen to our Lord telling us to be like little children, he's not telling us to be kids or to be kiddish or to be childish. He's asking us, commanding us if we want to be in his kingdom. There's the keyword. He's very clear about that. If you wanna be in the kingdom of god, you become like little children.
What you do outside the kingdom of God, that's something else. But if you wanna be in his kingdom, you've gotta become like a little and he called the child over to show them the child. Probably was grubby and dirty. You can be sure the feet were good and dirty. But he said, be like one of these.
So what does Christ mean when he tells us? Think it over. And and, again, tie this in with that first reading from Ezekiel. The and the and our responsorial Psalm. With that idea of law, there is no escaping it because, of course, law and authority are utterly opposed to indeterminism, to agnosticism, to relativism.
There you have the dichotomy, the kingdom of god opposed to the kingdom of this world. In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.