Today's gospel tells us that parents were bringing their children for Jesus to bless. The disciples, with the officiousness of minor officials, thought they were doing their Master a favour by protecting him from what they regarded as trivial nuisances. Jesus, however, is cross with them. The children are to be allowed to come to him. "It is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs." Not to children alone but to all those who have the qualities of the child: the simplicity and openness, the teachability, the freedom from prejudice, the readiness for change and adaptation. Only such people are ready to hear the message of the Gospel in its fullness. The passage leads naturally into the next one about the rich man who asked Jesus what he should do to enter eternal life. For all his wealth and blinded by his wealth, he would prove to be wanting in this particular area of openness. Let us ask Jesus today for this openness to see his presence and recognize his call in all kinds of situations, in all kinds of people, including those we may have at first sight inclined to reject.

St Maximilian Kolbe a priest and as a prisoner in a German concentration camp, saw the call of Jesus and freely gave his life to save that of another prisoner who had a family waiting to see him again.