Receiving Christ in a Child

The Catholic Thing

By Fr. Paul D. Scalia
The young G. K. Chesterton once wrote a bit of doggerel that captures his love of the Christ-child and of childhood in general:
I would say to all parents
Do you take things equally
How do you know that you are not
In the place of Joseph and Mary.
Of course, those two things are profoundly related. Childhood wasn't valued until God became a child. The ancient world didn't have the same affection or sentimentality for children that we have. In both Aramaic and Greek, the word for child was the same as for servant. It's not that the world thought children were delightful, and so God became a child. It's rather that by becoming a child, God sanctified childhood and children.
This gives us a way to approach and understand Jesus' gentle and haunting words in today's Gospel, "Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me." (Mark 9:30-37) If our society hears these words at all, it interprets them in a sentimental manner. Children are so cute, and they say the darnedest things. It's sweet that Jesus takes their side, etc.
But there's much more going on here. First, because our Lord is identifying Himself with a specific group of people. This verse is a variation on what we hear in Matthew's Gospel: "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." (Matthew 25:40) Only now, he identifies himself not with the poor but with a defenseless, dependent child.
We can go still deeper, because there's a theological truth at play here. A child captures the reality of Christ more than most images. As the eternal Son of the Father, Jesus is the definitive, perfect child. He is entirely dependent because He constantly receives everything from his Father. Everything He has comes from the Father - which is why to receive Him is to receive the one who sent Him.
The very thing that makes a child difficult - dependence - is what recommends the child as an image of Christ. Perhaps this is why child-sacrifice was so widely practiced in the ancient world. It was a demonic assault on an image of the eternal Son.
Further, like the exhortation in Matthew 25, this verse has serious implications for our response. How we respond to the one in need - in this case a child - is how we respond to Jesus. The child is an emissary, an ambassador, who announces the Father. In effect, As you received one of these children, you received me.
This should be a great consolation and inspiration for parents (as Chesterton's poem indicates). Jesus has made it so easy to serve Him. Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me. When parents receive a child, they receive Christ, as Joseph and Mary did.
Although not exactly "convenient," a child is always a blessing. But every blessing is also a task. So, it becomes the parents' responsibility to see that Christ is formed in their child. In that way also, to receive a child is to receive Christ.
Although gentle and beautiful for parents, this verse is challenging and haunting for our culture. Again, the parallel to Matthew 25 applies. As we will be judged on how we helped the poor, so also, we will be judged on how we receive children. As often as you did not receive one of these children, you did not receive me.
If to receive a child means to receive Christ, what does it mean to reject a child? It's an important question for us who live in an anti-child culture, one that seeks to prevent children by contraception and, if that fails, to eliminate them by other means. What does that hostility to a child mean but hostility to Christ?
Anyway, that was clearly in Pope Francis's mind years ago when he said, "Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before He was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world's rejection." Those are strong words, fir...