This essay first appeared in our weekly Scripture reflection newsletter on October 5, 2024.
I’m writing this reflection from a guest room at the Jesuit Curia in Rome, where I’m staying while I attend the Synod of Bishops during the month of October. If you haven’t already seen my requests, please pray for me and all the Synod delegates as we spend our days discerning how to make the church more “synodal,” which can perhaps best be defined as a church that listens.
For the first two days, all 350 delegates were more or less on retreat, with our time focused on retreat talks by Mother Maria Grazia Angelina, O.S.B., who spoke in Italian; and Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., the former Master General of the Dominican Order, who spoke in English. Mother Angelina’s meditations were quite poetic but probably lost something in their translation into English. It would be as if someone were translating a Mary Oliver poem into Italian: it probably would lose some of its appeal.
Father Radcliffe’s meditations were among the best reflections on any Gospel passage I’ve ever heard. (You can find them on the Vatican News website and YouTube page.) He masterfully (no pun intended) led us through several Gospel passages on the Resurrection, for example, reminding us that each of the three visitors to the Empty Tomb in John’s Gospel were looking for something unique. Mary Magdalene was looking for compassion (which she receives when the Risen Christ speaks her name); Peter was looking for forgiveness (which he receives when he meets the Risen One by the shore of the Sea of Galilee) and the Beloved Disciple was looking for understanding (which he receives when he sees the stranger on the shorelines and says, “It is the Lord!”).
Part of being a “child” is having a sense of awe, wonder and even excitement over things.
Later on, Father Radcliffe used the image of the net in John 21 as a metaphor for the church. A net has both “spaces and bonds.” This is something like the church, in which certain elements “bind us” together (the Creed, for example) and other things keep us apart (say, cultural differences).
I marveled at Father Radcliffe’s subtle use of images and metaphors and how he artfully drew us into the Gospel passages, illuminating them and also drawing unspoken but obvious lessons for the work of the Synod. It was, in a word, thrilling.
What does this have to do with this Sunday’s Gospel passage, in which Jesus asks us to “accept the kingdom of God as a child”? Just this: Part of being a “child” is having a sense of awe, wonder and even excitement over things. I’m sure you’ve seen YouTube, Instagram or TikTok videos of toddlers getting a puppy or kitten for Christmas, having their grandparents surprise them with a visit or even eating ice cream for the first time. There is not only joy, but excitement.
The key is to keep searching: for good parishes, good preachers, good writers and good people, to evoke in you that childlike sense of joy.
It’s impossible to feel that all the time about the Catholic Church. In fact, later that day we attended a Penance Service at St. Peter’s Basilica, where we heard a searing talk from the victim/survivor of clergy sexual abuse. The church can be a sinful place.
But, thanks to holy people like Timothy Radcliffe, it can also be an exciting place. The key is to keep searching: for good parishes, good preachers, good writers and good people, to evoke in you that childlike sense of joy. And excitement. It’s well worth the search.
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