To such belong the kingdom
Nowhere in any part of the world do we find so colorful a display of images representing the Holy Child we Filipinos lovingly call the Sto. Niño. Devotion to the Sto. Niño sweeps all sectors of our society. The image is set in a new house, an office, a bank, in a children’s school, in shops, boutiques, beauty salons, against the windshield of a passenger jeep or a bus, inside a shanty, lining the sidewalks where vendors sell all kinds of wares, in the patio of the church, in the boudoirs of rich matrons, in company with precious antique. The images are in royal robes with golden boots and red or dark green velvet mantle, a crown made of fancy diadems. The Sto. Niño usually holds the world in its left hand and the scepter in its right.
The feast of the Sto. Niño is not without a religious history which dates back to the coming of the Spanish missionaries. The present image in Mactan,
Strange paradox; but the dominion God wants all of us to have is the powerless power of a little child. Jesus in today’s gospel reacted to His disciples because they hindered children being brought by parents to Him. Why was he indignant? Surely not because He Himself wanted to cuddle children. Jesus was not filling up an emotional need. There is much more to it than what is human. Jesus’ reaction suggests that some important principle is at stake; perhaps the children’s parents understood better that the disciples.
There is a complete perspective of what it entails to be of the Kingdom, to belong to God, to be sons of the Eternal Father. Only children could call God “Abba”, i.e., “Father” with childlike confidence, safe under His protection and conscious of His boundless love. Devotees of the Sto. Niño who would imitate the Holy Child can ask for anything, for favors both material and spiritual, but everything will have to be subject to the mysterious law which bids us become as little children in heart and soul whatever our chronological age. That way we become disarming to God Who as a child of twelve in the presence of the learned doctors of the Law was the perfect expression of spiritual childhood – majestic in its candor, seeing in its purity of heart, humble in its nothingness, simple in its single-eye perspectives and vision. That is the reason why the eyes of a baby are pools of heaven, the heaven Jesus sees in the child making Him exclaim: “I assure you that whoever does not accept the reign of God like a little child shall not take part in it.” And Scriptures recount that He embraced them and blessed them, placing His hands on them. Devotees of the Sto. Niño, here is the treasure-message which, lived fully, will enshrine the Sto. Niño not only in our homes but in our hearts.
Sunday Feast of the Sto. Niño. Mk. 10:13-16
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