Bless the Children

Kaalagad Gospel Reflections
Volume 8 Release No. 12
Jan. 21, 2007
Feast of Sto. Niño


Luke 2:41-52

41Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover.
42And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival.
43When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it.
44Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day's journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends.
45When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him.
46After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.
47And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.
48When his parents {Gk [they]} saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, "Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety."
49He said to them, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" {Or [be about my Father's interests?]}
50But they did not understand what he said to them.
51Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.
52And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, {Or [in stature]} and in divine and human favor.

Luke 2:41-52, “Jesus Lost and Found,” invites us to meditate on the child Jesus and the children of today in rippling social contexts. The story is simple: Jesus is lost in a festival; his parents search for him for three days; he is found in the temple in open forum with teachers; he returns to Nazareth; he grows in wisdom, years and grace. Undergirding the event is the word of God for us assigned to rear ourselves and our children for the sake of the Kingdom.

Author Robert Fulghum says that all he really needed to know he learned in kindergarten -- how to live and what to do and how to be – like: “Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.” And so on.

Fulghum learned these lessons late in kindergarten! Jesus learned all this early at home at the feet of his mother and in the carpentry shop of his foster father. Jesus was surely at times naughty (he must have deserved a pingot, pinch of the ear, for dipping his fingers in the cookie jar; and a reprimand for getting lost in the festival; but all in all he was a nice boy. Legend (?) tells us that Mary was a colegiala educated in the temple. It must have been from her that precocious Jesus learned the basics of Bible and Torah. It was Mary and Joseph who helped Jesus increase in wisdom and grace before and after his twelfth year.

That he learned his lessons well is evidenced by his Sermon on the Mount, childhood lessons simply rehashed to penetrate hard heads and stony hearts of people, like you and me. Love one another, he said. Forgive seventy times seven times. Clothe the naked; visit the imprisoned, give drink to the thirsty. Change your low quality habits of thinking (metanoite/repent!). Remember, God loves you more than the lilies of the field and the birds of the air.

Did not our parents teach us all this too?

So what happens when the lessons of home, kindergarten and Mount are forgotten, for example, by big business, big government, big technocrats, big military, and perhaps by us? People suffer. Our children, santos ninyos, most of all, suffer. The Department of Social Welfare and Development reports:


* Infant mortality rate is pegged at 42.73 per 1,000 live births (Department of Health, 1 September 1999).
* 28% of children under age 5 are severely and moderately underweight based on international standards (World Summit Goals for Children, 1998).
* 49% of the total population of infants and 26% of the total population of children with ages ranging from 1 - 6 years old suffer from iron-deficiency anemia.
* More than half of the over 42,000 barangays in the country do not have provisions for a pre-school. Only 19% of children aged 4 to 6 years old are able to go to public and private pre-schools.
* More than 1/3 of the more than 42,000 barangays in the country could not offer the required six years of elementary education.
* Sixty percent of the children drop out of school when they reach the second grade (PDI, 18 May 1997).
* Sixty-one towns in the country do not have a high school.
* It is estimated that there are about five million child laborers in the country (UNICEF 1995). Two-thirds of them are found in the rural areas.
* There are 1.5 million streetchildren. DSWD estimates that this number increases annually by 6,365.
* Of the 1.5 million streetchildren, 60,000 are prostituted (ECPAT 1996). The DSWD claims that the annual average increase of prostituted children is 3,266. The Philippines is the fourth country with the most number of prostituted children (Intersect, December 1995).
* Research studies conducted in schools show that for every 3 Filipino children, one child experiences abuse (Manila Bulletin, 11 February 1996). During the first semester of 1999 alone, there were 2,393 children who fell prey to rape, attempted rape, incest, acts of lasciviousness and prostitution (DSWD 1st semester, CY 1999).


The statistics are growing each day. These clearly depict the immense hardship which Filipino children are subjected to.

“Do this in memory of me,” he said, in different words at different times, when he transformed water into wine, preached to the poor, healed the sick, reprimanded the scribes and Pharisees, raised the dead to life, and gave himself as bread an wine for all.

We recall he played with and blessed the children. He said: “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 18:3)

So, when lost in the world of globalized capitalism and semifeudalism, -- say, of burnt- out Bush and Glory -- or, when lost as single or separated parents, or when confused and directionless in life, or when helpless in the workplace; or when our children are lost or are being lost to Society and Church, let us go back to mama and kindergarten, and reread the instructions of childhood; or return to the holy Mount and listen again to the Sermon; be obedient to Life; increase in wisdom; and go forth to teach, proclaim the Kingdom, and heal the world. Let us find ourselves and our children. And may they too learn well the lessons of childhood.

-- Rev. Fr. Francisco R. Albano, Diocese of Ilagan