Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent

Perhaps it’s human nature, but each of us can get too preoccupied, too narrowly focused on lots of topics and issues, including our own greatness.  We can tend to think that we are “right” or paint ourselves to be the hero of all of our stories. In today’s Gospel that speaks directly to our world and to us personally, Jesus makes clear what God’s intention is. God is interested that no little one be lost!

Often believers equate “little one,” in this reading with a child, which is true in Matthew 18:14 but, in other places in his Gospel, St. Matthew expands that understanding to include among the “little ones” those who are humble, of the earth, anyone in need. This becomes clear when in Matthew 25: 31-46, the evangelist describes the last judgment scene. In what the Church refers to as the Corporal Works of Mercy—those who take care of the needy: the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned, in performing these acts, we have cared for Jesus. By encouraging us to readjust our vision from our own preoccupations, St. Matthew invites us to focus on service to “little ones” as the true sign of greatness.

In this week when we light the second candle of our Advent wreath, let us ask God to give us the strength to see and truly recognize the “little ones” around us and serve them in imitation of Jesus, who died doing God’s will so that no little one be lost.