Posted by The WORD in other other words (2014) by Fr Jun Castro SVD – Madrid, Spain
Friday 7th Week in Ordinary Time
Whenever there is an emergency, rescue operations prioritize children and women. This is not to reinforce the idea that they are weak persons, but to highlight the natural bonding between women and children.
Jesus in today’s Gospel is in confrontation with men — Pharisees and disciples. Their question does not only reveal their fixation with what is legal or not, but much more with trying to perpetuate male dominance over women and children. By using traditional religious laws and local practices they were trying to preserve their position of ill-acquired superiority.
Jesus, on the other hand, insisted on the equality of women and children with men. By mentioning the creation narrative, Jesus shows them the real origin and sacredness of that equality. By defending the union of man and wife, the well-being of the children is also in turn preserved.
Anne Frank in The Diary of a Young Girl once wrote: “In the book “Soldiers on the Home Front,” I was greatly struck by the fact that in childbirth alone, women commonly suffer more pain, illness and misery than any war hero does. And what’s her reward for enduring all that pain? She gets pushed aside when she’s disfigured by birth, her beauty is gone. Women, who struggle and suffer pain to ensure the continuation of the human race, make much more tougher and more courageous soldiers than all those big-mouthed freedom fighting heroes put together.”
