Today’s gospel poses many challenges to us as Christians. We all like to belong and Jesus’ disciples were no different. They had been individually chosen by him and had begun to think of themselves as having exclusive rights to do his work. They had already been sent out to the villages to preach and heal (Mark 6:7-13) and were beginning to think of themselves as an elite. Jesus had to teach them another lesson. Anybody who does good in Jesus’ name is on the right path. This reminds us of the good that is done by so many people who do not share our beliefs. We have to bear in mind that we often make God too small.
As Christians we must also show good example in each moment of our everyday lives. Jesus uses very strong language to emphasise this point in today’s reading. Children are very easily influenced. The actor Alec Guinness tells how when he was dressed as a priest for a film, a little child took his hand and walked along with him. Alec Guinness reflected that there must be something really special about a church, where its priest inspired such trust. This incident led to his conversion to the faith. The few clerics that have abused this trust have caused enormous damage to the Catholic community and have also gravely injured those many faithful ministers who now have to pick up the pieces of the wrongdoing of their predecessors.