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Commentary on the Gospel – December 12, 2025
There are people who are experts at looking the other way and acting as if nothing concerns them. As a friend of mine used to say whenever he did exactly that: “That’s not my department.” And off he went, completely at ease, minding his own business—what mattered to him.
The Kingdom is exactly the opposite. What happens to others affects us; it matters to us. And our concern is universal, because everyone is my brother or sister. We cannot feel fully at peace when our brothers and sisters are suffering. And their joys are also our joys. This is how the pastoral constitution of the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, began: “The joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the men and women of our time, especially of the poor and those who suffer, are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.” It cannot be otherwise for those of us who claim to follow Jesus. His message opened us to the fraternity of the Kingdom, where we meet the other not as an enemy but as a brother. It is impossible to remain indifferent. Impossible to say, “That’s not my department,” that someone else’s situation does not concern me.
The children mentioned in today’s Gospel complain that no one pays attention to them. They are surrounded by the indifference of passersby. People neither dance nor mourn. Each person goes about their own business. What concerns others does not interest them. And if anything, people easily find excuses to keep focusing only on themselves. If someone invites us to open our eyes and truly meet our brothers and sisters, we might say that person is crazy or inconsistent in their life. Any excuse is good enough to keep going our own way.
But the followers of Jesus are not like that, and cannot be like that. Jesus has helped us to open our eyes so that “the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties” of those around us become our own—so that they reach our hearts, move us, and lead us to act. That is true wisdom. That is the wisdom that helps us build the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed.