Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Daily Gospel Exegesis. Our goal is to help you understand the literal sense of scripture.

What did these words mean in their original context?

So we're doing an analysis of the literal sense of scripture, which is where we should start as Catholics.

That is Catholic teaching.

Always start with the literal sense.

So let's go through verse by verse from the gospel reading from today's Mass. So if you go to Mass today,

you'll hear from this short reading, Matthew chapter 19, verses 13 to 15. People brought little

children to Jesus for him to lay his hands on them and say a prayer. The disciples turned them

away, but Jesus said, let the little children alone, and do not stop them coming to me,

for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.

Then he laid his hands on them and went on his way.

So that's the reading for today, a short one here from Matthew 19. Probably many of you have heard

this before. It appears in all three synoptic gospel, so they're quite a famous scene here.

What's the context? So Jesus has begun his journey to Jerusalem from Galilee. So he's on the road here.

He's in a big crowd of pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem for Passover, getting towards

the end of his life. And it looks like they're moving towards the region of Perea before they

get to Judea. Certainly they're on their way to Jerusalem. Just before this, Jesus has given the

difficult teaching on divorce and remarriage. So then we get to verse 13.

People brought little children to Jesus.

Now, keep in mind the scene here.

So they're all walking up to Passover.

There will be huge crowds taking the pilgrimage to Passover.

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