The Great Gospel of John
Volume 7
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord on the Mount of Olives. (cont.) Gospel of John, Chapter 8
- Chapter 133 -
The begging children from Emmaus.
When we came close to the entrance gate, 7 almost naked children, from 6 to 11 years old, came from that place to meet us and were asking us for bread because they were very hungry.
2
And I said to them: "Yes, My dear children, from where, on this bare street do we have to obtain bread to give to you?"
3
The oldest child, a boy said: "Oh dearest good Father, if only You would take care of us, then also here You would be able to give us a bread and a garment. In the city, there is bread in abundance, but if we go to someone to ask for bread, they chase us away with sticks and they do not give us bread. But You and these people who are with You, look so kind and therefore we ask You to give us bread."
4
Agricola said: "My dearest children, do you not have parents to give you bread?"
5
The boy said: "We have parents, a father and also a mother, but they are both very sick and they can earn nothing, and therefore we must beg for us and for them so that we and they would not starve completely. Oh dearest fathers, it is surely very sad to be so poor. No house, no bread and no clothes."
6
Agricola said: "Then where are your sick parents, if you do not have a house?"
7
The boy said: "Look, there on the other side of the city there is an old hut of a shepherd, that belongs to a citizen from here. He does not use it anymore because he build a new one and he allowed us to live in the old one. Just come with us and see for yourself our great need."
8
Again, Agricola said: "But there is still a certain Nicodemus here who must be a good father. Did you never go to him?"
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The boy said: "Yes, him we do know and we have heard already a lot of good things about him, but we dare not go to him because he is a much too important and great lord. There are still more of those great lords here who surely also must be good fathers, but it is no use to us because we dare not go to them."
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Agricola said: "Yes, but we also could be important lords and still you dare to speak to us."
11
The boy said: "We were pressed by the great hunger and you look very kind and merciful. If only we could meet Nicodemus once on the street then we also would like to speak to him. However, most of the time he is in the city and there we do not know his house and in our nakedness we dare not go into the city because something might happen to us there."
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I said to the children: "Be assured My children, you will be helped. Bring us now to your sick parents. I will help them and we will also provide for bread and good clothing."
13
All children said: "We have prayed well to God every day, that He would help us, and when we were praying again this morning, it seemed to us that we heard a voice that said: 'Even today you will be helped'. This we said to our sick parents and they said: 'With God everything is possible, but to us only death will be the final thing to help us.' We encouraged our poor parents as well as we could and we went on our way to beg. And see, dear good fathers, we did not pray in vain because the great, holy and lovely Father in Heaven did send you to us. Oh, before we make one step further to our parents, we must thank the lovely Father in Heaven because He has taken so mercifully good care of us."
14
Then the children were kneeling down and prayed with their hands lifted up to the sky: "O great, loving, good and holy Father in Heaven, we thank You because You helped us out of our great need by sending these fathers to us. Kindly accept our gratitude, o You loving, good, holy Father."
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Then they got up and asked us to follow them.
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Deeply moved by the short prayer of thanks of the children, we went behind them and soon we reached the previously mentioned hut that was located under a deep hanging rock. When we arrived there, we found both parents crouching against each other on the bare ground and were skinny, almost to the bones.
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When Agricola saw the great misery of the two people he was astonished and said: "No, you will not see anything like this with us gentiles, who have the name of being hard and merciless! Do the lazy Jews not have any time to look now and then around them to see if there are no people who are in misery and in need of help? Surely, there must be shepherds in the neighborhood. Could they not check once, to see how these people are doing? For, they often must have seen these children going in and out. Oh, I have never experienced such a lack of compassion!"
18
I said: "You know, My friend, we will first help these people and only then we will discuss further."