Old Testament
Psalm 139:13-16
13 For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well.
15 My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them.
New Testament
Mark 10:13-16
13 They were bringing to him little children, that he should touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who were bringing them.
14 But when Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation and said to them, “Allow the little children to come to me! Don’t forbid them, for God’s Kingdom belongs to such as these.
15 Most certainly I tell you, whoever will not receive God’s Kingdom like a little child, he will in no way enter into it.”
16 He took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.
Psalm 139 speaks as though a human life were never accidental. You formed my inward parts. You knitted me together. You saw me when I was unformed. The language is intimate, almost domestic: God as a careful maker, not a distant manager. Before we have achievements, before we have diagnoses, before we have learned to hide, we are known.
Then in Mark, people bring children to Jesus, and the disciples treat them as an interruption. Jesus does not. He is indignant. He takes them in his arms and blesses them. The kingdom is not only for the articulate and the impressive. It is for the small, the dependent, the overlooked.
To pray for young minds is to pray against the quiet cruelties that tell children they are a problem to be managed: pressures that crush joy, environments that breed fear, screens that amplify comparison, homes that carry unspoken grief. It is also to pray for those who serve children with patience: parents, teachers, clinicians, youth workers.
Lord Jesus, bless the children. Guard them in their becoming. Give them safe adults, steady friendships, and truthful words about their worth. And make the Church a place where the young are not merely tolerated, but cherished as kin at Christ’s table.