Monday of 17th Week, uneven numbered year
“Jesus told them another parable :’ The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in is field. It is the smallest of all seeds but when it has grown it is the bushiest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches.”
The parable signifies what is played out in relationships that run deep between people; it expresses something that goes beyond ourselves. A little bit like when the sun rises in the mountainside, bringing with it the dawn, lighting up the mountain tops. Little by little these are revealed and the whole countryside appears before our gaze, bathed in an new light. The sun comes up slowly, and we can easily contemplate the effects it has on the environment and on ourselves. This is really what it is like for the Kingdom of God : something that exists, a reality wanted by another liberty other than our own one. This reality develops the context we are in and, in a somewhat enchanted way, a gentle transformation comes about as we evolve thanks to the coming of His Kingdom.
Jesus, growing in wisdom and in age with Joseph and Mary at home in Nazareth, would observe the garden where they would sow these tiny seeds. What is smallest and most fragile is an announce of given life. Jesus teaches us in this way that the smallest of all seeds, what is most vulnerable and poor, yes, this is what God has choses in us, to have us enter into the mystery of his Love.
“He told them another parable,’ The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until it was leavened all through.”
The Kingdom is a reality that comes to us. It is ever at work in our humanity. Jesus is the beloved Son of the Father, He brings us back to life. With the three measures of flour and the leaven which is taken for an apparently useless fermentation, Jesus say something else : ’The Kingdom of God is like the yeast a
woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through.“Jesus would admire his Mummy Mary making bread or a cake! St Bernard expresses what such a deep mystery there is in this : ’The woman Mary baked the bread!’ Later on, her Son Jesus proclaimed in St John’s Gospel ’I am the Bread of Life!’ It is something difficult for us to enter into this perspective of God’s Love.Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, it is this mystery of littleness expressed in the little host, it is the Living God who became our food and for the whole universe. Jesus always remains with us! The humanity of Jesus, Son of the Father, was considered in the world as something to be rejected : ’Cursed is the one who dies on the wood!’ God made the corner stone for his Kingdom with this! Humanity didn’t want Jesus and yet He is the very One who will fundamentally regenerate humanity.”In all this Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables; indeed he would never speak to them except in parables.This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophets : ’ I will speak to you in parables, unfold what has been hidden since the foundation of the world."
In the world today this transformation is still going on when the Christians come together to pray ; they have the experience of being gathered together and this form of payer transforms them. It is what happens at mass when the Christian people gathers together, the Kingdom comes, calling us to make a small act to contribute to its coming. We are in no doubt about it , and we act in this sense bringing the bread and wine, giving God the means to act. God’s Infinite Love is built up in a divine way thanks to our small daily actions! God loves His people. Intercession has us enter into the Mystery of Jesus : He leads us with Him from His nativity to His Resurrection ’Forgive us as we forgive others’. When Jesus will have given everything and can give no more, he will say ’My God my God, why have you abandoned me?’ He will really take our place : the place of those who are in the deepest darkness and obscurity to bring them back to the Light of his Resurrection.