The bacteria that caused the bubonic plague in the middle ages claimed 25 million lives – about three-fourths of Europe’s population. The survivors wondered where God was in this disaster. “Where are you, Lord? Don’t You care?” Today the Covid 19 virus causing the pandemic poses similar questions on God’s role and presence in this global havoc and tragedy!
Indeed, when we feel drowned by misery we often cry out, “Where are you, Lord? Don’t You care?” We don’t seem to recognize the Lord’s abiding presence even in the midst of storms, adversity, sorrow, temptation! Yet, He is always by our side with blessed assurance, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” “It is I, do not be afraid.” When the Lord calms our storm and calls our name, we have to realize that great indeed is His loving mercy that elicits faith and longing to entrust to Him all our needs and cares.
Loving Father, our faith is Your gift, empowering us to relate to You with trust by accepting Your life-giving word. Your love strengthens our faith, enabling us to do justice and act with kindness to the poor and voiceless even in the face of trials and difficulties. How blessed are we whenever we allow Your love to rule in our heart and mind goading us to choose what is good and in accord with Your will!
Brothers and sisters, may the Lord deepen our faith in His redeeming power and love. May we always recognize His abiding presence with us and take courage in doing His will in all circumstances. Amen.
Have you ever witnessed the actual growing of a seed, or any plant or of a person? We could have claimed that we have witnessed it just as parents looked closely as their child grows, or just as a farmer tends everyday his plants and animals. Yet, because growing is a process, it takes time and it’s very slow. That is why, we don’t usually see with our own eyes how a seed begins to sprout and becomes a tree, or how a flower begins to grow and bloom or how a person develops physically and grows old. We only notice the gradual changes as time also goes by.
Thanks to our latest technology because a camera can capture this process of growing particularly of a plant or changes that happen in our nature. Through a photographic technique called “time-lapse” we can witness how a seed begins to sprout, take its roots and come out from the soil and become a full bloom plant. This always amazes me to see that.
(I want you to watch this short time-lapse of a growing seed in silence to bring yourself also into reflection and into calmness in the midst of noise, stress and anxiety that are around us today.)
With this amazement and wonder of the process of growing, this brings me into reflection for this Sunday’s Gospel. Jesus tells the people about the two parables of the Kingdom of God. These are the parable of the seed scattered on the land and the mustard seed.
In these two parables, what is common among them is the theme of growth and fruitfulness. From here, I would like you to see and recognize how God is growing in us and inviting us to be fruitful.
I would like to begin with the parable of the mustard seed which brings us into the invitation of God to let us grow, to be mature and to develop. In fact, the first reading from the Book of Ezekiel has revealed to us how God would plant us so that we may become majestic and fruitful. Indeed, God allows growth and makes it possible for us to become what God wants us to be.
In this process of growing, we now understand GROWTH to be dynamic. It involves changes, adaptations, shedding off of what was old and transforming into something new. Meaning, growing is a transformation.
Thus, the parable tells us of the process of growth in a non-aggressive way because growth is gradual, silent and calm. Moreover, it is empowering and life-giving.
This reminds us of the wonder of creation. Creation is silent and relaxed, yet, destruction is noisy, distressful, aggressive and violent. In destruction, there is no growing because it suppresses and destroys. Surely, this is how we would find life distressful, filled with anxiety and worries, because when we do not grow or when we stop growing then, it leads us to destructionand to death.
God’s desire is that we develop into our full potential as what God desired us to be. We are called to continue growing no matter how our hair have turned into white or our wrinkles have become more visible.
Likewise, growing leads us towards maturity which also leads us to fruitfulness. The first parable of the seed scattered on the land which grew in silence and bore fruit, leads us into this invitation, MATURITY and FRUITFULNESS.
Remember, the man who scattered the seed did not know the entire process of the growth of the seed. The seed silently grew and became mature and bore fruit. This tells us how the Spirit of God works in our life silently. When we allow the Lord to work in us, then, God also make wonders in our life. God will surely transform us into persons that God desires us to be.
This tells us that the Kingdom of God is already in us because God is with us. The seed has been planted on earth as Jesus was born for us. The Lord is already in our hearts as we are being baptized. Moreover, the Kingdom of God manifests in us when we also become mature in our faith and relationships with God and with others.
How do we recognize that we have become mature? It is when we are able to give life to others, when we become persons for others. The seed produced grain for people to eat and the mustard seed became the largest of plants and puts forth branches where birds dwell in its shade.
Now, these are the signs as well as the invitations for us to recognize the Kingdom of God and to let God to grow in us.
First, as the mustard seed grows the Kingdom of God also begins in HUMILITY not in any form of aggression or arrogance. It is humble and simple. Thus, the kingdom of God can be very present in a family who makes the effort to pray together, in a couple who expresses their faithfulness despite their differences, in a person who shows true kindness and generosity to another who is in need of help, and of a neighbor who refuses to join in a gossip as his or her act of concern.
Second, the kingdom of God is empowering and life-giving. The kingdom of God is present when our community empowers the weak. A community that discriminates, judges, condemns and indifferent never empowers but it oppresses the weak. However, when our community empowers, then it also gives life. Let us remember, to be able to give life, we need to give more chances and opportunities for growth. To give life is to give hope. Therefore, our community is truly a kingdom of God when we uphold and protect every life to survive and to mature.
As we recognize the Kingdom of God in us today, let us also allow the Lord to grow in us, to bring changes and transformation in ourselves, in our attitudes and relationships. As we continually grow and become mature, we may also become individually, a person for others and also a community for others that gives life, gives hope and allows opportunities for growth and maturity. Hinaut pa.
A grieving mother, unable to bear the burden of sadness due to her son’s death, goes to a wise hermit who tells her, “What you need is a special kind of mustard seed. Find a home where there is no grief like yours, get a mustard seed from the garden, bring it to me, then I will show you how to deal with your grief.” Strange advice! But she sets off on this unusual quest.
The first house she approaches is that of a rich family. Is this by any chance where there’s no experience of grief as I have in losing my son? The woman who answers the door bursts into tears. “You just came to a worse place. Let me tell you about grief!” She describes the tragedy her family suffers. The woman who lost her son listens, amazed that one so rich can meet such a disaster. “My experience makes me the kind of person who may understand.” So, she stays a while, counsels the rich woman who appears able to cope a little better. She goes off to continue her journey.
You guess what follows. The next house is exactly the same: nice on the outside, a sad story inside. Again she leaves but only after helping as best she can. Then, on to the next house of grief; and the next. The curious result is that she gradually forgets her own grief and becomes more focused on helping others. The quest for a mustard seed leads her to where her grief is but a memory while something else grows in its place. Truth emerges in imperceptible ways as in the mustard seed parable.
The Kingdom of God grows in us like a tiny mustard seed. To find wonder in what is small is as good a place as any to start. Our own start in the Kingdom may be as small as the baptism of a child. But we see the potential in a tiny child introduced with the parents into the life of the Christian community through baptism just as Jesus saw the potential in His disciples entrusted with the next stage of growth. Might it be that, despite our humble beginnings, limitations and failures we too are needed, like the grieving woman who lost her son, as God’s Kingdom continues its mysterious growth?
We may not have the chance to do the big, heroic things. But we daily have the chance to do the small ones that show Christian values – the smallest act of kindness, the little gesture we offer a sick friend, the forgiveness we give in our family and to one who injured us. Small seeds, perhaps, but will bear fruit ten, twenty, forty years from now!
Brothers and sisters, we ask the Lord to transform us into Christ-like holiness, increase our zeal for His Kingdom and instill in us a desire to live for His greater glory. Amen.
A newly-graduated but non-working young millennial, while hanging-out at home and playing with his X-Box video games, was once asked by his mom to buy some fruits for meals. Though he prefers to go to a mall for convenient–sake, hesitantly he went to a nearby market. He tried to find his way looking for the fruit-stand since he was never been to this market before. Eventually he found the fruits he needed to buy at a particular fruit-stand. While paying, he jokingly said to the vendor: “Sir, I cannot help but notice you do look like Jesus Christ.” The fruit-vendor reply: “Others would say the same. But assuming I am who you seem I look alike. Do you have any questions for me?” Up for the challenge, he asked: “If you are said-to be the Christ, the savior of the world, how come the world is still a mess? Have you and God done and is doing something about these mess?” After giving much thought, the vendor answered, “For sure God has and is doing something about these mess – He created YOU.”
Defensively, he countered: “Me, who am I to fix these mess? I am not rich, not successful, still no-job. I am nobody, no hero. I am limited”. So the vendor further challenged him, “So what do YOU need then now to fix these mess?” He dreamingly replied, “Well if only I have more power, resources and opportunities, perhaps like in a computer game, I can be who I am and wish to be”. “That’s all?” the vendor disturbed him and then handed him something, “Take this. It got all what you need.” As he received it, he confusingly asked, “A seed? What am I do to with this seed?” The vendor replied, “Well, God has already done and doing something in creating You, and you have the seed now to do your part. It is up to you then whether to plant your seed and work out with God doing your part and growing your seed, OR do nothing with your seed, but complain, and let your world and our world still a mess.
After Christmas, Lenten, Easter seasons where we celebrate our faith – what we believe, we are now in the Ordinary times of our liturgical year where we celebrate our life in faith, i.e. how we live, practice and witness what we believe. Jesus have much to teach us not only what we believe (Dogma) but how to live & practice what we believe (Moral). We have celebrated our Faith, but now we are celebrating our Faith-Life – our Faith & Life.
To offer us meaning, inspiration and directions in our faith-life journey, Jesus made use of parables and our common life-experiences as life-lessons to live by. Like in our gospel today, by sharing us the parable of the growing seed and mustard seed, Jesus taught us not only about the Kingdom of God but also HOW to live our present lives along with our faith & mission in God’s kingdom.
Here Jesus reminds us that nature and our usual human labor or work teach us that “Big things comes from small beginnings”. Yes, the sower & planter might have planted the seed and harvested the fruit but he does not know how the plant grows. And definitely he is not responsible for the seed to grow into full grain & for the smallest mustard seed to be the largest plant with large branches. It takes a lot of work on our part, AND working in partnership with God for us to fully enjoy the fruits of our labor with God. Yes, we can be the sower & planter, but God is the grower.
With our advanced technology nowadays, we also tend to prefer to have things easy, instant, fast, disposable and convenient. In effect, we become impatient and intolerant with details and processes. We tend to value more the goals, and fruits that we undervalue & even become heartless to the growth-process, labor, and journey it takes. Like the young millennial, we tend to look at and concern more on the end-product and destination, without considering the process to make it and the travel-journey to get there.
Never satisfied of what we have accomplished now, we rather tend to criticize & complain about our present mess without doing something about it except criticizing and complaining about it. While we should enjoy & be satisfied to the advantages of what we have today, let us not forget the whole process-journey it takes to reach at this stage of advancement. Same as saying: While you and others enjoys and be satisfied with the fruits of your labor, let us not disregard and undervalue the efforts, work and sacrifices you have done as well as God’s work of creating you and with you for life to be better than before, better than the usual.
In other words, to do away with the mess in life and to fully enjoy what God has given and can offer us in life now, we have to be RESPONSIBLE participants for God’s grace and work of creating and redeeming our life anew. As a wise man once penned, “Who & what you are is God’s gift to you & the world, who & what you BECOME is your gift to God & the world”.
Especially during these pandemic times, teach & lead us Lord to cooperate with Your will & plans for us these days so that we may humbly recognize & fully enjoy the fruits of Your works for our betterment & the glory of Our Father’s Kingdom.
In the Book of Prophet Hosea, we have been presented with an image of God as a parent and as a healer. Hosea beautifully captures these images of God who only fills with love His child, Israel. God’s love, indeed, nurtures and heals, builds and forgives. Such way of loving from God is written in the whole Scripture that is why we are always reminded how God calls us again and again through love.
This is best described in the Responsorial Psalm today taken from the Book of Isaiah. The Prophet expresses his confidence in God because he has experienced with God the love that gives strength and courage. God’s presence is water that fills and satisfies our empty heart, quenches the thirst in us for love and support.
In the same confidence, Paul also reminds the Ephesians of the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. This is love beyond idea or any ideology, but this is in its most concrete expression of love that sacrifices oneself for the sake of the beloved. This is love that gives life. This is how Paul affirms that the love of Christ truly fills us because love is the fullness of God.
In that fullness of God, God only desires to share that love that will fill every empty but insecure and fearful heart. This is how the Gospel of John reveals to us the physical and literal overflowing of blood and water from the pierced heart of Jesus. The soldier who thrusted his lance into the side of Jesus witnessed this.
The seemingly dead body of Jesus, flowed out blood and water which only gives life and joy, satisfies emptiness and also nurtures and heals, builds and forgives. This tells us that even when Jesus was being hurt, the Lord continues to bring out his love and only love.
This is the very message of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. This Solemnity is not a mere worshipping of an organ, “the heart” per se, but of Jesus himself who constantly showed us the love of God spoken about in the Scriptures.
There are two invitations for us today.
First. Be filled by that love of Christ. His love only brings fullness in us. Thus, learn to be confident in his love! Be overwhelmed by his love! Seek his love that will satisfy our every hunger and thirst for love and intimacy, for acceptance and support.
Second. Learn from his way of loving. Let our expression of love to truly give life. Let our love nurtures immaturity, builds the confidence of the fearful, heals the brokenhearted and in pain, forgives the sinner and does not plant hate and violence. Hinaut pa.
A DOSE OF GOD TODAY 