Monday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
The Smallest Of All Seeds
Liturgical Cycle: A | Lectionary Cycle: II
Introduction
Year II. God’s love made his people as close to God as a loincloth is close to the human body. Jeremiah’s symbolic action tells the people that by embracing the idolatry of Babylonia, they have given up God’s tenderness and become like rotten fruit.
Gospel. A tiny seed becomes a tree. At the beginning, when one hears it and accepts it, the word of God is only a tiny seed, and when it is contested and contradicted, as it was in the early Church and is often again today, it looks insignificant, negligible. What is it, in comparison with the powerful media? But it is meant to grow and to become, little by little, a kingdom of love and justice that overcomes all contradiction and hatred.
Opening Prayer
Curb our impatience, Lord,
When we try to impose
your truth and justice and peace
on a Church and a world
not yet disposed to welcome them.
In our powerlessness and discouragement
May we learn to accept
That all true growth comes from you.
We can only plant the tiny seed
And it is you who make it bloom into a mighty tree
that can give shelter to all who accept your word.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
First Reading
The Linen Belt
This is what the Lord told me: “Go! Buy yourself a linen belt and put it around your waist; do not soak it in water.”
So I bought the belt as the Lord commanded and placed it around my waist.
The word of the Lord came to me a second time:
“Take the belt you bought, the one you wear around your waist, and go to the torrent Perah; hide it there in a hole in the rock.”
I went and hid it as the Lord told me.
After many days, the Lord said to me: “Go to the torrent, Perah, and get the belt I ordered you to hide there.”
I went to the torrent and dug up the belt, but it was ruined and useless.
And the Lord said to me:
“In this way, I will destroy the pride and great glory of Judah—this wicked people who refuse to listen to what I say, these stubborn individuals who follow other gods to serve and worship them. And they will become like this belt, which is now useless. For just as a belt is meant to be worn around a person’s waist, so were the people of Israel and Judah bound to me—it is the Lord who speaks—to be my people, my glory, and my honor; but they would not listen.”
Responsorial Psalm
R. (see 18a) You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you,
You forgot the God who gave you birth.
When the LORD saw this, he was filled with loathing
and anger toward his sons and daughters.
R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
“I will hide my face from them,” he said,
“and see what will then become of them.
What a fickle race they are,
sons with no loyalty in them!”
R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
“Since they have provoked me with their ‘no-god’
and angered me with their vain idols,
I will provoke them with a ‘no-people’;
with a foolish nation I will anger them.”
R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
Alleluia Verse
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The Father willed to give us birth by the word of truth
that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Parable of the Mustard Seed
Jesus shared another parable with them:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.
It is smaller than all other seeds, but once it is fully grown, it is bigger than any garden plant; like a tree, the birds come and rest in its branches.”
Parable of the Yeast
He told them another parable:
“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until the whole batch of dough began to rise.”
Jesus taught these things to the crowds through parables; he didn’t speak to them without using a parable.
This fulfilled what the Prophet said:
I will speak in parables,
and I will reveal things kept secret
since the beginning of the world.
Prayers of the Faithful
– That the tiny seed still alive in the hearts of many who abandon the Church may not be extinguished but grow again into a bright light to guide them to God and people, we pray:
– That missionaries may keep sowing the seed of the Lord’s joyful good news in our often indifferent and hostile world, we pray:
– That the seed of sharing and unity may keep growing in our Christian communities, until they become one heart and one mind in the Lord who gathers them at his table, let us pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Almighty and patient Father,
we bring before you the fruits
grown from tiny seeds of wheat
and the small shoots of the vine.
By the power of your Spirit
They will become Jesus, your Son, among us.
Let the seed of his life and message
bear fruit among us, your people
and make us the body of Christ to the world.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Prayer after Communion
God, our Father,
with a generous hand you have sown among us
the seed of all that is good and true,
your Son Jesus Christ.
However insignificant and disappointing
our faith and love may seem now,
give us the hope and the courage
that he can unite us in a community
where justice, truth and freedom will prevail
until the crop is ripe for reaping.
Grant us this through Christ our Lord.
Blessing
All growth is slow, so slow that it is almost invisible. All that grows needs time. That is the way the word of God, in which we believe, has to grow among us and to become a kingdom where people respond to God’s fidelity and work out God’s plans. May Almighty God bless you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
REFLECTIONS
Matthew 13:31-35
Today the Church celebrates the memorial of St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Companions of Jesus - the Jesuits.
Despite an unpromising present, the parable of the mustard seed reflects Jesus' irrepressible hope for the future. Mathew reminds his community that despite its unimpressive present, it will be wonderful in the future. In Jesus' story, the mustard plant grows into a tree so that birds of the sky can live on its branches! But it is indeed strange to find a mustard plant that is so huge!
There is a symbolism applied in the phrase "birds of the sky." In the Bible, this phrase referred to the pagans. Jesus makes the seemingly impossible promise that the people of the pagan lands will find refuge in this great tree of faith.
The second parable is about Three measures of flour, which is equivalent to fifteen litres. This would have been an extravagant amount of flour, enough to feed over a hundred hungry people.
The phrase three measures of flour has an exact reference to the Old Testament. When Abraham was visited by his Three Visitors, he instructed his wife, Sarah, to mix three measures of flour (with a whole calf!) to feed them. The Three Visitors predicted something that seemed impossible - that Sarah would be pregnant soon and that they would have a child: Isaac.
In the image of the three measures, two important messages are clearly visible:
First: There is nothing impossible for God. As he establishes his Kingdom and his Church, he chooses the unlikely circumstances and calls the insignificant.
Second: He showers his blessings without measures – John speaks of miracles of abundance – six jars of wine to a family where they were celebrating a marriage; 12 baskets of bread left-over after feeding over five thousand people; super-catch of fish by the disciples who toiled without catching any all night and here the three measures of flour for baking – ours is a God who gives his blessings in abundance, an extravagance!
It is precisely this extravagant God that captivated Ignatius of Loyola, whose memory we celebrate today. The spiritual experience of Saint Ignatius may inspire us to "find God in all things." Let us pray with the saint: "Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, All I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me."