Mt 13:31-35
Jesus offered the crowd another parable: “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.”
He told them another parable, “The kingdom of heaven is like the yeast that a woman took, and hid in three measures of flour, until the whole mass of dough began to rise.”
Jesus taught all these things to the crowds by means of parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. This fulfilled what was spoken by the Prophet: I will speak in parables. I will proclaim things kept secret since the beginning of the world.
REFLECTION
Saint Jerome writes: “Predicatio evangelii minima est omnibus disciplinis.” He is quiet right: the preaching of the Gospel is the most modest of all intellectual subjects. First of all because of its content. It rests mainly on statements which are a scandal to human reason: a God who becomes man, a God who lets himself be crucified, a corpse which rises from the dead. In its presentation also the Gospel lacks sophistication; the least illiterate can understand its message, so simple is its formulation. In this respect too, in comparison with quantum physics, psychopathology, sociology and all the other branches of modern science, the Gospel plays the part of the poor relative. It is truly the mustard seed among human disciplines.
And yet only this mustard seed can become the great tree offering a shelter to all the people of the earth. Immunology and radiogenetics may succeed in promoting the life of human beings; but only the Gospel can give a meaning to that life.
Left to itself the dough is completely inert. It needs the leaven to transform it. Without Christ in my life, I am an inert dough. With him as the ferment of my deeper self, I become a nourishing bread offered to all.
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