GOSPEL POWER | JULY 26, 2021  | MONDAY | Saints Joachim and Anne, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary 17th Week in Ordinary Time

 Gospel: Mt 13: 31 – 35

Jesus put before the crowd another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet: “I will open my mouth to speak in parables; I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.”

Reflection

The vision of the Kingdom of heaven that Jesus offers in  today’s Gospel-parables is not of a ready-made utopia  of prosperity and peace, but something of insignificant  beginnings and amazing growth. It is a reality that calls for patient  waiting in faith and hope. Even Jesus, the inaugurator of that  Kingdom, has to follow the same pattern. He enters our world as a  helpless baby, born to a poor couple. He grows up in an unknown  town and lives an uneventful life for thirty long years. But immense  growth follows the three-year ministry that he crowned with his  self-offering on the cross, death and resurrection. The alreadyinaugurated Kingdom continues to be a partially veiled reality in  our world today. But we are invited to give it visibility in our life  through little acts of kindness — tiny mustard seed that the Spirit can  nurture into a full-grown plant that offers hospitality to God’s more  vulnerable creatures.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, give us new eyes to perceive the presence of the Kingdom in  the hardly noticeable realities of everyday life. Amen.