Contemplating today's Gospel
Today's Gospel + homily (in 300 words)
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the Church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. So also husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his Body.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the Church. In any case, each one of you should love his wife as himself, and the wife should respect her husband.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the recesses of your home; your children like olive plants around your table.
Behold, thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you from Zion: may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.
“What is the kingdom of God like?”
Fr. Francisco Lucas MATEO Seco (Pamplona, Navarra, Spain)Today, the liturgical texts, through these two parables, place before our eyes one of the characteristics of the Kingdom of God: it is something that flourishes slowly —as a mustard seed— but, eventually, grows to offer shelter to the birds in its trees. Church Father Tertullian said it like this: “We come from yesterday and we fill everything.” With this parable, Our Lord encourages us in patience, fortitude and hope. These virtues are especially necessary for those who devote themselves to propagate the Kingdom of God. We must be patient, and with God's grace and human cooperation, wait for the planted seed to grow while profoundly embedding its roots into the good soil to gradually become a tree. In the first place, we need to have faith in the virtuality —fecundity— contained in the seed of the Kingdom of God. This seed is the Word; it is also the Eucharist that is planted in us through Communion. Our Lord Jesus Christ compared himself to “a grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies (…), but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (Jn 12:24).
The Kingdom of God, our Lord goes on, is similar to “yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch of dough was leavened” (Lk 13:21). Here also the yeast capacity to leaven all the dough is mentioned. This is what happens with “the rest of Israel” which the Old Testament mentions: the rest will have to save and leaven all the people. Continuing on with the parable, we only need the yeast inside the dough, getting to the people, to be like salt that preserves from corruption and makes all food have good taste (cf. Mt 5:13). Time is also of the essence so that it can carry out its ultimate function.
Parables encouraging patience and hopeful certainty; parables referring to the Kingdom of God and to the Church that are also applied to the growth of this same Kingdom in each of us.
Thoughts on Today's Gospel
“Let confidence and a lively Faith uphold the soul; he who believes and hopes obtains all things.” (Saint Teresa of Jesus)
"The victory of the Lord is certain: his love will make every seed of goodness present on the ground sprout and grow." (Francis)
“… It is right and good to pray so that the coming of the kingdom of justice and peace may influence the march of history, but it is just as important to bring the help of prayer into humble, everyday situations…” (Catechism of the Church Catholic, n 2660)
