(Eucharist - July 27)
First reading (Jeremiah 13:1-11)
A reading from the prophet Jeremiah,
Thus said the LORD to me, "Go and buy yourself
a linen loincloth, and put it on your loins, but do not dip it
in water." So I bought a loincloth according to the word
of the LORD, and put it on my loins. And the word of the LORD
came to me a second time, saying, "Take the loincloth that
you bought and are wearing, and go now to the Euphrates, and hide
it there in a cleft of the rock." So I went, and hid it by
the Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me. And after many days the
LORD said to me, "Go now to the Euphrates, and take from
there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there."
Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and I took the loincloth
from the place where I had hidden it. But now the loincloth was
ruined; it was good for nothing. Then the word of the LORD came
to me: Thus says the LORD: Just so I will ruin the pride of Judah
and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse
to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own will and have
gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be
like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. For as the loincloth
clings to one's loins, so I made the whole house of Israel and
the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD, in order
that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory.
But they would not listen.
Gospel (Mat 13,31-35)
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew,
He put before them 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."
Let us allow ourselves to be drawn in by these two well-known images used by Jesus, for the strength of the parables is that they introduce us into the secret of what Christ desires, what he longs for, and also that they make perceptible things that are hidden.
Here the difference in size between the grain and the bush, between the pinch of yeast and the leavened bread, gives us a sense of how the dynamism of the Kingdom of God is at work in our hearts and in the world.
Each one has had the experience of opening himself or herself to God and witnessing how there springs up an ever increasing desire for a greater intimacy, for a more solid formation, for a more gospel-oriented life.
But I also find this word of God very encouraging and consoling for all of us, for our world and in particular this evening for us Europeans. For in our old societies in process of transition we are often find ourselves tempted to give up at the points where we find ourselves paralyzed or saddened: the decline of faith and its privatization, the weakness of our forces, the decline in values, the crisis of the family etc.
However, this evening Christ invites us not to be put off by the smallness of things, but to have an eye to the dynamism in which his love is at work. The signs of that are many: lay people, especially women, are beginning to take responsibility and are finding a place in the life of the Church, etc. But I would like especially to mention one sign: Europe is also a land of reconciliation and its traditions of generosity, of giving freely, of solidarity are today finding a meaning and an effectiveness for the whole world--through many activities and organizations that have the aim of making the human person more respected, more cared for, more recognized.
This word of God calls us this evening to modesty
and to hope. Let us ask the Lord for that tiny amount of disponibility
that we need in order to put ourselves at the service of the dynamism
for life and for justice in our world. For the death and the
resurrection of Christ give us complete confidence in the boundlessness
of God's love for all that lives on the earth.