Anyone who has ears should hear

Jer. 13:1-11, Mt. 13:31-35. In today's first reading, the prophet Jeremiah gives us images and figurative language to describe reality of things around him. He takes a loin cloth, wears it and puts it away without washing it.  When he returns for it, it has rotted away. In the Gospel, Jesus uses two brief parables; the mustard seed and the yeast one finds two stories taken from daily life which will serve as terms of comparison to help us discover the mystery of the Kingdom. The enigmatic statement of Jesus: “Anyone who has ears to hear, let him hear,” means simply, “You have heard, so now try to understand.” It is up to us to discover what the story reveals to us about the Kingdom of God present in our life. The Kingdom of Heaven grows daily, through the witness of the community and becomes good news of God which radiates light and attracts people. The person who gets close to the community feels welcomed, accepted, at home and builds in it the nest.

In all these parables, the Lord brought forth the fact of how those little things like mustard seed and yeast, mustard seed, one of the smallest among the seeds and yeast very small and microscopic in size, were able to grow into immense proportions beyond imagination. The mustard seed grows into a relatively large tree with many branches while the yeast allow the dough to rise quite significantly in size. The significance of this is such that subtly, the Lord is telling us that we need to make ourselves small and insignificant before God, minuscule and tiny, if we want to grow and be truly great before Him. It is by discarding all sorts of pride and greed, ego and ambition, selfishness and hubris, and instead embracing humility and meekness that we will be able to grow in faith. Unless we humble ourselves, we will be full of ourselves to be able to nurture ourselves with the love of God.

May the Lord help us to be drawn into deeper relationship with God, not through creating our own image of who we think of God but by being open to the God who desires us to know Him! Amen!! Remain safe and have a productive week!!!