Lectionary: 401
Reading 1
Jeremiah 13:1-11
The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth;
wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water.
I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on.
A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus:
Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing,
and go now to the Parath;
there hide it in a cleft of the rock.
Obedient to the LORD’s command, I went to the Parath
and buried the loincloth.
After a long interval, the LORD said to me:
Go now to the Parath and fetch the loincloth
which I told you to hide there.
Again I went to the Parath, sought out and took the loincloth
from the place where I had hid it.
But it was rotted, good for nothing!
Then the message came to me from the LORD:
Thus says the LORD:
So also I will allow the pride of Judah to rot,
the great pride of Jerusalem.
This wicked people who refuse to obey my words,
who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts,
and follow strange gods to serve and adore them,
shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing.
For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins,
so had I made the whole house of Israel
and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD;
to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty.
But they did not listen.
Responsorial Psalm
Deuteronomy 32:18-19, 20, 21
R. (see 18a) You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you,
You forgot the God who gave you birth.
When the LORD saw this, he was filled with loathing
and anger toward his sons and daughters.
R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
“I will hide my face from them,” he said,
“and see what will then become of them.
What a fickle race they are,
sons with no loyalty in them!”
R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
“Since they have provoked me with their ‘no-god’
and angered me with their vain idols,
I will provoke them with a ‘no-people’;
with a foolish nation I will anger them.”
R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
Gospel
Matthew 13:31-35
Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds.
“The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed
that a person took and sowed in a field.
It is the smallest of all the seeds,
yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.
It becomes a large bush,
and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.’”
He spoke to them another parable.
“The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast
that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour
until the whole batch was leavened.”
All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables.
He spoke to them only in parables,
to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:
I will open my mouth in parables,
I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation
of the world.
REFLECTION
SOURCE: One Bread One Body
THEME: SEEDING IS BELIEVING
"The reign of God is like a mustard seed which someone took and sowed in his field." –Matthew 13:31
The Lord is looking for someone to sow a mustard seed. Physically, this is light work, for thousands of mustard seeds weigh almost nothing. However, sowing a mustard seed is hard work spiritually. When someone sows a mustard seed, he appears to be doing nothing. Although he knows he is doing something, he himself feels as if he is doing something which amounts to nothing. He is strongly tempted to despise "small beginnings" (Zec 4:10).
Like Jesus, the Suffering Servant and the Messiah, the sower of a mustard seed feels he has "toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent" his strength (Is 49:4). The life of a mustard seed sower is hidden in Christ (Col 3:3) and appears useless and hopeless. Nevertheless, the Lord promises a mustard seed sower: "I will make you a light to the nations, that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth" (Is 49:6).
Some of you reading this feel discouraged that we are still light-years away from the amazing justice and freedom which is part of the kingdom of God. However, put the drop of your life into the ocean of God's love. God will multiply it to transform the world.
PRAYER: Father, I will give You my best even when no one but You knows what I'm doing.
PROMISE: "I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to Me, says the Lord; to be My people, My renown, My praise, My beauty." –Jer 13:11
PRAISE: When his wife died John's friends and family expected him to drink again, but his faith in God kept him sober.
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