Last Updated on August 29, 2022 by GMC
17th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday (Year II)
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.’”
The Kingdom of heaven has small beginnings, like a mustard seed; in fact, smaller than a mustard seed—a microscopic cell in a mother’s womb!
Infinity has an affinity for the little and the weak, the underdog among the kings and rulers of the world. The sensible eye measures greatness by size and quantity, but divine energy is indifferent to circumscribed shapes and forms. In the Eye of Infinity, a mustard seed is a cosmos and a galaxy an ant.
In the divine stratagem of the Three One Council, a heavenly seed was planted in Mother Earth through a lowly Virgin Mother. From this seed rooted in creation’s soil, a new theandric organism began to grow and grow toward the Triune Sun.
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.”
Earthly clay received the leaven of divine grace and energy to transform darkness into light, and stony hardness into supple life. Through the Incarnate Logos, the cosmos was overshadowed by the Spirit, transforming the whole batch one person at a time.
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.
From our earthly frame of reference, a mustard seed and yeast are small in comparison to the full-grown bush and expanded dough they yield. Relative comparisons give us perspective to appreciate the power of humble, hidden grace.
Yet grace is immeasurable, boundless and indivisible. Clocks and rulers cannot measure its speed or length. Infinity has no frame of reference and therefore no measures. Heaven expands from a zygote.