Monday 26 July

SEVENTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 

THE SMALLEST OF ALL SEEDS 

 

Introduction

Cued by the Bible, in many languages “to worship (or adore) the golden calf” means to be inordinately after money and riches. In the Bible, it means to try to make oneself a god in the image of the human person, a god that one can control and use for one’s own ends, instead of a free, invisible God; also, making one’s own little gods out of created things. It can be power, prestige, authority, possessions, and in modern society, production, economic empires, science. Not that these things are bad in themselves; they become idols once they are no longer means toward a more humanized society but made into ends existing for their own purpose.

A tiny seed becomes a tree. At the beginning, when one hears it and accepts it, the Word of God is only a tiny seed, and when it is contested and contradicted, as it was in the early Church and is often again today, it looks insignificant, negligible. What is it, in comparison with the powerful media? But it is meant to grow and to become little by little a kingdom of love and justice that overcomes all contradiction and hatred.

 

Opening Prayer 

Curb our impatience Lord,
when we try to impose
your truth and justice and peace
in a Church and a world
not yet disposed to welcome them.
In our powerlessness and discouragement
may we learn to accept
that all true growth comes from you.
We can only plant the tiny seed
and it is you who make it bloom into a mighty tree
that can give shelter to all who accept your word.
We ask this through Christ, our Lord.

 

Reading 1: EX 32:15-24, 30-34

Moses turned and came down the mountain
with the two tablets of the commandments in his hands,
tablets that were written on both sides, front and back;
tablets that were made by God,
having inscriptions on them that were engraved by God himself.
Now, when Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting,
he said to Moses, “That sounds like a battle in the camp.”
But Moses answered, “It does not sound like cries of victory,
nor does it sound like cries of defeat;
the sounds that I hear are cries of revelry.”
As he drew near the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing.
With that, Moses’ wrath flared up, so that he threw the tablets down
and broke them on the base of the mountain.
Taking the calf they had made, he fused it in the fire
and then ground it down to powder,
which he scattered on the water and made the children of Israel drink.

Moses asked Aaron, “What did this people ever do to you
that you should lead them into so grave a sin?”
Aaron replied, “Let not my lord be angry.
You know well enough how prone the people are to evil.
They said to me, ‘Make us a god to be our leader;
as for the man Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt,
we do not know what has happened to him.’
So I told them, ‘Let anyone who has gold jewelry take it off.’
They gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and this calf came out.”

On the next day Moses said to the people,
“You have committed a grave sin.
I will go up to the LORD, then;
perhaps I may be able to make atonement for your sin.”
So Moses went back to the LORD and said,
“Ah, this people has indeed committed a grave sin
in making a god of gold for themselves!
If you would only forgive their sin!
If you will not, then strike me out of the book that you have written.”
The LORD answered, “Him only who has sinned against me
will I strike out of my book.
Now, go and lead the people to the place I have told you.
My angel will go before you.
When it is time for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.”

 

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 106:19-20, 21-22, 23

(1a) Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
Our fathers made a calf in Horeb
and adored a molten image;
They exchanged their glory
for the image of a grass-eating bullock.
R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
terrible things at the Red Sea.
R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
Then he spoke of exterminating them,
but Moses, his chosen one,
Withstood him in the breach
to turn back his destructive wrath.
R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

 

Alleluia: JAS 1:18

Alleluia, alleluia.
The Father willed to give us birth by the word of truth
that we may be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

 

Gospel: MT 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.

 

Intercessions

– That the tiny seed still alive in the hearts of many who abandon the Church may not be extinguished but grow again into a bright light to guide them to God and people, we pray:

– That missionaries may keep sowing the seed of the Lord’s joyful Good News in our often indifferent and hostile world, we pray:

– That the seed of sharing and unity may keep growing in our Christian communities, until they become one heart and one mind in the Lord who gathers them at his table, let us pray:

 

Prayer over the Gifts 

Almighty and patient Father,
we bring before you the fruits
grown from tiny seeds of wheat
and the small shoots of the vine.
By the power of your Spirit,
they will become Jesus, your Son among us.
Let the seed of his life and message
bear fruit among us, your people
and make us the body of Christ to the world.

We ask this through Christ, our Lord.

 

Prayer after Communion 

God our Father,
with a generous hand you have sown among us

the seed of all that is good and true,
your Son, Jesus Christ.
However insignificant and disappointing
our faith and love may seem now,
give us the hope and the courage
that he can unite us in a community
where justice, truth and freedom will prevail
until the crop is ripe for reaping.
Grant us this through Christ, our Lord.

 

Blessing

All growth is slow, so slow that it is almost invisible. All that grows needs time. That is the way the Word of God in which we believe has to grow among us and to become a kingdom where people respond to God’s fidelity and work out God’s plans. May Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

Commentary

“Crowd is untruth,” observed Søren Kierkegaard. Moses would agree. Ever since Moses began leading them, the Israelites had experienced YHWH’s care and protection. They had witnessed in person His mighty deeds. In response to His covenant, they promised total obedience to Him. But at the slightest delay in Moses’s return from the mountain of God, they lose their faith and trust. “The man who brought us out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him,” they complain. If only they knew that it was not the man Moses that brought them out of Egypt, but the hand of the Lord! (Didn’t they know it already?) 

But Aaron begs Moses for the sinful people. Moses begs YHWH on their behalf. Moses even offers himself as a sacrifice for the sins of his people. Aaron and Moses serve as the mustard seed and the yeast that Jesus speaks of today. Aaron and Moses are a minority compared to this vast majority of sinful people; but their actions yield powerful results. We are called to be such mustard seeds and yeast, silently working for the Kingdom in an indifferent world. Our labor will bear fruit one day.