Monday – St Ignatius Loyola   revisited

Gospel – Matthew 13:31-35

With Great Abandon!

Making Zucchini Bread!

 

 

You see this dot at the end of this sentence.  Yeah, the period.  That’s how big (small) a mustard seed is.  That tiny little dot that Jesus talks about in today’s Gospel.  That smidgen that can end up growing to a height of over 9 feet!  What Jesus doesn’t mention is that the mustard plant is essentially a weed!  Once it takes root, it grows with great abandon and is almost impossible to get rid of.  Kind of like kudzu in the South!  Nobody sows mustard seed; nobody puts it in their garden.  If they did, it would take over the garden and choke out any other plants.  Such an exaggeration!

 

And in the second of today’s parables, Jesus speaks of a woman who prepares 3 measures of flour to make bread.  One thing I have become relatively proficient at over this past 4 pandemic months is baking bread.  I always avoided the effort and thought it would take too much time, most of which is spent waiting for the dough to rise.  But now I’m baking bread every week and we haven’t bought a loaf from the store in over 3 months.

 

The recipe I use requires about 4 cups of flour; out of that, I end up with 2 small loaves of fresh bread.  However the woman in today’s parable is using 3 measures of wheat flour.  That’s over a bushel of flour and would end up making over a dozen loaves of bread.  In Jesus’ time, baking bread was a daily chore and no family is going to eat that much bread in one day.

 

So what’s going on?  We know Jesus is a master story-teller. He is also a mast exaggerator for the sake of making a point!  And the point here is all about faith, real faith in God and in Jesus!  It’s all about a faith so deep, so strong, that once it takes root in our heart, it grows with abandon and is impossible to uproot from our lives.  It is a faith that energizes our hearts and our lives to spread it around.  It fills us with love and hope for the future; it feeds our souls!

 

Creator of all life, no matter where we turn, you are there with us, to guide us and to shelter us from the storms of life. Be with us today and every day.  Help us to grow in faith in You and love for our brothers and sisters.

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