Scripture of the Week
Mass Readings—Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Book of Wisdom, chapter twelve, verses thirteen & sixteen thru nineteen;
Psalm Eighty-six (R/. five[a]), verses five & six, nine & ten, & fifteen & sixteen;
The Letter to the Romans, chapter eight, verses twenty-six & twenty-seven;
The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter thirteen, verses twenty-four thru forty-three
(or, the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter thirteen, verses twenty-four thru thirty).
Commentary: Sunday Readings.
Gospel reflection by Bishop Robert Barron (Word on Fire):
Friends, today’s Gospel features one of Jesus’s most beloved parables: that of the mustard seed. “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.”Video reflection by Rev. George Rumley, O.S.B. (U.S.C.C.B.): Sunday Reflection.
How does God tend to work? What does the building up of the kingdom typically look like? From the very small to the very great—and by a slow, gradual process. God tends to operate under the radar, on the edges of things, quietly, clandestinely, not drawing attention to himself.
In the City of God, St. Augustine opined that the Church is like Noah’s ark, a small ship bouncing on the rough seas of history. As the great empires come and go, as the waves of history crash noisily against the shore, God’s kingdom is quietly advancing, unnoticed but inevitable.
One of my very favorite images from C. S. Lewis speaks to this principle. How, he asks, did God enter history? Quietly, in a forgotten corner of the Roman Empire—sneaking, as it were, behind enemy lines.
Video reflection by Bishop Robert Barron (Word on Fire): Sunday Sermon.
Saints of the Day
Commentary: Wayback Machine.
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