Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard how God used stories and comparisons with the real world to teach His people about Himself, about the love He has for us all, and ultimately, on how we ourselves ought to live our lives and carry out our lives so that we will ultimately be found worthy of Him and be saved.

In the first reading, God through the prophet Ezekiel had revealed to the people what He intended to do with us. In the comparison with trees and plants growing in a field and on a mountain, He taught us that God intends for us to be good and have goodness within us. The plants and trees represent all of us mankind, whom the Lord had planted and nourished that they may grow tall and great, just like how God nourished us and planted the seeds of His Spirit in us.

We know that a plant needs good care and nutrients in order to grow big and strong. Therefore God has also given us tender care and love, to nurture within us the gifts which He had granted us, so that they may grow strong within us, and the gifts God has given us may extend to all others around us, and thus the comparison which God used, that like a tree with its large branches sheltering many animals and birds in them.

And God also likened this to the growth of a mustard seed, which Jesus used as a parable. A mustard seed is a very small seed, smaller than ever a grain of rice. And yet once it grows to its full height as a plant, it becomes a large tree, bigger than many other plants. Its roots firm, its branches wide and extensive and it is strong and majestic to be viewed.

Thus the same will be with us and our faith once it has been nurtured properly and well. Our faith will then not just remain as a seed, but it will grow and expand to become something that is great and all-encompassing, that all who see us will know that God had done His great works in us. Remember that Jesus Himself said that even if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains? That means once we have the faith in us and we cultivate it, then everything truly is possible for us.

The problem is indeed that many have lost the faith, or that the same faith is simply nonexistent or covered beneath layers of worry, corruption and desires of this world. To better understand this, we have to look back at yet another of Jesus’s parables. This is the parable of the sower and the seeds, where the sower threw the seeds that fell in various locations.

We should be quite familiar with this parable, where some seeds fell on the roadside, and the birds ate it up. This represents just how vulnerable we are to the works of Satan and his evil agents, the seducers and tempters that try at all times to keep us away from righteousness and from the path of God. And also those seeds that fell on the rocky ground, unable to form deep roots and died being scorched by the sun.

And also the seeds that became choked by the thistles and weeds growing around them. Both these examples showed how it will not be easy to build up, nurture and maintain our faith, since not only that Satan will try his best to keep us away from God’s salvation, but he has so many tools with which to destroy us, namely by the many worldly goods and desires that has often distracted us and kept us away from the One who should be our focus, that is the Lord our God.

But we know that the seeds that fell on the rich soil grew big and strong, healthy and great, to bear fruits in the thirtyfold, sixtyfold, hundredfold and even more. This is in perfect tandem with what we heard through the prophet Ezekiel in our first reading today, that a great tree with wide and extensive branches, where birds and other creatures came to dwell in them.

Thus, if our faith is strong, then it will truly grow to massive and epic proportion, not in terms of how great we will become, but in terms of our reach to others around us. The birds and the creatures are like those around us who are lost and who need our help. If we can grow stronger in faith, it does not benefit just ourselves, but also many others who by our help and by our examples also find themselves needing to be saved, and thus repent and change their ways. And indeed how much fruit that will bear us!

Truly, Jesus used His parables to make things more understandable by making the things divine explained in human terms, and more often than not, they are all connected together, as all of them explain the single theme that God wants to tell us, that is believe! Repent! And change our ways to be like the ways taught by the Lord!

Therefore, today, as we reflect on what we have heard from the Sacred Scriptures, let us all come to realise the great potentials that lie within each and every one of us, that is the potential of our faith, and also therefore of the gifts that God had placed in each and every one of us. We have a clear choice here, either to let the seeds of faith in us to remain as that, or to allow it to grow in a rich foundation to grow into a great and fruitful tree of faith.

God who sees the fruits of faith in us will then bless us and welcome us into His kingdom. He will strengthen us and grant us the eternal life which He had promised all of us. Remember, God is ever loving and ever faithful. Therefore, should we not truly seek Him in all things and become ever more faithful, remembering to do what He wants from us in all of our actions? May God be with us all, now and forever. Amen.