Homily for 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

June 16, 2024
Mark 4: 26-34
Villa Maria, Bronx
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx

“This is how it is with the kingdom of God…” (Mark 4: 26).

We hear 2 of Jesus’ parables today, which St. Mark links because they’re concerned with seeds.  Let’s consider just the 1st one, which we can view from 2 perspectives.

(Van Gogh)

1st perspective:  the growth of God’s kingdom in a universal sense.  The seed that God has scattered on the land—thru the preaching of Jesus, the prophets, the apostles, and the Church grows secretly but surely, and like the farmer who scattered the seed, we don’t know how that happens.  It’s in the very nature of seeds.  Of course, as regards seeds agricultural scientists and botanists can explain growth.  But who can explain how God’s work in the world proceeds and eventually yields fruit, a glorious harvest of grain?

The harvest may not be the same year by year.  Storms, drought, locusts, or other factors might limit or destroy it.  The development of the kingdom of God on earth is often hampered by sin.  People have observed that we know the Church is divinely led because nothing that people have done—not persecution, not heresies, not bad Popes (there were quite a few in the Middle Ages), not wicked priests, not indifferent Christians—has been able to destroy the Church, the visible kingdom of God.

In the long term and by the very nature of the seed that God has scattered, the land is fruitful.  The kingdom grows invisibly.  The grace of God overcomes all natural disasters, all the sins that human beings commit.  The farmer sleeps and rises night and day; Jesus has ascended and isn’t physically among us.  But his Spirit is with us; holiness is evident everywhere.  The grain will sprout, ripen, and yield the harvest that God desires, the salvation of the human race.

The 2d perspective:  the seed of the kingdom of God within you and within me.  That’s mysterious and secret, isn’t it?  God planted the seed of his grace, the seed of holiness, on the day of our Baptism.  There’ve been days when the seed’s felt awfully dry, and days when it was like to drown in temptation (or worse).  But God’s work will “lift high the lowly tree and make the withered tree bloom,” as Ezekiel assures us (17:24).  It may seem to us that our growth has been so slow, maybe even stunted.  But we trust God’s power to do what he intends—we know not how—so long as we try to keep our hearts open to him, to be fertile soil.  “This is how it is with the kingdom of God.”