You Started Small

The WORD  today reminds me that we all started small. 

They say that great things start from small beginnings. That is true. As we look in our lives, we know that we all started small. We were born a baby, knowing nothing on our own. Even Jesus, the Son of God, was born as a baby. It was God’s love and protection, through other people, that got us where we are today. No matter how much one achieves in life, that person started small. And it is by God’s love and grace, not by human power, intelligence, influence and connections, that one was able to achieve things.

In the gospel, we see Jesus telling us something similar. The mustard seed and yeast are small. Yet they eventually affected a lot. The mustard seed grew into a huge tree, and the yeast affected the flour. Whatever they accomplished, they started small. So we should not be proud.

We see in the first reading how God opposes the proud. God told Jeremiah that he took offense in the pride and hardness of heart of Judah – how they turned away from God. in times like these, it is good to remember what Job said “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away.” Just because God is a gracious and generous God, does not mean he will not take away things. Just because he is loving does not mean he is not just.

God has blessed us with a lot of things. A lot of success and victories. A lot of accomplishments. However, we should not let these things get in our heads. We should remember how we started, and the role of God in our lives. This should put things in perspective and remind us of God’s love, goodness and greatness. 

What is my greatest achievement? What things have I achieved in life? How do I treat these things? Do these things get in my head, or do I know God’s role in everything? Do I remember how great, generous and loving God is? Do I know and remember that I cannot achieve anything on my own, and everything was approved by and blessed by God? 

May we be warned by the psalmist to not forget God who gave us birth. Let us remember that we all started small, and remember that it was God who caused all the good things to happen to us.

Father God,

Thank you for today. thank you for another day to live. Thank you for another week. Thank you for the reminder. Lord, I am sorry for being proud. Sorry for being too full of myself and focusing on what I have accomplished and gained in this world. Sorry for thinking that it was because of me – my attitude, my skills, my intelligence, my connections – that got me where I am and what I have. Lord, may I never forget that everything comes from you and you can take them away anytime. May I be humble with everything, and generous with your blessings. May I always remember this, and may I live knowing this. May this lead me to be grateful to you, and may it lead me to be more generous to others and share all I have with others. Amen.

Blessed Week!

In Christ,

-g-

July 27, 2020

Monday of Week 17; Blessed Titus Brandsma

FIRST READING

Jeremiah 13:1-11

The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth; wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water. I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on. A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus: Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing, and go now to the Parath; there hide it in a cleft of the rock. Obedient to the LORD’s command, I went to the Parath and buried the loincloth. After a long interval, the LORD said to me: Go now to the Parath and fetch the loincloth which I told you to hide there. Again I went to the Parath, sought out and took the loincloth from the place where I had hid it. But it was rotted, good for nothing! Then the message came to me from the LORD: Thus says the LORD: So also I will allow the pride of Judah to rot, the great pride of Jerusalem. This wicked people who refuse to obey my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts, and follow strange gods to serve and adore them, shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing. For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so had I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD; to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty. But they did not listen.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Deuteronomy 32:18-19, 20, 21 

R. (see 18a) You have forgotten God who gave you birth. 

You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you, You forgot the God who gave you birth. When the LORD saw this, he was filled with loathing and anger toward his sons and daughters. 

R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth. 

“I will hide my face from them,” he said, “and see what will then become of them. 
What a fickle race they are, sons with no loyalty in them!” 

R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth. 

“Since they have provoked me with their ‘no-god’ and angered me with their vain idols, I will provoke them with a ‘no-people’; with a foolish nation I will anger them.” 

R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth.

ALLELUIA

James 1:18

R. Alleluia, alleluia. 

The Father willed to give us birth by the word of truth that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. 

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

GOSPEL

Matthew 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.