Don Bosco Philippines South Province

“This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.” Mk 4:26-34

11^th Ordinary Sunday Cycle B

A lot of graduation posts had been up lately. Besides the usual congratulations some were surprising and a few rather intriguing. One that got a lot of attention was one graduate who posted “Why should we thank God all the time for our successes? Now that I am graduating, finishing my course in college is solely due to my efforts. God has nothing to do with it.”

Many remarked that even if he had not asked God’s help in his studies, his success wouldn’t have been possible if God had not allow it. God works all the time and that is the reason why we accomplish if anything in our life.

It is the lesson of the parable of the mustard seed. The farmer sows the seed and then does nothing more than watering. But the seed grows on its own unknown to the farmer. Until it becomes the biggest shrub of all offering food and shelter to all the birds around. The first reading says the same message. God cuts a small twig from a tree and plants it in the mountain far from the care if any man. But that twig in the end grows into a large tree. Mk 4:26-34

Two lessons are clear in the readings. First, God is responsible for anything that happens around us in spite of our toil. Second, many times we do not know how and why our toil produces an abundance but God’s intervention was truly present at every step of the way from start to finish. Ez 17:22-24

As St. Paul tells the Corinthians that we Christians walk by faith not by sight. It is because we do not see and are blind to what God has been doing for us all the time in our lives. 2 Cor 5:6-10  As Don Bosco also has put it, “Only in heaven shall we realize the many marvelous things Mary has been doing for us.”  

Thus we say in the Responsorial Psalm: “Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.”Ps 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-16

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