Father Jorge Miró shares with Exaudi readers his commentary on the Gospel of this Sunday, June 16, 2024, titled “Everything is a gift, everything is grace.”
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The Word of God that we proclaim today presents us with the reality of the Kingdom of God that grows, like the seed, without the farmer realizing it. The Kingdom of God does not receive its power from the messenger who announces it, but rather has it in itself, in its nature as the “Word of God.” The protagonist of the Kingdom is God, He is the one who acts, the one who saves, the one who gives life, and the one who makes growth: Without me, you can do nothing. Everything is a gift, everything is grace.
God builds his Kingdom from simplicity, without the power of force. He does it from silence and through insignificant, poor, and weak people. God rebuilds life from within, acting mainly in the small and the weak.
Today’s parables present to us the Kingdom of God as a gift, as a gift that the Lord offers us freely, out of pure love: The righteous will grow like a palm tree…, planted in the house of the Lord, he will grow in the courts of our God.
The parable of the mustard shows us the greatness of growth that contrasts with the smallness of the seed. God took the path of simplicity to meet man: being rich he became poor for us, to be born he chose a manger, he lived in humility, and he died on the cross. You go up to heaven by going down.
God continues to look for reflections of smallness: the simplicity of the Word of God, the humility of Mary, the smallness of the sacramental signs (bread, water, wine), the fragility of the Church. Through them, his saving action comes to us, as effective signs. This is the seal of his works.
The Kingdom of God belongs to the poor, the humble, the simple, those who trust and hope, beyond appearances. The only thing the Lord asks of us is that we let the seed grow, that we do not put obstacles to its growth, that we do not quench the Spirit, that we do not waste the grace of God.
May we welcome with love and joy the seed that has been sown in our hearts. It is a great gift for which we must praise and bless the Lord every day.
And we have to take care of treasure. For this, for our hearts to be good soil where the seed can grow, it is necessary that we be humble, that we live every day from trust in the Lord, that we listen to his Word and welcome it, trying to put it into practice, that we try to be united to the Lord through prayer.
That we participate in the sacraments, especially in Penance and the Eucharist, that we go through the world doing good, that we live ecclesial communion, and that, ultimately, we try to discover the loving presence of God in our lives – even in the middle of the cross – and let us live each day doing his will.
In short, may we live each day letting ourselves be carried away by the Holy Spirit, who is the one who carries out the work of holiness in us.
Believe in a great God and you will see a great God!
Come, Holy Spirit! Make it rain, so that the seed may grow in me!