UPROOTING THE SEED OF SIN

3^rd week in Ordinary time, Year II; Friday.

(I Sam 11L1-10.13-17; Mk 4:26-32)

They were warned in I Sam 8. But they insisted. They wanted a King who would rule them according to their own desires—one who would fight with them at battle and make them feel like other (pagan) nations. That was how it all began. Now, at a time when other Kings were leading their people at war, David, the great soldier, who as a little boy fought bears and lions, decided to stay home...This little idea would magnify into adultery, drunkenness, lies, murder; a woman would lose her husband, and an innocent baby would die: excitement turned into anxiety, pain and misery.

This is how sin grows. It may begin with a little idea, misjudgment, misplacement of priority, etc. Sin multiplies itself and spreads its tentacles, involving more and more people. Therefore, it must be nipped in the bud.

Brothers and sisters, the good news is that as sins grows from a little seed of an idea, so the Kingdom of God grows like a mustard seed. And that is what Jesus tells us today, that once the seed of the Kingdom of God is sown, it multiplies itself. And Gal 5:16—26 tells us that the seeds of the Kingdom of God are always in opposition to the seeds sin and death. And St. Paul says in Rom 5:20-21 “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

We are subjects of the Kingdom. The seeds of the Kingdom of God have been sown in us through our baptism: the seeds of forgiveness, self-control, patience, charity, prayerfulness, etc. These seeds can only germinate and grow in if we allow them to manifest in our daily lives. And we cannot comprehend the fullness and completeness of the harvest these will yield. Once we allow the seeds of the Kingdom of God to be alive in us, the seeds of sins and death cannot continue to multiply in us.

----our help is in the name of the Lord; who made Heaven and earth.

Chinwenwa J. N., C.Ss.R

Redeemer House, Ibadan.

29/01/2010