Every
genuine and fruitful growth occurs in SILENCE! We eat and take care of ourselves,
but we not hear the bones stretching nor the flesh adding up; we look back and
realize an enormous growth had occurred in silence but before our eyes. This silence
does not necessary make growth ‘mysterious’ but makes it ‘beautiful’, ‘powerful’
and ‘necessary.’ Simply put: growth occurs, and we accept it!
In the first reading of today, Ezekiel announced that God was going to bring about a growth that is almost impossible for man to achieve. God would break off the topmost of the young twigs of the cedar and plant it upon a high and lofty mountain of Israel, “That it may bring forth boughs and bear fruit.” And under this cedar will dwell all kinds of beasts, birds of every sort will nest in its branches. “I the Lord bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish.” The silent hand of God brings about growth beyond human imagination.
This
silent hand of God touches us through faith. St Paul in the second reading said
that we walk by faith, not by sight. Faith brings growth and fruitfulness. The spiritual
nourishment that faith supplies gives us courage even in our bodily life, so
that we live to please the Lord and not to indulge the body. “For we must all appear
before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil,
according to what he has done in the body.” Since God is the source of
nourishment and growth, the fruit thus produced must be worthy of Him and
presented before Him.
The reward
is good or evil; heaven or hell. And the parable of Jesus today describes how
the kingdom of God grows in us silently and in little things. It is like a
little grain a man dropped on the ground, “And should sleep and rise night and
day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how.” But once harvest
is ready, he puts in the sickle…The kingdom of God is majorly the work of
grace, which we are asked to cooperate with.
Again,
Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed, which grows from the
smallest seed to become the greatest of all shrubs, with large branches so that
birds of the air can make their nests on it. So the words of the prophet Ezekiel
is fulfilled in the words of Jesus. For we see in Jesus the rejected stone that
became the cornerstone; the little seed cut from the little tribe of Bethlehem
that became the biggest shrub of salvation on which all sorts of people will
gather to grow their little ‘nests’ of salvation. It is on Christ Jesus that
our lives are built and grow silently. His unseen and powerful hand silently
holds us and grows us to bear fruit for eternal life. The Silent hand of God
sustains us.
Fr
Jude Chinwenwa Nwachukwu, C.Ss.R
Saints
Peter & Paul Catholic Church,
Tedi-Muwo,
Ojo, Lagos.
Sunday
June 13th, 2021.
www.soundofsilence.ng
www.nwachinwe.blogspot.com
