Inspired by the Scripture readings of October 25th
“Jesus said, ‘What is the Kingdom of God like? To what can I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that a man took and planted in the garden. When it was fully grown, it became a large bush and the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches.’” (Luke 13: 18-19)
The parable of the mustard seed is normally taken to signify how the Church will have its humble beginning only to grow and sprout out throughout the earth. The foundation of the Church and the refuge it would serve for souls in search of God was a fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy: “I saw a tree of great height at the center of the earth. It was large and strong, with its top touching the heavens, and it could be seen to the ends of the earth.” (4:7-8)
Yet, at the same time, the parable of the mustard seed as told by our Lord has a great deal of significance for the individual, especially the Saint, who has first died to himself in order to become something greater than himself. The Christian life of faith, love and virtue ends up becoming a place of refuge and rest for other souls just as a tree provides a place of rest for birds. Indeed, it is not he that attracts so many people to himself but rather it is Christ who lives within him that attracts. But in order for the Saint or Christian to be that living tabernacle, he or she must first die to self and be buried just as the mustard seed had to sink beneath the surface of the soil.
St. Ambrose, a Father and Doctor of the Church, said, “We should have a daily familiarity with death, a daily desire for death…It was by the death of one man that the world was redeemed. Christ did not need to die if he did not want to, but he did not look on death as something to be despised, something to be avoided, and he could have found no better means to save us than by dying. Thus his death is life for all.” In dying to self and giving up what we are, we get something better in return: We get Himself, that is, Christ. St. Paul said it best, “For to me life is Christ, and death is gain.” (Philippians 1:21) It is no exaggeration to say that we barter with God: We get his Spirit and he gets our soul.
In this exchange, it is not only in acts of self-denial, spiritual sacrifices for souls and voluntary penances which death to self is brought about. It also the furnace of trials and the daily monotony of our duties- and the lack of fulfillment which follows –that is used by our Lord to prune and to purify. To willingly accept, out of love for God, anything ranging from a great loss to the petty but disagreeable circumstances which daily beset us is an occasion for great grace. And to be sure, every single Saint, at some point in their lives, felt completely abandoned by God and the promise of life. Whether it be death robbing us of a loved one, a lost job, marital stress or a deep depression, the irony of Divine Providence quite often uses the appearance of death to bring forth a renewed but higher form of life.
St. Clement, fourth bishop of Rome, uses the analogy of nature to bring this point home: “Day and night show us a resurrection; the night lies in sleep, day rises again; the day departs, night takes its place. Let us think about the harvest; how does the sowing take place, and in what manner? The sower goes out and casts each seed onto the ground. Dry and bare, they fall into the earth and decay. Then the greatness of the Lord’s providence raises them up again from decay, and out of one many are produced and yield fruit.”
How true! Whether it is a hopeless situation, a seed buried beneath the soil or a lifeless body of a loved one, the Almighty has a way of defying what we see or don’t see with our own eyes. Just as a seed in the ground is covered by soil and just as the barrenness of the surface gives no indication of new vegetation, the human condition is much the same way. Indeed, there are many layers to life. And frequently we glance at the top layer of life and we conclude that what we see is what we get. However, sometimes we don’t make the connection between content of our religious belief and the disappointments of life. For instance, most Christians regularly recite the following passage from the Nicene Creed: “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” “All that is seen and unseen” is a passage that is so important! Why? Because it is from the unseen world- like a seed hidden beneath the surface –where the death-defying surge of life comes. It is the content of hope for any occasion which seems hopeless.
This couldn’t be any more applicable than in the case of death. The deceased body, of course, has the appearance of death. It is so convincing and so final that it understandably is the cause of many tears and grief. To be sure, death is emblematic of all the things that have gone wrong and could go wrong in life. It seems to have the last word as does misfortune itself. It seems so definite and irrefutable. But like that one little mustard seed there is a potency of life that escapes the senses. The human soul is one such potency.
“The souls of the virtuous are in the hands of God, no torment shall ever touch them. In the eyes of the unwise, they did appear to die, their going looked like a disaster, their leaving us, like annihilation, but they are in peace.” (Wisdom 3)
Not even the death of the human body can repress the soul. The just soul, as the book of Wisdom so beautifully states, defies in death itself by escaping into eternal happiness. If that be true, then no adversity should repress the hope that the Lord will resurrect something new and promising even from what appears to be a hopeless situation. And going even further, Jesus Christ will use your suffering and loss as an instrument of new life for others. As our Lord said, "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit." (John 12:24)
