Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, June 12, 2021

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Vigil
June 12, 2021

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday as we enter anew into the Sundays of Ordinary Time. Over the last three weeks, we have celebrated the birthday of the Church on Pentecost, the feast of the Holy Trinity, which is the model of the communion of the Church, and Corpus Christi and pondered how the Church draws her life from Jesus in the Eucharist. This Sunday, with two parables on the Kingdom of God, Jesus speaks to us about the way the Church grows.
• The first image is of a farmer who scatters seed on his farmland. Without his knowing how and without effort on his part, day and night, the seed begins to grow, yielding the blade, the ear, and the grain until harvest time. The seed does this, Jesus notes, “of its own accord.” This teaches us that the growth of the kingdom, the growth of the Church as a spiritual reality, is not fundamentally our work, but God’s. Imperceptibly, patiently, constantly, it grows. The second image is the more well-known one of the mustard seed, which is very tiny as it is sown in the ground, but through that process of growth Jesus mentions in the first parable, springs up and can become one of the largest of plants where the birds can come to dwell. The kingdom can be at times very small, seemingly insignificant, but Jesus says, it contains within the power of God to grow to be enormous.
• Taken together these images convey to us a sense of the wonder we should have with regard to the Church as a spiritual reality and God’s role in its growth. We’re tempted to look at the Church sometimes too much as an institution, as a human organization, that we must build, like entrepreneurs build a business. We sing songs like, “Let us build the City of God,” which, materially, is similar to the ancients’ saying, “Let us build the Tower of Babel.” Jesus is saying by these images that we don’t build it; he does. The farmer certainly does a little of the work, sowing the seed and tilling the soil, but most of the work happens by what is contained in the seed, what is contained in the soil, and the water and sunshine that God provides. So it is with growth in the Church. God gives the seed of faith, he provides the water of the sacraments, the sunshine of various blessings, the nutrients in the soil like teaching and formation necessary. And because God is involved, we should have confidence in every age.
• For me, the Parable of the Mustard Seed is a great source of hope. Even though the kingdom begins very small, in the heart of one faithful person, over time, it can grow huge. This is, of course, what we see in how the Kingdom began in the Annunciation, when out of Mary’s yes, the Seed (with a capital S) conceived within her by the power of the Holy Spirit, began to grow and eventually all nations would be embraced in the branches of his arms on the Cross. We saw that this is what happened on Pentecost, when out of this small band of apostles, the Church started and experienced extraordinary growth. We’ve seen this happen in the founding of parishes out of a few committed families, of religious movements and orders that began only with the founder, and in families when one person’s conversion led to the conversion of so many other generations. We witness it in what is now occurring in so many African countries and even in the South and Southwest of the United States. We see it in the history of the Benedictines, the Franciscans, the Dominicans, Jesuits, Daughters of Charity, the Missionaries of Charity, the Sisters of Life, the Dominicans of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, the CFRs and so many others. We see it in the explosive growth of FOCCUS on college campuses, the expansion of ministries like Word on Fire, the Augustine Institute, Dynamic Catholic, Ascension Press and others. What starts small, but with faith, grows. There’s, therefore, always reason for hope.
• But at the same time, we have to confront the question as to whether what Jesus said about the growth of the seed has an expiration date. Even though we can point to success stories, many religious orders today, many parishes, even whole dioceses, are experiencing not continued growth but shrinkage. Just look at what is happening in many European countries where once the faith was strong but now there are few priests, few religious and few practicing faithful. Many U.S. dioceses are closing Churches and schools rather than building new ones. How are we to understand this? If the Church has shrunk in some places, the Lord has permitted it — not wantedit! — so that he could somehow bring greater good out of it, including giving us all the opportunity to experience anew the full meaning of this parable, through beginning again, beginning smaller, like the new mustard seed planted from the tall tree.
• The truth is that when the Church has become as big as a Middle Eastern mustard tree, many of us can forget the lessons that God teaches us in these parables. When the Church is like a tree, an enormous institution, many people can stay on the peripheries and neither share in nor contribute much if anything to the growth God wants to bring about, convincing themselves that “others” will do the work of planting, tilling and harvesting. At a parish level, they can defer the responsibility to others to help pay the bills, maintain the programs, welcome newcomers, spread the faith. When we become closer to the size of a mustard seed, however, we can’t pass the spiritual buck in the same way. We need to step to the plate. This is a grace. It’s a challenge. It’s also a promise and image of hope. If we’re in areas that by human indices are in decline, the Lord Jesus wants us to become the living 21st century illustration of these parables. He wants us to have the opportunity to experience the exhilarating growth of the mustard seed. As we root ourselves in him, we have every hope that, just like thousands of times before us in the history of the Church, we’ll get bigger again and many others will be able to nest in the branches that will come from this union. Christian influence rather than waning will wax. But we must trust in him like the first Christians. We need to trust in him like the founders of religious orders. We need to trust in him like the pioneer generations of lay faithful in parishes who sacrificed so much to build Churches on firm foundations.
• This whole mystery of starting small and growing big is summarized in the Mass, as Jesus seeks to plant himself within us as a seed, as a “grain of wheat” (Jn 12:24) on good soil that together with him can bear abundant growth. If we receive even a little piece of the Host within us, we receive God and all his power. He wants to grow in us from that seeming small start to transform us in such a way that with him living in us we might transform the world. This is where all growth in the Church begins. This is where all growth in the Church is directed. As we prepare to receive Jesus this Sunday, let us do so with faith in the parables he will announce, and cooperate with him as he seeks to grow within us and others patiently, imperceptibly, constantly and through our yes — like that of the nascent Church on Pentecost — grow the kingdom.

The Gospel on the basis of which today’s homily was based was: 

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