Sunday 17 June 2018: Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

The seed is the word of God, Christ is the sower

...Mark begins his ‘day of parables’ with three ‘seed’ parables. The familiar parable of the sower is not included in today’s passage; it gives us the parable of the seed that grows mysteriously to produce a full harvest, and the parable of the mustard seed, the smallest seed familiar to Palestinian farmers, which can produce a bush ten or twelve feet high. The most striking feature of these parables is the contrast between the tiny seed and what it goes on to produce. The ‘Kingdom’ Jesus announces is not a worldly triumph (something we need constantly to be reminded of); of its nature it has beginnings which are unimpressive and obscure by human standards. But in the end it initiates the realisation of the final achievement of God. Reference to the sickle and harvest echoes what the prophets had said about the End-time...

Extract by John Thornhill sm - read more at The Emmaus Series