Dear Friends,
Christ said to his disciples, “Without me you can do nothing.” The Blessed Virgin Mary expressed the same truth in her Magnificat: “He lifts up the humble and raises up the lowly.” Today’s readings lead us to this same understanding and truth. When we accept the mission God has entrusted to us with humility and trust, He always makes it flourish. This is because the mission and its fulfillment are never about us but about Him who is the Source and the One watering what He has sown in us.
Time and again I hear people say, “Father, who am I? I am just one person, what difference can I make?” This is true from our human side. Yet, when we look at the mission from the side of the One who is its source, we will understand the truth of today’s message. Whenever we proclaim the Word of God, we scatter the seed and we let God work on it as He waters it. Secondly, if we trust in God, no matter how much small we can feel about ourselves, and less fitting for the task, if we accept to die to ourselves by giving out our time, talent, and treasure for the sake of the kingdom of God, the Lord himself will make our small actions and our trust yield fruit. The small action each individual makes will sprout and grow by the grace of the Lord.
So, today Christ calls us to abandon our excuses and our fears. When He created and saved us, the God who adopted us in Christ did have more than our own growth and fulfillment in mind. The purpose of Him adopting us was and still is to entrust us with a particular mission within His plan of salvation. This means that every grain and every seed bears a mission. Therefore, when we think that there is nothing we can do to make that mission fulfilled, we are denying the mission and the purpose for which He created us. Nobody should be left behind. Every grain should yield fruits. When we let our spot empty, that void will remain because no one else will leave their spot and cover two empty spots. When we just lay back, we must always try to answer to the following question, “who is going to fill in my spot?” This way, we will always remain aware about our place in the building up of the kingdom of God in union with other members of the body. This unity of commitment to not leaving our spot void and empty is what leads us to accept to die to ourselves in order to allow the growth of our community to a big tree able to offer branches for the birds of the sky to dwell. These branches are the different ministries through which we spread the love and mercy of God to the world. If you are not there, the tree is deprived of a grain necessary to its growth.
As the Lord waters us today with His Word and His Body, let us make ourselves available to Him, as we continue to pray for one another and for our parish family.
Fr. Emery