Father Andrzej Wyrostek
Homily from the Televised Mass, NewsCenter1
The 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time, June 16, 2024

My dear friends, to what can we compare the Kingdom of God that is perhaps the small as the mustard seed or as large as the tree that can host birds and its branches. 

Saint Ignatius of Loyola speaks that the purpose of our existence is really to praise and honor God. And to do that, God aids us in a variety of ways with many blessings, with many ways and talents, and possibilities. When we ask a question about God, about faith — what is our purpose of existence, and do we find meaning in our lives? Those questions are sometimes the beginning of our conversion. When we begin to ponder, not only how we can live comfortably, but what we can do with our life that will be meaningful and will carry on its effects even beyond the death of our own life. 

And so we look into those moments, and as I was looking at the Gospel passage for this weekend, I remembered that as a young man I would year after year go to the fields to plant the harvest, to sow the seed, and to prepare the land for its forage. Choose the right seed for it and then scatter the seed. Always with the hope that the weather will cooperate so that there will be a good possibility to harvest a good harvest. As we look into that in the Gospel passage that Jesus is using, especially now in the region when many of the farmers are planting seed year after year with the purpose of producing harvest. A harvest that we need to live, to have a good life, and to be nurtured with the necessary food that is produced out of that harvest. 

So, I look at that image that Jesus is using for us, and over 2000 years ago Jesus came about the world and proclaimed the Good News and spread the Gospel message, he only began with a small group of the apostles. Then after that a few disciples would join them, but it was still a very small group. Today as we look at the presence of the church, we find it present in every continent of the world. Even as sometimes as we are looking into the travels to the moon and the cosmos, we see the sacraments and the presence of God that we know taken with the astronauts. 

It’s a beautiful image for us, to be reminded when we come to the moment and ask a question, in the 23rd Century, is God relevant anymore? Do we need faith? Why do we bother with such ideas? We find that there is a great importance to that because we continue, in whatever state of life we find ourselves in, we continue to ask those same questions as the generations pass. What is my purpose here? What is my faith about? How am I to help to spread the Gospel in a way that it will be as fruitful as possible or as life giving as it has been to me?

My friends, as we continue this week with the presence of God in our life, I invite all of us to continue to rejoice and bless the Lord, to honor him, as Saint Ignatius says, with our lives. Don’t worry about our perfect or imperfect they might be. Those little things, all of them, they might be as small as the mustard seed but with the right blessing and our love for God, they will produce a very bountiful harvest for others to rejoice in.