The Parable of the Mustard Seed

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown, it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches’” (Matt. 13:31-32).

Seen in the light of our spiritual growth, the growth of the mustard seed could be seen as the description of a saint.

We cannot begin to understand what we will be like when we get to heaven. It's easy to forget that our destiny is to become saints.

In heaven, we will have been purified by our spiritual growth here on earth, and probably also by the fires of purgatory.

There will be no sinful obstacles to our love of God in heaven, and we cannot begin to imagine what that will be like.

These parables form a beautiful reminder of God's promises for us.

If times seem hard for God's Church here on earth, we can refuse to be daunted by the world and by persecution. “There is no servant greater than the master” (John 13:16).

“If the world has hated us, it has hated Jesus first” (cf. John 15:18).

"God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16) for its redemption.

We can try to allow Our Lord to grow in our hearts, and in this way, we will be witnesses to the spread of God's Kingdom in our time.

The parable of the mustard seed expresses the small beginnings of God's Kingdom on earth. Jesus ascended to heaven, leaving a tiny band of followers to take on one of the greatest empires yet seen on the earth.

Who in that time could have foreseen that the Church would spread across the whole world two thousand years later?

The parable declares that the Church will become large enough for the birds of the air to come and nest in her shade. This applies to the rest of the world.

The people whom the charity of the Church reaches are everywhere. The charity of the members of the Mystical Body of Christ has no limit. There is now no country in the world which has no people helped by the generosity of the People of God.

In the last few weeks, I've been reading a book on the history of the Diocese of Nakuru here in Kenya. There's one particular picture in that book of a tent.

It was the first tent that was placed in a certain area of the country called Nakuru, inhabited by an Irish missionary priest, a Kiltegan priest, called Father Luke Plunkett. It's a rather iconic photo because it shows how the mission started with that tent.

Now there's a flourishing diocese 100 years later, with nearly 100 priests and maybe half that number of seminarians. Other dioceses have come from that diocese. It has produced missionaries and all sorts of other people, schools, hospitals.

It's one of the many examples of what comes from the mustard seed. This is how God works.

We should never be surprised by the smallness, of the poverty, of our beginnings. What God wants us to do is to plant the seeds.

You may have heard many times in these meditations the story of the Loreto Sisters here in Kenya. Six of them arrived, Irish, back in 1921.

They celebrated their centenary in Kenya last year. And from that six, something like a million girls have been educated all over the country.

Many other religious congregations involved in education and health care have the same story to tell all over the world—the great things that have come from the mustard seeds.

Here in Africa, because of the recent nature of a lot of these things, the histories have been written and it's very easy to access the stories. Each one of them is more inspiring than the previous.

Pope Francis also tells the beautiful story of how he was going out one time, I think, to a party when he was sixteen years of age. He happened to pass by his local church, and he decided to go in to make a quick visit to the Blessed Sacrament.

There was a priest there hearing Confession, so he decided to go in to receive the sacrament. He said, “It was in that Confession that I decided to become a priest” (Vatican News, Pope Francis Discovers Vocation to Priesthood, September 21, 2023).

He responded to God's call. The Holy Spirit used that priest in the confessional to plant that mustard seed in his soul of a divine vocation.

Now we have a great pope doing wonderful things all over the world, the leader of the world—not just the spiritual leader—because of that mustard seed planted by that priest, whom God maybe had hearing Confessions all through his life for hours on end, but not knowing that one day he was to be the mustard seed that God was going to use to produce enormous fruit.

We have no idea how God is using our correspondence to His call to plant those mustard seeds of faith and holiness in our families, in our children, through our example of honesty or integrity, or with our employees, or in our neighborhood, or our example of fidelity to our Christian vocation, or our example of temperance with our friends.

The mustard seed of good example in our social and professional and family life can change the world.

From the mustard seed here in Africa that the missionaries planted with nothing a hundred years ago, the Church has come to be the leading provider of quality social services and is at the center of many key development initiatives.

If anything, very little is known about the important role of the Catholic Church in modern African society.

John Paul II liked to refer to the great growth of the Catholic Church in Africa in the 20th century (John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in Africa, September 14, 1995).

From just a couple of a hundred thousand Catholics at the turn of the 20th century, there are millions and millions of Catholics today.

He expressed the hope that the 21st century would be the century of Asia, where similar growth would take place (John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in Asia, November 6, 1999).

At the moment Africa is the only continent where the number of Catholics is increasing. The contribution of the Catholic Church to human development in Africa is constantly increasing.

If you have any relatives or know of any people from your country who were missionaries in Africa a hundred years ago, or even fifty years ago, it would be worthwhile to find out their story from relatives or friends or from books. It's a beautiful story.

The role of the Church in Africa is particularly notable in education and health provision. In Kenya alone, the Church runs something like 30 percent of the hospitals in the country.

In other countries, the Church is the backbone of the educational and healthcare system. In the last ten years, Africa is the continent which has recorded the largest increase in the number of schools managed by the Catholic Church.

In the same period of time, in matters of health, it has recorded the largest increase in the number of healthcare facilities managed by the Church.

One writer has said, “The market shares of Catholic schools and healthcare facilities are higher in sub-Saharan Africa than in the rest of the world—not to mention the fact that in sub-Saharan Africa, satisfaction is higher with faith-based schools and health care facilities than with public providers” (Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, Talk, August 2, 2022).

I've always been impressed in the different countries where I have lived of the appreciation and gratitude of the people in those countries for what the missionaries did, what the missionaries gave them.

“The Church also manages countless medical schools and nursing schools across the continent. More than ever, in Africa, the Church is at the heart of education, health, conflict resolution” (ibid.)—all fruit of the mustard seeds that have been sown down through the decades.

What we have to try and do now is put that mustard seed into communication and let the story be known, to inspire many young people to do great things with their lives as their predecessors have done.

One writer says the growth prospects in Africa are among the highest in the world. In Uganda, something like 50 percent of the country are under 25 years of age. In Kenya, it's something like 40 percent.

Many multinational corporations are moving their headquarters to more strategic places because they realize the growth and the potential that there is there.

One great story that we can try to make better known in the world is what the Church is doing to improve the well-being of the people on this continent.

One way we can try to do that is to professionalize the public relations of the Church, particularly by using public relations services utilized by other private and public entities.

It's not just to make the story known. It's to plant seeds of love, of inspiration, of Christ-like generosity, of correspondence to vocation in many hearts and minds and souls all over the planet, so that the 21st century can be all those things that Pope St. John Paul II dreamed it would be—with all the fruits of the mustard seeds that we find in his [fourteen] Encyclicals, with all the ideas they contain of what God wants the Church to be in this century.

Pope St. John Paul called the media “the first Areopagus of the modern age.” He declared that “it is not enough to use the media simply to spread the Christian message and the Church's authentic teaching. It is also necessary to integrate that message into the ‘new culture’ created by modern communications” (John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, Point 37-c, December 7, 1990).

“Doing that is all the more important today, since the media now strongly influence what people think about life” (Pontifical Council for Social Communications, The Church and Internet, February 22, 2002).

The world is craving for the guidance that the Catholic Church has to offer. It's worthwhile going back and reading again the document of John Paul II at the start of the new millennium.

The document precisely goes by that title: At the Coming of the New Millennium. He invites us to launch out into the deep: to become a professional seed-sower in all the opportunities of our life: familial, social, professional. Present and implant those seeds of doctrine, of truth, of love.

“The kingdom of God is God's effective but mysterious action in the universe and in all the chaos of human events. He overcomes the resistance of evil with patience, not with arrogance [and] outcry.

“For this reason, Our Lord compares the kingdom [of God] to a mustard seed, the smallest of all the seeds, but destined to become a leafy tree (cf. Matt. 13:31-32)” (John Paul II, General Audience, Point 2, December 6, 2000).

We don't know how God is going to use the things we do, the example we give in our family, the words we say, our example of holiness, our virtue, our example of the centrality of the sacraments, of the centrality of Christ in our life.

“The kingdom of God is grace, God's love for the world, the source of our serenity and trust: ‘Fear not, little flock,’ Our Lord says in St. Luke, ‘for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom’ (Luke 12:32)” (ibid.).

Pope John Paul said, “Fears, worries, and nightmares fade away, because in the person of Christ, the kingdom of God is in our midst (cf. Luke 17:21). But man is not a passive witness to God's entrance into history. Jesus asks us ‘to seek’ actively ‘the Kingdom of God and his righteousness’ (Matt. 6:33) and to make this search our primary concern” (John Paul II, ibid., Points 2-3).

“Seek first the things that are above” (Col. 3:1). By doing that in our own life, in our fidelity to our plan of life, our spiritual customs, our regular reception of the sacraments, we live out this command that Our Lord has given to us.

St. Paul says, “The kingdom of God does not mean food and drink but righteousness” (Rom. 14:17) and he urges the faithful to “put their members at the service of righteousness for sanctification” (cf. Rom. 6:13,19), because, he says, “none of us lives for ourselves, none of us dies for ourselves” (Rom. 14:7).

“Do not give any parts of your bodies over to sin or to be used as instruments of evil. Instead, give yourselves to God as people brought to life from the dead, and give every part of your bodies to God to be instruments of uprightness” (Rom. 6:13).

He says, “I am putting it in human terms because you are still weak human beings. As once you surrendered yourself as servants to immorality and to lawlessness, which results in more lawlessness, now you have to surrender yourselves to uprightness, which is to result in sanctification” (Rom. 6:19).

At any stage of our life, we can sow those seeds with our words, with our example, with our prayer, with our daily living out of our Morning Offering, using the time and the talents that God has given to us in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.

In the Our Father, we pray, “Thy Kingdom come” (Matt. 6:10).

Lord, may all the seeds that I have sown or you have allowed me to sow in my life—sometimes unconsciously—may they yield the abundant fruit that you want from my life.

That petition “has risen [to heaven] many times in human history, like a great breath of hope. Dante, in his paraphrase of the Our Father, says, ‘May the peace of your kingdom come to us.’… A petition which turns our gaze to Christ's return and nourishes the desire for the final coming of God's kingdom” (John Paul II, ibid., Point 5).

We all have our role to play in the coming of the kingdom. We are kingdom-builders.

“That desire,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “does not distract the Church from her mission in the world, but commits her to it more strongly” (Catechism, Point 2818).

In Africa today, you see lived out this commitment to mission. Things that happened in previous centuries in other countries where the Church grew to be the backbone of the country—it's happening at the moment on this continent.

It's easier to see the things that other Christian countries may have forgotten about or taken for granted or complained about. It's all on the upper gradient here at the moment.

The Church commits itself to our mission in the world.

The Second Vatican Council has called our attention to this: the role of the ordinary layperson. We've all become missionaries in our family, in our professional life, in our social life.

We are “waiting to be able to cross the threshold of the Kingdom, whose seed and beginning is the Church, says Lumen gentium, when it comes to the world in its fullness” (John Paul II, ibid.).

We can say, “Come, O Creator Spirit,
Visit the souls of those who belong to you;
Fill with your grace from on high
The hearts which you have made.”

“Spirit of God, make us ready to receive your visit. Make faith in the word which saves grow in us. Be the living source of the hope which blossoms in our lives. Be in us the breath of love that transforms us, and the fire of charity which impels us to give ourselves to the service of our brothers and sisters.

“You whom the Father has sent, teach us all things and make us grasp the richness of the word of Christ. Strengthen our inner being, make us pass from fear to confidence, so that the praise of your glory may burst forth from us” (John Paul II, Homily, World Youth Day, August 23, 1997).

“Therefore, we…entrust ourselves to his hands, to his Word, to his guidance, like inexperienced children who find security only in the Father. ‘Whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter into it’ (Luke 18:17)” (John Paul II, General Audience, Point 5, December 6, 2000).

We're told in St. Mark: “‘This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the land. Night and day while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing; how, he does not know.

“‘Of its own accord the land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the crop is ready, at once he starts to reap because the harvest has come.’

“He also said, ‘What can we say what the kingdom is like? What parable can we find for it? It is like a mustard seed which, at the time of its sowing, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth. Once it is sown it grows into the biggest shrub of them all and puts out big branches so that the birds of the air can shelter in its shade’” (Mark 4:26-32).

Using many parables like these, He spoke the Word to them as far as they were capable of understanding it.

We can think of the mustard seed in our own personal apostolate, in that friendship that we try to foster with people around us: the time we spend with them, every minute, every second, like a seed; the conversations we have with them; efforts that we make that might seem to be fruitless; like the farmer who scatters the seeds but not knowing where that seed is going to land or how it's going to be fruitful.

We begin with small things. But we “launch out into the deep” (Luke 5:4), as Pope St. John Paul has encouraged us in that document At the Coming of the New Millennium. We do so with faith and with daring.

That famous phrase that the astronaut said when he landed on the moon: “One small step for man can be one great leap for mankind” (cf. Neil Armstrong).

We don't live looking at the moon, but we can live and dream of building schools and hospitals and works of apostolate, things that are going to foster the well-being of mankind.

Or we can make that one small step of writing an article, or a book, or maybe a letter to a newspaper, or attending that conference and having an influence.

Or one small step of taking better care of the ordinary things that we have to look after each day: this child, that relation, remembering that birthday, preparing this meal, laying this table, mopping this floor, double-checking this email, looking back at the room we've just cleaned to make sure that everything is right, doing our work with perfection.

All these things can be one small step that can be like little seeds, so that in time there can be one great leap for mankind.

And when we sow the mustard seeds of truth—scientific truth—for example, about the beginning of human life, the effects can be enormous.

In “The Gospel of Life”–Evangelium Vitae, Pope St. John Paul II says we have to be “unconditionally pro-life.”

In The Forge, we are told: “Make sure that your lips, the lips of a Christian—for that is what you are and should be at all times—speak those compelling supernatural words which will move and encourage, and will show your committed attitude to life” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 576).

Sometimes in conversations, in gatherings, in classes, conferences, God may call us to be that voice of truth that goes against the grain, that is not politically correct, but which spreads the truth in the world that is hungry for that truth.

We are also told in The Forge: “The following comment, which caused me great sorrow, will also make you reflect: ‘I see very clearly why there is a lack of resistance, and why what resistance there is to iniquitous laws is so ineffective, for above, below, and in the middle there are many people—so very many! —who just follow the crowd’” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 465).

Our Christian vocation leads us to be the mustard seed in the middle of society: a leader who doesn't just follow the crowd, who knows how to be a bit of a rebel, because we've come to bring about a Christian revolution in the world, a revolution of love.

When you look at all the great apostolic works that are starting or have started across the African continent in the past hundred years, really, that's what you see: it's a great revolution of love.

There may be things that we don't know how to do or cannot do, but yet they may be within our reach.

We can learn the gift of writing or of speaking. We spend a few minutes each day writing a few ideas or words in response to an article in the newspaper. We can create a river of truth.

If we try to become the person in our profession who knows most about one particular area, because we've read everything that's coming out in that area over a couple of years, we can become the national expert and have a great platform for influencing.

We're told in The Forge: “There is an urgent need for spreading the doctrine of Christ. Store up your training, fill yourself with clear ideas, with the fullness of the Christian message, so that afterwards you can pass it on to others. —Do not expect God to illuminate you, for he has no reason to when you have definite human means available to you: study and work” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 841).

Our role is also to acquire those mustard seeds of truth through our reading, through our study—perhaps over time to become that expert, because we've dedicated ourselves to a certain area of human learning.

“We are children of God,” we're told in The Forge, “bearers of the only flame that can light up the paths of the earth for souls, of the only brightness which can never be darkened, dimmed, or overshadowed. —The Lord uses us as torches, to make that light shine out. Much depends on us. If we respond, many people will remain in darkness no longer, but will walk instead along paths that lead to eternal life” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 1).

We never know the impact of seed ideas on people and nations. If we try and get familiar with those key seed ideas—‘what is freedom,’ for example, ‘what is human love?’—then we can plant a seed idea in our family with our example.

A nun here in Kenya told me a few years ago about how her father, who was a policeman from Hansborough in Dublin, was on duty in the docks sometime in the early 1940s during the Second World War.

A ship docked there that had a number of refugees from Eastern Europe. Many Jews. One family who didn't know English got off the boat thinking it was Liverpool. The boat was destined to go to Liverpool.

Then the boat left, and they found themselves at the side of the street in the rain. He inquired what the problem was, managed to get some understanding out of them, and brought them home to his family, to his house.

They lived in the front room of his house for a couple of days till he could get them organized. He had five children.

Some Jewish community came along to help them out after a few days. One of the children in that family was a girl who eventually became a Sister of Mercy nun and came as a missionary to Kenya and has set up many, many schools in difficult areas of Nairobi.

She talks about that example of her father, an ordinary policeman on duty in Dublin in the mid-1940s, who just lived out his Christian vocation but planted an incredible seed in the soul of his daughter.

When Pope Francis came here on a visit a few years ago, she was the one chosen to speak to him, representing all the downtrodden of the country. Behind it, she talks about that example of her father.

The impact of seed ideas and mustard seed examples on the life of our family and of our children can be immense. The seed ideas and the power of those ideas, of that body of teaching which is the social doctrine of the Church, can also be immense.

It has been described as the greatest treasure of the Catholic Church and one of the most unknown treasures. Not taught, not learned, not known by so many Catholics. It has at its center the dignity of every human person.

We can know how one idea can change an environment. G.K. Chesterton says that “fallacies do not cease to be fallacies, just because they become fashionable” (G. K. Chesterton, Napolean Of Notting Hill). The world is full of fallacies.

The famous Roman educator Quintilian said clarity of expression lights up the beauty of the world.

Seed ideas can be expressed with seed words and seed phrases. To explain man's most elevated thoughts was the great gift of Western philosophy's founding fathers, Socrates and Plato.

We see the importance of words and phrases and the importance of building up our vocabulary in this century of communication.

We're told that Our Lady “kept in mind all these things carefully in her heart” (Luke 2:19,51).

The angel Gabriel, the words of Jesus, and the events that happened in the course of her life and vocation were like seeds that God planted in her mind, in her heart, in her soul, which continually brought forth immense fruit in the course of her life, a fruit that she continues to shower upon us in her example, both in heaven and in the description of her life here on earth.

Mary, may you help us to gather all those seeds that God has planted in our heart, in our mind, in our soul, and help us to yield that abundant fruit that you are hoping for from us, so that truly all the birds of the air can come and nest in the branches that those seeds have given rise to.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

PKN