'To Christ the seed, to Christ the crop.' Sunday Reflections, 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

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The Sower 
November 1888, Arles
Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Mark 4:26-34 (English Standard Version, Anglicised)

Jesus said to the crowds: “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.

 

Léachtaí i nGaeilge


Reaper with Sickle (after Millet)
Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle.

Below is what I posted six years ago and part of what I posted nine years ago for this Sunday.  It is now (2021) 79 years since my parents married and 'the youngest born last month' is now aged nine. His father came through the medical procedure successfully, thank God. 

The parables in this Sunday's gospel remind us that the faith has had many small beginnings. Perhaps the greatest is the Twelve Apostles. 


Continue on Bangor to Bobbio.

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