25th Sunday after Pentecost 18.11.07 (6th Sunday after Epiphany readings) Growth through humility.
The power of the humble prayer. The littleness of the seed symbolises the powerlessness we feel as we confront the huge obstacles around us. Yet just as the seed turns into a tree, so our contributions, however slight they may seem to us, can also turn into a tree and bear fruit.
So all you widows and mothers praying away for your children and all of us as the Church, herself a Mother, pray day and night for the return of all the lost sheep and the claiming of those sheep who have never had a home.
We must never be discouraged by the apparent odds against us but press on just as a seed does what it has to do and does not stop to ask itself whether or not it can!
Humility is one of the primary virtues we need and seek for our own spiritual growth anyway, but it is also necessary for the growth of the Church.
We pray realizing our own nothingness alongside the majesty of God and we ask Him to supply the power we could never produce of ourselves.
The power, that is, to convert sinners and convince people that their true life is found in the fold of the Church.
This power expresses itself in us, most of all in the ability to do what we have to do. Not so much in spectacular things, though they will happen sometimes, but rather in the faithful attention to duty over many years.
It is this sub-structure of the Church’s life - millions of Catholics doing what they have to do – that will enable the tree to grow.
After all, the growth of a tree is not a quick thing, but every time you look you see that it is bigger. So with us: just keep doing what we have to do and every time we look the Church will be bigger (and better).
Humility is the key to recognition of the desirability of God. Once we see that we cannot provide all our own needs we look to something higher and we find it in Him.
Our simple, faithful, humble devotion to Him will keep us on course and will enable others to discover Him.
The miracle of conversion. God wants to be known by all, and loved by all, yet He will not reveal Himself in full glory. He reveals Himself subtly and gradually. He wants us to find Him by reading the signs and by obeying Him step by step.
Here again, this appeals to our humility. We might assume that God, having all that power at His disposal, would just work miracles until everyone believed in Him.
He could do that, certainly, but He does not want to overwhelm people with His presence, rather work gently and quietly to call them to Himself.
Those who are pure and humble of heart will find Him and will come to know Him more fully – slow growth, like a tree.
The proud and the self-sufficient will scoff at such subtle realities and want quicker solutions. Either God works a miracle in front of me now, or I will not believe.
This is not the way a tree grows, nor the way God operates. Trees do grow, and God does make Himself known, but not usually all in one day. The unbelievers just have to look more closely at how the system works.
We, meanwhile, maintaining our humility, and praying day and night, will be doing the best possible work in allowing His grace to work, bringing about change, adding branches to the great tree, which is His Church, His kingdom on earth.
