6th Sunday after Epiphany 2007 (Tridentine)

Littleness vs. bigness,
Where’s the realness?
Where’s truth?

That little jingle came to me this morning in contemplating the Gospel. “Littleness vs. bigness, Where ‘s the realness? Where’s truth?” It’s not award-winning poetry, I know, but it expresses what is to me at the heart of the message of Christ.

It didn’t need modern science for men to figure out that the expanse of the universe is immensely greater than that of the earth. When in former ages man looked up at the sky, he beheld ‘the heavens’ (note the plural here), the whole, marvelous expanse of the firmament, with the sun, the moon, the planets and the innumerable stars. If anything is big, either to the ancient or to the modern mind of men, it is the universe, the heavens.

An interesting point of detail: our translations of the New Testament almost always convey a slight misreading in at least one small thing. Our Lord spoke, not of the kingdom of heaven, but of the kingdom of the heavens, that is, of the vastness of the outer space. Enormity is a thing characteristic of God’s kingdom. It’s not just that it’s something up there in heaven but a thing ‘of the heavens’: immense, capacious, towering and infinite. Knowing that small detail of translation helps one to appreciate these parables of our Lord: the smallest seed–the mustard–making the large shrub and great tree; the ‘hidden yeast’ yielding an astonishing growth. Phenomenal, imposing yield from the most modest beginnings; greatness from littleness; exaltation out of humility; riches from poverty; joy from sorrow: this is authentic Christian doctrine, rightly considered. It means that with Christ the sower of the smallest seed, a kingdom as vast as the universe springs up, a symbol of the living Church. This is always God’s way of doing things: in baptism, a mustard seed of grace is infused in a soul and, allowing for the right conditions, we have a saint in the making. A woman kneading the bread hides a little yeast of the Holy Spirit in it, and there’s a superabundant Eucharist that can feed the whole Church until the end of time.

If the principle of God’s operation is creation out of nothing and greatness out of littleness, then the devil, who always inverts the divine order, must broadcast the opposing doctrine: self-assertion, self-esteem must be cultivated and humility scorned; might is what’s right; health over holiness; purity is prudishness. The contrasting image of our Lord’s kingdom of the heavens is the tower of Babel. Ambition drove men to create for themselves a city that would reach the heavens. “Come, let us make a name for ourselves,” they said. Babel is not only whatever historical reality it may have been back then but a symbol of all human endeavor without God: vain climbing, the desire for achievement and recognition, making oneself all-important. God confounded Babel. So too, in the end, will all the works of man be destroyed (as a letter of Saint Peter portends) and all man’s proud spirit humbled in the fire of destruction.

But the point of this teaching is not how all unimportant everything is, but rather of how all-important littleness is. All the things of our Catholic faith are the little things: being in a state of grace; keeping an interior life; practicing meekness; deference towards others; modesty instead of licentiousness; the ‘little things’ called the Sacraments (the Holy Eucharist in particular); worldly nobodies as sainted heroes. The Blessed Mother Herself is the great exhibit of this doctrine, superlative greatness embodied in the most humble-ever person.

These thoughts lead me to think about ourselves and to ponder our place in the larger picture of things. We are a small parish; we are rather unimportant people. I take some delight in that smallness and insignificance because it highlights an evident working of divine grace. For example, what is the importance of this Mass in the course of the world’s events this day? It’s as nothing, right? Nobody, almost nobody, is paying any attention to the fact that we are celebrating the mystery of the Lord’s sacrifice, of the redemption itself, in this liturgical act. Is this not in fact the most important thing in the whole cosmos happening now in this little place? Are not you and I agents and participants in the most consequential work ever to have been done?

This, as I said, is a Christian principle, exemplified in the Mass, but evident in so many other things–things such as practicing the virtues: being pure, being charitable, giving rather than receiving, forgiving rather than holding ‘just’ resentments. I find it evident in families that make their homes miniature churches of goodness and holiness. It’s found where men practice honesty instead of deceit to get ahead in life. It’s in couples who regulate their marriages according to the laws of the Church. I see it in religious life and in the priesthood where normal people give up normal good things, like having a family, and devote themselves to holy religion. In all these examples (and there are many more that could be made) it’s clear that we are not anything of ourselves, but that with Christ, what was inconsequential has become noble and high, and wonderful–like the heavens. “The kingdom of the heavens is like the mustard seed; like yeast...”

It’s a good thing for us, once in a while, to remember this lesson of our Lord so that we can keep up our hope in what we call “the promises of Christ.” It gives joy to think how God measures things as opposed to what newscasters, population controllers, entertainment excitables, and all the agents of doom in our culture of death and of political correctness have told us is how things really are. The gentleness of the working of the Holy Spirit confounds the pride of worldliness and the lewd arrogance of man’s unholy spirit of self-sufficiency. Our Lord taught uneducated and simple people these lessons—and they got them; they understood.

The end of the Church year is upon us and Advent is soon to follow. The Church seems to be asking us by this Gospel whether we have been growing in goodness and holiness throughout the past Church year, like a grown mustard tree, like leavened loaves.