I will begin this homily with the second reading. First, because it is the clearest and easiest to understand of the three; second, because it deals with a subject of capital importance for our Christian life. St. Paul explains the way in which we Christians assume our mortality. We are mortals. It is a fact that we get older, that with old age come ailments, or that even at a very young age we develop fatal diseases or suffer unforeseen accidents. Life is in many ways precarious. Death is never far away, even if we don’t think about it. We carry mortality in our bodies. However, Paul says, this is not a cause for anguish, sadness or anxiety, because we know that this life is fleeting, fleeting and uncertain. For the Christian, this life is the way to reach true life. This temporary life has importance; but it is not the ultimate reality. We live in this life in function of the permanent life; we live in this life trying to please God. We always have confidence, even though we know that, as long as we live in the body, we are exiled, far from the Lord. With these words, St. Paul forces us to think differently from the way the world thinks. We usually want to stop the aging processes to maintain youthful energy and health; we take care of our diet, we take food supplements to strengthen the body; we exercise to keep fit. We want to live longer and longer, preferably healthy. But for Paul that is a pitiful way to exist, for the longer we are in this life and on this earth, the longer we will be banished from the Lord. I repeat what Paul said: while we live in the body, we are exiled, far from the Lord . While we want to prolong our years here on earth, Paul suggests rather to increase our desire to be with the Lord. It is a very Christian attitude.
St. Teresa of Jesus wrote a famous poem in which she expresses this desire to die in order to attain true life, life with God. The first stanza gives the poem its name and goes like this: “I live without living in me, and I hope for such a high life that I die because I do not die”. St. Teresa says that she lives now in this world, but her mind is elsewhere, in God: I live without living in me. And the life he hopes to attain after dying to this life is so great and blissful, that he dies of desire, because he is not yet dead in the body. The poem goes on for several stanzas. I quote only the last stanza: “Life, what can I give to my God who lives in me, if it is not to lose you to deserve to win Him? I want, dying, to reach Him, for I love my Beloved so much, that I die, because I do not die”. Do we feel the same way, or do we want to live longer and longer, because even though we are believers we distrust that there is another life after this one? Or perhaps our love for God is not so intense that we are content to have Him here in this world, but do not yet desire to be with Him in the next?
Paul is well aware that the path of faith, of that faith that becomes the hope of reaching God after death, is a foggy path: We walk guided by faith, without yet seeing . Even so, hope, desire and love for God make up in Paul for what he lacks in vision: We are, therefore, full of confidence and prefer to leave this body to live with the Lord. These are the same sentiments expressed by St. Teresa in her poem and by so many saints, and they show how weak and small our hope is, how tenuous is our love for God, and how attached we are to this life, which we want to prolong as long as possible.
But Paul is careful not to express contempt for this temporal life. The desire to be with God must be transformed into a willingness to please Him from now on. That is why we try to please Him, in exile or in the homeland. That is to say, the desire for God must lead to the desire to please him with what we do, whether in exile, that is, in this life, or in the homeland, that is, when we get to heaven. For we will all have to appear before the judgment seat of Christ, to receive the reward or punishment for what we have done in this life. We are all accountable to God for our actions. What we do or fail to do now we do or fail to do for the Lord. The hope of appearing before the judgment seat of Christ to receive from him reward or punishment creates the attitude of moral responsibility. The ultimate meaning of our existence is at stake here. It is an existence that will flourish and reach fulfillment in God or it is an existence that will fail before God and be forever frustrated in meaninglessness. This temporary and fleeting life is valuable, because here we decide its eternal meaning. Let us build our lives, therefore, encouraged by the desire of God, to act righteously to please him in everything.
And so we come to the gospel. Jesus has told us two parables about the kingdom of God, but it is not so easy to know their symbolic meaning. The first parable speaks of a seed that a man sows in his field. The seed develops, germinates, grows, forms, fills with grains. All this development of the seed does not depend directly on the will of the farmer, but is a potential of the seed itself; or of the soil in which it was sown. the earth, by itself, is producing the fruit. What does this story refer to? Jesus does not give us any key to interpretation, so we must seek an interpretation that is consistent with other clearer passages of Scripture in order not to teach false things. Perhaps Jesus wanted to teach that the kingdom of God is not the work of man, but of God in us. We do not build the kingdom of God as it is usually said; we enter into its dynamics, we allow ourselves to be transformed by it. The realization of the kingdom of God will take place by its own power; what is required is to enter into its dynamics so as not to see ourselves outside of it. The other parable also speaks of a mustard seed, which is tiny, but from it grows a leafy bush in which the birds can lay their nests. Perhaps Jesus wanted to teach us that the Gospel and the sacraments that transmit God’s grace to us are small and in the hands of priests seem insignificant. However, they can produce in us the luxuriant bush of eternal and lasting life. The Kingdom of God does not impose itself with power and force, but insinuates itself with gentleness and smallness, but produces in us eternal salvation.