The Parable of the Mustard Seed
No fixed feast day in the calendar
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A tiny mustard seed grows into a big plant where birds make their nests: God’s Kingdom grows from small things
What is this parable?
A parable is a short story Jesus tells to teach something about God. In the parable of the Mustard Seed, the Lord speaks about the Kingdom of Heaven, which means God being King, reigning in people’s hearts and in the world. The Kingdom of Heaven begins very small, but it grows strong.
The story
Jesus says: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field.” (Mt 13:31). The mustard seed in Palestine is tiny, only like a grain of sand. Yet when it is sown in the ground, it sprouts, grows up and spreads out its leafy branches, as tall as a small tree. The birds of the sky come to perch and make their nests in its branches (cf. Mt 13:32).
Saint Mark also records this parable: the mustard seed grows bigger than all the other plants, so that the birds of the sky can make their nests in its shade (cf. Mk 4:30-32).
What does Jesus want to teach you?
When Jesus told this story, his disciples were only a small group of ordinary people, many of them fishermen. Yet today the Church is present all over the world, in Vietnam too, like a great tree sheltering so many people. That is thanks to God’s power, working with the help of little people.
The Kingdom of Heaven grows in your heart in the same way. A short prayer, an act of forgiveness, helping a friend: these little things are like the mustard seed. You sow, and God makes it grow.
A lesson for you
- Do your small tasks well every day: greet people politely, help your parents, study hard.
- When you feel small, do not lose heart: God loves to use little people.
- Make your catechism class and your family into wide-open “branches”, where everyone feels welcome.
Identifying marks
- A mustard plant as big as a small tree, full of yellow flowers: the Kingdom of Heaven; it starts as tiny as a mustard seed, but by God’s power it grows beyond all expectations.
- Sparrows perched on the branches and a nest with baby birds: all people and all nations find a safe, peaceful shelter in God’s Kingdom (cf. Mt 13:32).
- A farmer looking up at the plant, his hand open: we only sow something small; it is God who makes it grow, so we are amazed and give thanks.
- A field on a hillside: the place where the mustard seed was sown; you can think of the world and of each person’s heart, where God’s Word is sown.
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Compiled by i-Catholic · About