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GROWING IN SILENCE… THE BEAUTY OF HUMBLE BEGINNINGS By Rev Fr Victor Ibiyemi

JUNE 17, ELEVENTH SUNDAY- EZEKIEL 17:22-24, PSALM 91:2-3, 13-16, 2 CORINTHIANS 5:6-10, JOHN 15:15, MARK 4:26-34

There are two more evils we need to combat in our contemporary world. They are: NOISE and HASTE. Our society is too NOISY; everybody is shouting, nobody is heard! Everybody is talking, nobody is listening! Everybody wants to speak all the time! Nobody wants to listen at any time! With the slightest opportunity we have, we flaunt ourselves, make noise about ourselves and about everything else.

 The social media has become a stage for the grievous insanity! You would not believe what you will see there! The internet makes the loudest and heart-aching noise! Our music are loud! Our talking is loud! Our dancing is loud! All these pockets of noise deafen and hinder us from true growth. The second vice which apparently appears like a virtue is the evil of HASTE. Everybody is in HASTE! We are all in a RUSH! We hastily hunt for money, fame, recognition and acceptance. 

Everybody is on a run toward the presumed success. Nobody wants to start from the lowest rung of the ladder, everybody wants to be at the head of ladder! In the bid of this rush, we do things that are greatly distasteful, eccentrically diabolical and harshly inhumane. In the bid of this rush, we have lost three important virtues; Patience, Perseverance and Contentment. The Lord warns us against these two evils in our readings today. In the prophecy of Ezekiel, the Lord speaks of a shoot that will become the noble cedar where every kind of bird will live beneath it. The Lord will do this to prove a point that the smallest of anything can become bigger than the regularly big thing. The man who is planted by God though he may begin as a small man, he will flourish like the palm tree and grow like the Lebanon Cedar (Psalm 92:12). 

The Second Reading continues by exhorting us that we cannot genuinely grow when we exile ourselves from the Lord. When we please the Lord, we grow effectively. In the Gospel, our Lord Jesus summarises today’s message in two parables. Just as the Kingdom of God and the Church grow silently so too we must! One of the mysteries of nature is the silence in its growth. And finally, Jesus teaches the beauty and glory of humble beginnings. No matter how small you are, when you are in the Lord you will grow to become a shelter even for others.

 Brothers and Sisters in the Lord, the Lord teaches us today three important principles of Growth. 1) To grow, he must be the one to plant us 2) To grow genuinely and successfully, it must be in silence 3) To grow genuinely and truthfully, you must begin from the beginning. May God help us to grow genuinely and may his kingdom continue to grow… through Christ our Lord.

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