Thursday of the Thirty-SecondWeek in Ordinary Time
The kingdom of God is already here
Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he said in reply, “The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the kingdom of God is among you.” Then he said to his disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. There will be those who will say to you, ‘Look, there he is,’ (or) ‘Look, here he is.’ Do not go off, do not run in pursuit. For just as lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be (in his day). But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation. Lk 17,20-25
“The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed, the kingdom of God is among you! “. It was born silently in Bethlehem, like a mustard seed which, after being planted, is destined to become a big tree. So Jesus describes it in a parable. At the time when the pharisees asked him “When the kingdom of God would come?”, that mustard seed is already a shrub and it is already shading the first disciples who followed him from one place to the other in Galilee. But it will grow even further and it will extend its branches up to Jerusalem and the whole Palestine, to become, then, a tree big enough to shade the whole world and all along the centuries. To allow this to happen Jesus will have to die on the cross, like the grain of wheat in another parable rots under the ground: Bbt due to that event the church was born, a forest which since two thousand years gives shade and comfort to many poor people of this world. It is the dynamics of the Kingdom: any person who is born in the faith is a grain of mustard seed planted in the society, which then will grow into a tree and it will shade, like that twig of oleander which three years ago we took in Medjugorje and planted on the terrace of our house. It now became a tree, which blooms in summer and the blackbirds go to pick up the crumbs under its branches. Our sunday lunches, which are becoming more numerous due to the new births and the friends who come to visit us, are a manifestation of the Kingdom which grows. The grandparents, who now bless us from the heaven, started it. It seems to me to hear grandma Rita still quoting from his beloved poems, “The lunch table flourished by eyes of children”. Every manifestation of faith is an aspect of the growing Kingdom. Every prayer of intercession or thanksgiving before starting a meal, increases silently the Kingdom. “The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed, the kingdom of God is among you!” the passage of the today’s gospel announces this to us.