MASS OF THE JULY 30

FRIARS OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS
GENERAL CHAPTER OF PROVINCIALS
Bogotá – 2007

MASS OF THE JULY 30
By
Fr. Giovanni Distante, O.P.
Provincial Prior
Province of St. Thomas Aquinas in Italy

Brothers and sisters.

The parable of the grain of mustard that is produced by a tree capable of offering shelter to the birds, emphasizes the even more disappointing and insignificant aspect of the advent of the kingdom of God. In fact, the arrival of Jesus corresponds, very little, to what Hebrews were expecting from the Messiah. The parable of the yeast teaches that the kingdom of God is present in the world as a ferment that transforms it completely.

The kingdom of the Heavens, even, if did not begin just as the authors of the Apocalypse had predicted it, nor the people expected it, it is going to be registered in history in an unnoticed way and nevertheless it is going to be affirmed.

These two parables:
- They want to be an announcement of consolation and hope for those that are not capable of seeing in the works of Christ the execution of the messianic expectations.
- They enunciate the paradox of the divine action: the Kingdom comes despite its humble beginnings, and at the same time due to them.

Consequently, what is considered as a scandal by the contemporaries of Christ becomes the secret of the project of God: the smallness and the weakness do not cause damage to the final outcome. They are sine qua non conditions.

The kingdom will be magnanimous in its weakness.

What lesson can we get from this text of the grain of mustard?

How to value our return – between quotation marks- to poverty, to fidelity and to obedience?
We have to live a return to poverty, to humility and to weakness, so that the Church can maintain, each time more, the characteristics desired by Christ.

It does not matter, if our preaching seems, to the eyes of the men, modest, insignificant and weak as the smallest of the seeds.

There is nothing weaker than the Gospel. The Word of the Gospel, just like our word, can be disappointing, forgotten and rejected.

Nevertheless, if it is received it and we make it grow, it becomes very visible and extends its influence beyond what we are.

Among the great worries of this General Chapter, we have emphasized with insistence in our awareness of the need of a more visible and complete solidarity with the men of our time.

The Parable of the yeast that ferments the mass reminds us of the moment in which before God, it is better for us to be yeast.

But, Where can we find the drive for the mission of the Order? What fails under so many urgent demands in multiple fronts: justice, peace, the new migratory movements, the antireligious dialogue, the new technologies, the new hopes?

It is enough to let us lead by the Spirit and by the liberating thought of Dominic, to make of ourselves, of our communities and of our provinces, the yeast that ferments the life of the men.

The book of the Exodus invites us, paradoxically, to make "alliance" with the sinners. Moses, even becomes their intercessor before God. "Please, forgive their sins… but, delete me from the book that you have written".

This compassion of Moses is found in the shout of Dominic: "¡My God, my Mercy! What will become of the sinners?" Here there is a great lesson!

Our apostolic and intellectual life, our study, our prayer and our brotherly life in common should know how to nourish of shouts and of hopes of the world.

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