Parable of the mustard seed.

(Mat. 13:31-32; Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:18-19).

In the East, a mustard tree could reach an enormous size, although its seed was that small that the Jews had a saying: “Tiny, as a mustard seed.” The meaning of the parable is in that, although the start of God’s Kingdom is evidently small and insignificant, the power secreted in it conquers all impediments, and is capable of transfiguring it into a great and worldwide kingdom. Golden Tongue comments: “With this parable, the Lord wants to show the way in which the Gospel’s sermon will be disseminated. Although His Disciples were more helpless than all others - humbler than others — inasmuch as they had a great hidden power, it spread throughout the whole universe.” Christ’s Church, small in the beginning and imperceptible to the world, expanded on earth in such a way that — like birds in a mustard tree - a multitude of people’s shelter under its canopy. Precisely the same thing occurs in the soul of every individual: God’s winnowing grace, initially hardly perceptible, envelopes the soul more and more until it becomes a receptacle of various virtues.