SPEAKER_00: One of the greatest lies our culture can tell us is this You can keep your faith private, your relationship with God at a distance, and it won't really affect your life.
SPEAKER_00: Well, today's readings tell us exactly the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: The first reading is one of the strangest symbolic actions in all of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: God tells Jeremiah to buy a line a linen loincloth, wear it, then bury it near the Euphrates River.
SPEAKER_00: Months later God tells him to go dig it up.
SPEAKER_00: When he does, it's completely rotted, useless, and ruined.
SPEAKER_00: It's an odd image until God explains it.
SPEAKER_00: He says just as this cloth clung closely to a man's waist, so I intended my people to cling to me.
SPEAKER_00: That's the key.
SPEAKER_00: The loincloth was meant to stay attached to the person wearing it.
SPEAKER_00: Once it was separated, it deteriorated.
SPEAKER_00: The message could not be clearer.
SPEAKER_00: God didn't create us simply to believe in him, he created us to live in communion with him, to cling to him.
SPEAKER_00: Think about your phone for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: It's an incredible piece of technology.
SPEAKER_00: Can communicate with the world, navigate anywhere, store thousands of pictures, and answer almost any question you have.
SPEAKER_00: But disconnected from its power source long enough and eventually becomes nothing more than this expensive paperweight.
SPEAKER_00: It hasn't changed on the outside, it has simply lost its source of life.
SPEAKER_00: The same thing happens spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: People don't usually wake up one morning and decide to abandon God.
SPEAKER_00: We've established this a long time ago.
SPEAKER_00: This is something that happens gradually.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer becomes occasional, mass becomes optional, confession becomes unnecessary, the scriptures remain unopened, and little by little we stop clinging to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Without even noticing it, something begins to rot inside of us.
SPEAKER_00: Not because God has abandoned us, but because we've unplugged ourselves from the one who has given us life.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus gives us two completely different images a mustard seed, a little yeast.
SPEAKER_00: Both are tiny, both seem insignificant, but both remain exactly where they're supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00: The seed stays planted in the soil.
SPEAKER_00: The yeast stays mixed into the dough.
SPEAKER_00: And because they remain where they belong, they transform everything around them.
SPEAKER_00: That's how the kingdom of God grows.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us think holiness happens through dramatic moments.
SPEAKER_00: But God usually works through ordinary faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Ten minutes of prayer every morning, faithfully coming to daily mass or Sunday Mass, going to confession regularly, doing what we need to do, staying disciplined, being structured about our lives, reading one chapter of scripture each day, choosing kindness when you're tired, forgiving someone who doesn't deserve it, biting your tongue when you want to lash out.
SPEAKER_00: These may seem like mustard seed moments.
SPEAKER_00: They may seem as small as yeast hidden in dough.
SPEAKER_00: But don't underestimate what God can do with these small acts of love, these small acts of daily fidelity.
SPEAKER_00: Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Saint Teresa, once said, We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: It grows quietly, patiently, almost invisibly, until one day you realize that God has transformed your heart.
SPEAKER_00: You're a different person, you see the world differently, you respond differently.
SPEAKER_00: So today ask yourself one simple question.
SPEAKER_00: What am I clinging to?
SPEAKER_00: Because whatever you cling to will eventually shape who you become.
SPEAKER_00: If we cling to success and success will define us.
SPEAKER_00: We cling to money and things and possession, well they will own us.
SPEAKER_00: If you cling to resentment, resentment will consume you and poison your heart.
SPEAKER_00: But if we cling to Christ, little by little, day after day, he will transform us from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: The mustard seed becomes a great tree.
SPEAKER_00: The yeast leavens the whole loaf.
SPEAKER_00: And the soul that clings to Christ becomes a saint.
SPEAKER_00: That's the goal.
SPEAKER_00: The goal is heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the promise.
SPEAKER_00: And it begins today.
SPEAKER_00: Get busy.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.