11th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
‘The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed’
On December 1st 1955 in Montgomery,
Alabama, Rosa Parkes, a forty-two year old
African American working woman refused to
vacate her seat on a city bus when ordered to
do so by the driver so that a white man could
be accommodated. Rosa was arrested. Meetings
were called. Martin Luther King emerged.
The Civil Rights movement took root. Public
transport was boycotted. The Supreme Court of
the United States declared Alabama’s segregation
laws to be unconstitutional and so ‘a forest
fire began with a spark’. No word or deed is
insignificant in the hands of God. Mustard seeds
grow into trees. Small seeds are growing quietly
in our Church. Let us take notice and take heart.
We must never be daunted by small beginnings.
Great acts take time. We could well adopt the
words of encouragement offered by St. Francis
Xavier to his followers: ‘Be big in little things’.
