20250728 IMPATIENCE WITH GROWTH IN HOLINESS AS A LACK OF FAITH IN GOD’S GRACE
28 July 2025, Monday, 17th Week in Ordinary Time
First reading |
Exodus 32:15-24,30-34 |
The golden calf
Moses made his way back down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, tablets inscribed on both sides, inscribed on the front and on the back. These tablets were the work of God, and the writing on them was God’s writing engraved on the tablets.
Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting. ‘There is the sound of battle in the camp’, he told Moses. Moses answered him:
‘No song of victory is this sound,
no wailing for defeat this sound;
it is the sound of chanting that I hear.’
As he approached the camp and saw the calf and the groups dancing, Moses’ anger blazed. He threw down the tablets he was holding and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He seized the calf they had made and burned it, grinding it into powder which he scattered on the water; and he made the sons of Israel drink it. To Aaron Moses said, ‘What has this people done to you, for you to bring such a great sin on them?’ ‘Let not my lord’s anger blaze like this’ Aaron answered. ‘You know yourself how prone this people is to evil. They said to me, “Make us a god to go at our head; this Moses, the man who brought us up from Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So I said to them, “Who has gold?,” and they took it off and brought it to me. I threw it into the fire and out came this calf.’
On the following day Moses said to the people, ‘You have committed a grave sin. But now I shall go up to the Lord: perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.’ And Moses returned to the Lord. ‘I am grieved,’ he cried ‘this people has committed a grave sin, making themselves a god of gold. And yet, if it pleased you to forgive this sin of theirs...! But if not, then blot me out from the book that you have written.’ The Lord answered Moses, “It is the man who has sinned against me that I shall blot out from my book. Go now, lead the people to the place of which I told you. My angel shall go before you but, on the day of my visitation, I shall punish them for their sin.’
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 105(106):19-23 |
O give thanks to the Lord for he is good.
or
Alleluia!
They fashioned a calf at Horeb
and worshipped an image of metal,
exchanging the God who was their glory
for the image of a bull that eats grass.
O give thanks to the Lord for he is good.
or
Alleluia!
They forgot the God who was their saviour,
who had done such great things in Egypt,
such portents in the land of Ham,
such marvels at the Red Sea.
O give thanks to the Lord for he is good.
or
Alleluia!
For this he said he would destroy them,
but Moses, the man he had chosen,
stood in the breach before him,
to turn back his anger from destruction.
O give thanks to the Lord for he is good.
or
Alleluia!
Gospel Acclamation | cf.2Th2:14 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
Through the Good News God called us
to share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia!
Or: | James1:18 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
By his own choice the Father made us his children
by the message of the truth,
so that we should be a sort of first-fruits
of all that he created.
Alleluia!
Gospel |
Matthew 13:31-35 |
The smallest of all seeds grows into the biggest shrub of all
Jesus put a parable before the crowds: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest shrub of all and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and shelter in its branches.’
He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through.’
In all this Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables; indeed, he would never speak to them except in parables. This was to fulfil the prophecy:
I will speak to you in parables
and expound things hidden since the foundation of the world.
IMPATIENCE WITH GROWTH IN HOLINESS AS A LACK OF FAITH IN GOD’S GRACE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [EX 32:15-24; 30-34, 28; MT 13:31-35]
We all want to grow in holiness and succeed in our projects. However, quite often, we cannot wait — we have no patience, not only with ourselves but also with those around us who are slow in living out the life of Christ or in their work. This impatience is even more evident in community living.
How often do we bemoan the fact that our community is not as united and loving as it should be? When we see the failings and weaknesses of our brothers and sisters, we sometimes cannot help but judge and condemn them. At times, we even wish they would be removed from the community. We think, “If only such difficult people were gone, then our life would be so wonderful and godly.”
If we are feeling this way, we can easily identify with the impatience shown by Moses and the Israelites in today’s first reading. The narrative tells us that the people grew impatient while waiting for Moses, who had gone up the mountain to receive instructions from Yahweh. In their impatience, they pressured Aaron to make for them a god who could lead them. They simply could not wait. In his rashness, Aaron acted without considering the consequences. He gave in to their demands and fashioned a golden calf–a symbol of power and strength.
Similarly, Moses himself was impatient. He projected his own intolerance onto Yahweh, making God appear as if He were equally impatient and angry. Moses’ deep encounter with God caused him to feel profound shame on behalf of his people, who had turned away from Yahweh after He had delivered them from slavery in Egypt.
Thus, when Moses came down from the mountain and saw the golden calf, Scripture tells us that “Moses’ anger blazed.” In his fury, “he threw down the tablets he was holding and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He burned the calf, ground it into powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it.”
But the truth is that God is patient and merciful. When God is portrayed otherwise, it is often the result of a mistaken perception rooted in fear and guilt. In fact, when Moses later interceded on behalf of his people for their grievous sin, the Lord forgave them, though not without the need to repair the damage that had been done.
As if to reassure Moses and help him move forward, God said to him, “Go now, lead the people to the place I told you about. My angel shall go before you.” Indeed, God is patient with us in our sinfulness. Yet, at the same time, we cannot escape the consequences of our sins. This is made clear when Yahweh says, “But on the day of my visitation, I shall punish them for their sin.”
Today, in the Gospel, Jesus affirms the patience and grace of God towards us sinners. In the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast, Jesus reminds us that the Kingdom of God is not built in a day, but gradually, with the grace of God. If we are to recognize the process of growth, three qualities are essential: patience, humility, and faith in the power of God.
Like the mustard seed, we must recognize that growth in holiness takes time. We need to acknowledge the natural law of human development. This means allowing both ourselves and others the time needed to grow out of immaturity, ignorance, and selfishness. We must therefore be patient and learn to wait. It is essential to give people the benefit of the doubt that they desire to change their lives and are genuinely trying, albeit with much struggles and difficulties. To condemn or pass judgment on them is to deny the possibility of growth and to discount the power of God’s grace.
To have patience, we must be humble like the mustard seed. Just as the mustard seed begins in a small, and later grows into one of the largest shrubs, even becoming a tree, so too must we never despise small beginnings. Whether it’s a new project or a good habit, we must be willing to start small and start somewhere.
The danger is that, in the face of evil or persistent sin, particularly within community life, we tend to lose hope and say, “It’s always been like this. Nothing will ever change. Why bother doing anything good?”
When we adopt this kind of negativity, it reveals our impatience with the slow but real process of growth. Worse still, when we give up hope on others, we give up hope on ourselves as well.
More than just impatience, our struggle often stems from a failure to recognize the power of God at work in transforming our lives. In the final analysis, conversion and growth are not merely the result of human effort, but the grace of God at work within us. This is precisely what the parable of the leaven illustrates. The leaven represents the grace of God working silently, invisibly, and powerfully within us to bring about transformation from within.
It is that same divine power that enables the tiny mustard seed to grow into a great tree. In the same way, we cannot rely solely on our own strength to grow in holiness and perfection. We must rely on the grace of God. But we must also be patient, for holiness is ultimately grace and a gift we receive.
If we are patient and learn to wait, the grace of God will gradually but surely transform us, just as the leaven transforms the dough and the mustard seed grows into a great tree. When that happens, the glory of God will become visible in us for all to see. We will naturally attract others, not to ourselves, but to the presence of God at work in our lives. In this way, like the mustard tree, we become a place of refuge where others can take shelter in us. As a result, more and more people will be drawn to embrace the Kingdom of God for themselves, until one day, the whole earth is filled with the glory and power of God.
Let us, therefore, pray for patience, humility, and faith in the power of God’s grace. Our task is to be open to His grace, while remembering that the work of conversion is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit. We must abide by His time, confident that God will be faithful to His promises and that He will transform us into a community of grace and love, just as He once transformed the Israelites into His chosen people. Let us choose hope over despair, patience over condemnation, and faith over self-reliance.
Best Practices for Using the Daily Scripture Reflections
- Encounter God through the spirit of prayer and the scripture by reflecting and praying the Word of God daily. The purpose is to bring you to prayer and to a deeper union with the Lord on the level of the heart.
- Daily reflections when archived will lead many to accumulate all the reflections of the week and pray in one sitting. This will compromise your capacity to enter deeply into the Word of God, as the tendency is to read for knowledge rather than a prayerful reading of the Word for the purpose of developing a personal and affective relationship with the Lord.
- It is more important to pray deeply, not read widely. The current reflections of the day would be more than sufficient for anyone who wants to pray deeply and be led into an intimacy with the Lord.
Note: You may share this reflection with someone. However, please note that reflections are not archived online nor will they be available via email request.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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