From: Jeremiah 13:1-11
The linen waistcloth entirely spoiled
[8] Then the word of the Lord came to me: [9] “Thus says the Lord: Even so will
I spoil the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. [10] This evil people,
who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have
gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this waist-
cloth, which is good for nothing. [11] For as the waistcloth clings to the loins of
a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling
to me, says the Lord, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and
a glory, but they would not listen.
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Commentary:
13:1-11. This is the first of Jeremiah’s symbolic actions reported in the book. Ac-
tions of that sort, sometimes appearing to make sense, have the advantage of
catching the audience’s attention better than an oracle does. It is not easy to i-
magine how Jeremiah, in the difficult circumstances of the time, could have twice
gone to the Euphrates (about 1000 km. or 570 miles away). Therefore, scholars
think that this symbolic action may have been something seen in a vision, or
else they interpret it as containing a play on the words Parah, the name of a tor-
rent near Anathoth (cf. Josh 18:23) and “Perath”, the word used in Hebrew for the
river Euphrates. Anyway, this symbolic action means that Judah, the Lord’s de-
corative loincloth (of the sort worn by priests in the temple), will be corrupted by
Babylonian influences and thereby destroyed.
God asked Jeremiah to buy a loincloth and put it on, to symbolize that, just as
that garment fitted his waist exactly, God wanted the house of Israel and the
house of Judah to cling to him (v. 11). The Lord wanted his people to trust in him
completely: the word for “clinging” or adhesion often occurs in the book of Deu-
teronomy, too, to mean the fidelity due to God (cf. Deut 4:4; 10:20; 11:22; 13:5;
30:20). This “cleaving” to God comes about through faith. “Faith is first of all a
personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a
free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. As personal adherence to
God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human
person. It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe abso-
lutely what he says. It would be futile and false to place such faith in a creature
(cf. Jer 17:5-6; Ps 40:5; 146:3-4)” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 150). Je-
remiah’s symbolic action may help us, then, to see that when someone forsakes
God and puts all his trust in created things, be they other people or material
things, it spoils that person’s heart entirely. The passage also reminds us of
what our Lord says in Matthew 5:13 about salt that has lost its taste being
“good for nothing” (v. 10).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
From: Matthew 13:31-35
The Mustard Seed; The Leaven
[33] He told them another parable. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a leaven which
a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.”
[34] All this Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed He said nothing to
them without a parable. [35] This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet:
“I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter what has been hidden since the
foundation of the world.”
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Commentary:
31-32. Here, the man is Jesus Christ and the field, the world. The grain of mus-
tard seed is the preaching of the Gospel and the Church, which from very small
beginnings will spread throughout the world.
The parable clearly refers to the universal scope and spread of the Kingdom of
God: the Church, which embraces all mankind of every kind and condition, in
every latitude and in all ages, is forever developing in spite of obstacles, thanks
to God’s promise and aid.
33. This comparison is taken from everyday experience: just as leaven gradually
ferments all the dough, so the Church spreads to convert all nations.
The leaven is also a symbol of the individual Christian. Living in the middle of the
world and retaining his Christian quality, he wins souls for Christ by his word and
example: “Our calling to be children of God, in the midst of the world, requires us
not only to seek our own personal holiness, but also to go out onto all the ways
of the earth, to convert them into roadways that will carry souls over all obstacles
and lead them to the Lord. As we take part in all temporal activities as ordinary
citizens, we are to become leaven acting on the mass” (St. J. Escriva, “Christ Is
Passing By”, 120).
34-35. Revelation, God’s plans, are hidden (cf. Matthew 11:25) from those who
are disposed to accept them. The Evangelist wishes to emphasize the need for
simplicity and for docility to the Gospel. By recalling Psalm 78:2, he tells us
once more, under divine inspiration, that the Old Testament prophecies find their
fulfillment in our Lord’s preaching.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.