All holiness is growth. And growth is slow | PadreCast Eleventh Sunday Ordinary Time

As Christians, our hearts, like that of Our Lady, are supposed to be one with our Lord. That's really what we strive for in our Christian life - day by day, little by little we struggle to unit our hearts more perfectly to His. And it's a process. It's not something we can do on our own, certainly. It's something we have to allow the Lord to do in us. ...

Like the example the Lord gives in the Gospel today: the Kingdom of Heaven grows like a seed. It grows not only in the Church... Christ doesn't just reside in HIs Church, He wants to reside inside each one of us as a temple, as a church. That means we grow into this temple as any seed would grow.

The difficulty for us is - and Jesus points this out in the Gospel - that even though we witness the growth, we don't know how it happens. ...Still so many mysteries in the regard, and that mystery remains spiritually in our growth.

Our Lady is unique among Christians in that she did not need to grow into unity with Christ. From the first moment of her conception, she was given a special privilege. She was kept free from any stain of sin, so she's Immaculate; and she was filled with the Holy Spirit. That means during the entirety of her life, she was always the temple of God. That's why she's our model.

She was given these graces and these privileges so she could assist us in becoming temples ourselves. In growing in holiness day by day.

Our Lord expects us to turn to His Mother and seek her intercession.

The Fathers teach us that devotion to the Blessed Mother is essential in the Christian life. It's not an option, and it's one of the signs of salvific grace in the soul of a Christian....

If you truly loved our Lord and followed Him, you would love His Mother. It's not possible to love Him without loving His Mother since it was she who brought Jesus to us by the power of God in her, she is the instrument of our salvation. ....

 

Great things begin with just a small seed. If every time you come to Mass or hear me preach and you hear me say that Hail Mary and you pray it with me, it plants a seed in your mind. "Why is Father doing this? There must be something special about it. I wonder if I should be praying a Hail Mary before I do stuff too?"

That little seed over time can grow, and encourage your devotion to the Blessed Mother which is something our Lord wants for us.

 

Start with one Hail Mary a day...

 

Ez 17:22-24; Ps 92:2-3, 13-16; 2 Cor 5:6-10; Mk 4:26-3

 

You may watch the Mass in its entirety on our YouTube channel. Homily begins at 15:23