The hidden Kingdom growing quietly among us
Homily for Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time - 19 July 2026
Small acts of faith and love are seeds of a greater reality: the hidden but powerful presence of the Kingdom of God in our midst, growing quietly now, but that one day take over our lives and our world, recognisable and undeniable.
There is a bit of film footage that I remember seeing around 35 years ago in a BBC documentary called “Something Beautiful for God” that galvanised my decision to go to the seminary. The documentary was made by Malcolm Muggeridge in 1969 about Mother Teresa when she was still relatively unknown to the world. The short clip which struck me was filmed at the Kalighat Home for the Dying in Calcutta — a former Hindu temple that the Missionaries of Charity converted into a hospice. The scene is apparently famous in its own right: the hall was so dimly lit that the cameraman, Ken Macmillan, assumed the footage would be unusable, but it came out “bathed in a beautiful soft light” — Muggeridge himself called it a small miracle.
A gentle light was streaming in from one side, lighting up profiles and casting shadows in a dim hall. On a sleeping mat lay an emaciated old man, all his bones clearly visible beneath the covering of skin. And leaning over him was a Missionary of Charity sister in a long spotlessly-white sari. As she nursed him, the film captured a moment of him looking up into her face and it seemed that his eyes and his whole face was filled with light. It was as if at that moment he knew love, and had seen God.
That moment wasn't obvious at first glance. The hall was so dim that even the cameraman didn't expect anything to show up on the film — it took a patient, searching kind of attention to notice what was actually happening in that room. It remains vivid for me and acts as a kind of parable about the hidden but powerful presence of the Kingdom of God in our midst.
The hidden but powerful presence
St Augustine, in his, City of God, describes two cities that exist side by side in this present age, intermingled and often indistinguishable. One is the earthly city, built by love of self even to the point of contempt of God. The other is the city of God, built by love of God even to the point of contempt of self. The citizens of these two cities live in the same streets, the same homes, sometimes even the same heart, until the end of time draws the line between them.
By every visible measure, that dying man in Kalighat belonged to the city of man — poor, unnamed, discarded, waiting to die forgotten. But in the tenderness of that sister toward him, the hidden city of God broke through into visibility, however briefly. That is exactly the kind of attention the Kingdom of God asks of us in our own lives and world: it rarely shouts, it rarely announces itself. It has to be noticed.
Small acts of faith like that — a sister giving a dying man dignity and love — are seeds of a greater reality: the Kingdom of God, growing quietly now, but one day it will burst its banks and take over our lives and our world, recognisable and undeniable. So take heart. We walk by faith and not by sight. Don't be overwhelmed; don't give into despair in difficult times. We have a responsibility to be the mustard seed from which the Kingdom of God will grow. The Kingdom is already in the goodness of the Church, in every act of kindness done for love of God, in the struggling, suffering humanity around us — and one day, like the touch of that sister on a dying man, it will be revealed as a healing balm poured out on our broken humanity.
The mustard seed and the yeast
In the three parables today, Jesus sketches the situation of the Church in the world and the growth of the Kingdom. In the parable of the mustard seed, the tiny grain that becomes a tree indicates the growth of the Kingdom of God on earth. The parable teaches that good things start small and grow over time.
Our efforts, however small, are significant. Even our tiniest efforts, like a mustard seed, have the potential to have a profound effect. Don't be discouraged if your work seems small, or unproductive. Small kindnesses — a smile, a phone call, a prayer for someone in need, a small offering for the work of the poor — all contribute to the growth of the Kingdom. God, who sees our little efforts, transforms them into the biggest of trees; from the smallest acts of kindness, the Kingdom of God takes root.
Also, the parable of the yeast, the leaven in the dough, signifies growth of the Kingdom not so much in size as in intensity — the transforming force of the Gospel is like yeast raising dough into bread. The Kingdom's victory will be achieved slowly, but surely. Don't be dismayed, don't be disillusioned if it seems to be taking forever, if things seem to be going wrong. God's reign is increasing.
Wheat, weeds, and God's patience
These two parables were easily understood by the disciples, but not so the third, the good seeds and the darnel weeds, which Jesus explained to them separately. The Sower, he said, was himself, the good seeds are the children of the Kingdom, the bad seeds are the children of the evil one, the field is the world and the harvest is the end of the world.
The darnel in this parable is a poisonous weed whose roots become intertwined with the wheat's; it looks so similar that when young it is almost impossible to tell them apart. Only when the fruit appears — or fails to — can the darnel be separated out and burned.
How do we understand this parable in our context today? One way to consider it is in terms of the imperfections and sin in ourselves and in the world around us. We have both wheat and weeds in ourselves, and the same could be said of the Church and the world. St Thomas Aquinas explained the presence of evil in terms of the supreme gift of human freedom: God created us with free will, and it's precisely this ability to choose that makes us capable of love. Without it we would just be robots or animals. But the same freedom that makes love possible also makes possible evil, sin, the refusal to love — and this is the source of evil in the world.
The farmer does not refuse to plant because he might find weeds among the wheat; he plants knowing the result might not be perfect, but there will be wheat. God, too, gives us the ability to bear fruit — and with it, the freedom to fail. The weeds among the wheat are the price of that freedom; without it there would be no wheat at all.
Perhaps the real subject of this parable, though, is neither the good seed nor the weeds, but God's patience — which connects to today's first reading from Wisdom: God's strength is shown in his patience and forgiveness. This isn't patience as merely waiting to punish more severely on the Day of Judgment; it is patience in the sense of being long-suffering, merciful, wanting to save. St Peter wrote that we should think of God's patience as our opportunity to be saved. God is a merciful judge, gentle with us.
The farmer's patience in letting the weeds grow until harvest illustrates the infinite mercy of God toward sinners, meant to inspire our continual and true conversion. We, too, can turn back toward the good, toward bearing fruit, toward God.
The Spirit helps us in our weakness
The second reading, from the Letter of St Paul to the Romans, teaches that the Spirit helps us in our weakness to pray as we ought, interceding for us and praying in us to God. We can ask the Spirit to help us turn toward the good, to be wheat, and let the Kingdom of God grow in us. That same Spirit, quiet and unannounced, was already at work in Kalighat all those years ago — in the hands of a sister nursing a dying man, and in the light that filled his face when, at the last, he knew he was loved.
