July 31, 2023 — Monday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time — Odd Year — The Father willed to give us birth by the word of truth that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures — Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew (Mt 13: 31-35)

Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds.

“The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed
that a person took and sowed in a field.
It is the smallest of all the seeds,
yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.
It becomes a large bush,
and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.”

He spoke to them another parable.

“The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast
that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour
until the whole batch was leavened.”

All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables.
He spoke to them only in parables,
to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:

I will open my mouth in parables,
I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world.