Hearth & Altar

God gave Jeremiah a strange object lesson. He told him to buy a brand-new linen cloth, put it on, and then go bury it in the ground without washing it. After a long time he told Jeremiah to go dig it up. When Jeremiah got there and pulled the cloth out of the ground, it was rotted. Completely ruined. Good for nothing.

That's what happened to God's people, God said. They were meant to be as close to me as that cloth was close to your body. They were meant to cling to me. I wanted them to be my people, my beauty, my praise. And they stopped listening and drifted away, and they became like the rotted cloth.

Then Jesus tells a completely different kind of story. A tiny mustard seed goes into the ground, and something enormous grows from it. Yeast gets mixed into a huge batch of dough and quietly spreads through the whole thing. The kingdom of God starts hidden and small and grows from the inside out.

There's a contrast there worth talking about at dinner. The cloth ruined by being separated. The seed transformed by being planted and given time.

• For our family, that we would cling to God the way that cloth clings to the body - close, constant, not separated, we pray to the Lord.
• For our family's faith, that even when it looks small and hidden, it would grow quietly like the mustard seed until it becomes something strong, we pray to the Lord.
• On the feast of Saints Joachim and Anne - Mary's parents and Jesus's grandparents - for the grandparents in our family who passed the faith to us, we pray to the Lord.
• For anyone in our family who has drifted from the Lord, that the cloth that was meant to cling would find its way back, we pray to the Lord.

Today is the feast of Saints Joachim and Anne - Mary's parents. Nobody knows their names from the Bible; tradition passed them down. They raised the woman who would say yes to God at the Annunciation.

Ask your children tonight: who passed faith to you? Who prayed for you? If grandparents are alive, call or text them today. If they have died, light a candle and tell one story about them to your children.

You are Joachim and Anne. You are raising someone who will say yes or no to God, and your daily faithfulness is the soil they are growing in. The mustard seed looks like nothing. Keep planting it.