Just a mustard seed

Today's Gospel call for "faith the size of a mustard seed" matches well with both the first reading ("the just one shall live by faith") and today's saint, the great St. Clare, the first Franciscan woman.

As I reflect on that mustard seed, a spice I have also used whole in cooking (watch out when sauteeing: they explode!), I am starting to think of the seed less as my faith in a little package as perhaps the amount of space needed in the garden of my soul for that seed to take root. In other words, blending the parable of the Sower and the various kinds of soil with today's image. All it takes, Jesus hints is this much room (and here he pinches his thumb and index finger as if holding a single tiny mustard seed) and you can let God's word take root in you. From there on, it's all a matter of God's power.

He even complains that the disciples were unable to work the miracle that day (the cure of the epileptic or "moonstruck" boy) because they had so little faith. I don't see too many miracles on that order happening around me, to tell you the truth. Is Jesus looking at us and shaking his head over our puny, maybe compromised faith? What mountain does he want to see us move? (Given the settled question today over the picture of the coming Presidential election, I see mountains enough!) Can we make just "this much room" for the Word of God to take over in our life; hand over just a mustard seed's worth of ourselves and let him begin to truly be our Lord?