1. As we said in the previous catechesis, it is not possible to understand the origins of the Church without taking into account everything that Jesus preached and did (cf. Acts 1:1). It is precisely on this subject that he addressed his disciples and left us all a fundamental teaching in the parables concerning the Kingdom of God. Among these, those which set out and help us to discover the nature of the historical and spiritual development that is proper to the Church, in accordance with the plan of her Founder himself, are of particular importance.
2. Jesus says: “The Kingdom of God is like a man who scatters seed on the ground: whether he sleeps or wakes, night or day, the seed sprouts and grows; how, he himself does not know. For the earth brings forth of its own accord, first the stalk, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. When the crop is ready, the sickle is immediately put to work, for the harvest has come’ (Mk 4:26–29). Thus, the Kingdom of God grows here on earth, within human history, by virtue of an initial sowing—that is, a foundation—which comes from God, and of a mysterious working of God himself, who continues to nurture the Church throughout the centuries. God’s action concerning the Kingdom also involves the sickle of sacrifice: the Kingdom cannot develop without suffering. This is the meaning of the parable recorded in the Gospel of Mark.
3. We find the same concept in other parables too, especially those collected in the Gospel of Matthew (Mt 13:3–50).
‘The Kingdom of Heaven,’ we read in this Gospel, ‘may be compared to a mustard seed, which a man takes and sows in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but once it has grown, it is larger than the other vegetables and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air nest among its branches’ (Mt 13:31). This is the growth of the Kingdom in an ‘extensive’ sense.
Another parable, however, illustrates its growth in an ‘intensive’ or qualitative sense, comparing it to yeast, which a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour so that the whole batch might rise’ (Mt 13:32).
4. In the parable of the sower and the sowing, the growth of the Kingdom of God certainly appears as the fruit of the sower’s labour, but it is in relation to the soil and the climatic conditions that the sowing produces a harvest: “in one place a hundredfold, in another sixtyfold, in another thirtyfold” (Mt 13:8). The soil signifies people’s inner receptiveness. Therefore, according to Jesus, the growth of the Kingdom of God is also conditioned by human beings. Human free will is responsible for this growth. This is why Jesus urges everyone to pray: “Thy kingdom come” (cf. Mt 6:10; Lk 11:2): it is one of the first petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.
5. One of the parables told by Jesus concerning the growth of the Kingdom of God on earth reveals to us, in a very realistic way, the struggle inherent in the Kingdom, due to the presence and action of an ‘enemy’ who ‘sows tares (or weeds) amongst the wheat’. Jesus says that, when ‘the crop had grown and borne fruit, then the tares also appeared’. The servants of the owner of the field would like to pull it up, but the owner does not allow them to do so, ‘lest . . . you uproot the wheat as well. Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers: First gather the weeds and bind them in bundles to be burnt; but gather the wheat into my barn’ (Mt 13:24–30). This parable explains the coexistence and often the intertwining of good and evil in the world, in our lives, and in the very history of the Church. Jesus teaches us to view things with Christian realism and to deal with every problem with clarity of principle, but also with prudence and patience. This presupposes a transcendent view of history, in which we know that everything belongs to God and every final outcome is the work of his Providence. Yet the final fate – of an eschatological nature – of the good and the wicked is not hidden: it is symbolised by the gathering of the wheat into the storehouse and the burning of the weeds.
6. Jesus himself explains the parable of the sower at the disciples’ request (cf. Mt 13:36–43). His words reveal both the temporal and eschatological dimensions of the Kingdom of God.
He says to his disciples: “To you has been entrusted the mystery of the Kingdom of God” (Mk 4:11). He instructs them on this mystery and, at the same time, through his word and his work, “prepares a kingdom for them, just as the Father has prepared it for him (the Son)” (cf. Lk 22:29). This preparation is also taken up again after his Resurrection: indeed, we read in the Acts of the Apostles that ‘he appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the Kingdom of God’ (cf. Acts 1:3) until the day when ‘he was taken up into heaven and sat at the right hand of God’ (Mark 16:19). These were the final instructions and directives to the Apostles on what they were to do after the Ascension and Pentecost to bring about the concrete beginning of the Kingdom of God at the founding of the Church.
7. The words addressed to Peter at Caesarea Philippi also form part of his preaching on the Kingdom. He says to him, in fact: “I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mt 16:19), immediately after calling him the rock upon which he would build his Church, which would be invincible against “the gates of Hades” (cf. Mt 16:18). This promise was expressed at the time using the future tense: ‘I will build’, because the definitive establishment of the Kingdom of God in this world was yet to be accomplished through the sacrifice of the Cross and the victory of the Resurrection. After that, Peter, together with the other Apostles, would have a living awareness of their calling to ‘proclaim the marvellous deeds of him who has called them out of darkness into his marvellous light’ (cf. 1 Pet 2:9). At the same time, they would all also be aware of the truth that emerges from the parable of the sower, namely that ‘neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who makes things grow’, as Saint Paul would write (1 Cor 3:7).
8. The author of the Book of Revelation expresses this same awareness of the kingdom when he recounts the song addressed to the Lamb: ‘You were slain, and with your blood you have ransomed for God people from every tribe, language, people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom of priests for our God’ (Rev 5:9–10). The Apostle Peter specifies that they have been made such “to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (cf. 1 Pet 2:5). These are all expressions of the truths taught by Jesus who, in the parables of the sower and the sowing, of the growth of the wheat and the weeds, and of the mustard seed which is sown and then grows into a large plant, spoke of the Kingdom of God which, under the action of the Holy Spirit, grows within souls thanks to the life-giving power derived from his death and resurrection: a kingdom that grows until the time appointed by God himself.
9. “Then comes the end,” St Paul proclaims, “when he (Christ) will hand over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has put every rule and every authority and power to nothing” (1 Cor 15:24). For when “everything has been brought under his authority, then the Son himself will also be subject to the One who has put all things under his authority, so that God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).
The existence of the Church, from the beginning to the end, is inscribed within this marvellous eschatological vision of the Kingdom of God, and its history unfolds from the first day to the last.
[John Paul II, General Audience, 25 September 1991]