Month: October 2025

The Sunflower

(Kgs.5:14-17; 2Tim.2:8-13; Lk.17:11-19)

All over the world, people love flowers. So much, in fact, that there’s now a language of flowers – floriography – in which different blooms mean different things.

Flowers are like God’s poetry, written in colour, shape and fragrance. They express sentiments our hearts sometimes cannot, like love, joy, forgiveness and gratitude.

That’s why we adorn our altars with gorgeous blooms, and why in May each year we crown statues of Our Lady with lilies and roses. They symbolise her heavenly queenship and maternal care.

In the Bible, too, flowers aren’t just decorative; they are living symbols of God’s fatherly love. The Lilies of the Field in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount invite us to entrust our fragile selves to God’s eternal care (Mt.6:28-29). And the Rose of Sharon in the Song of Songs symbolises God’s watchful love (2:1).

Flowers speak in silence, and many artists like Vincent van Gogh have used them to convey hidden messages. Van Gogh loved to paint sunflowers. Not just as still-lifes, but as portraits of hope, friendship, and resilience. ‘The sunflower is mine,’ he liked to say.

Van Gogh was born in a vicarage, the son of a prominent pastor. His Christian upbringing shaped his heart and soul, and had a major influence on his growth as an artist. He studied theology and dreamed of preaching with words, but later found himself speaking through his paintings.

Van Gogh was particularly fascinated by sunflowers and the way they always follow the sun’s light across the sky. Without the sun, he knew, sunflowers cannot grow or flourish, and cannot share their seeds. That’s why these golden blooms are never half-hearted about their orientation. They’re always turning towards the sun because it’s the source of their life and strength.

In today’s Gospel, Luke tells the story of ten lepers who ask Jesus for help. He heals all ten, but nine of them simply walk away. They enjoy being healed, but quickly forget the source of their gift.

One man is different, however. Like the sunflower, he turns back towards Jesus, the true Sun of Justice (Mal.4:2) and source of all light and life. And in his gratitude, this man not only receives healing for his body, but also salvation for his soul, for Jesus praises him, saying, ‘Your faith has saved you.’

Perhaps reflecting on the wisdom of this man’s action, the English poet Francis Quarles once wrote of a sunflower turning ‘to her God when he sets, the same look which she turned when he rose.’

Here, he captures the constant turning of a devoted heart towards God. For this is what true love is all about: not a passing glance when it’s convenient, but a steady day-long gaze, in both joy and trial. To love is to keep turning back, just like the healed leper who returned to the feet of Jesus.

The American poet Mary Oliver wrote that everything in creation – the trees, the rivers, the flowers – all belong to ‘the family of things.’ And that’s just what the healed leper discovers. By turning back, he rejoins the family: not just his village family, but the family of God. [i]

For gratitude opens the door to belonging.

Van Gogh painted sunflowers eleven times, each work a prayer without words. If you look, you’ll see that every bloom is different, just like us. Some are fresh and perky, while others are battered or drooping, but all are straining towards the light. The point is that holiness isn’t about perfection, but orientation.

At the same time, Vincent van Gogh reminds us that mature sunflowers produce countless seeds that feed both wildlife and people. In the same way, gratitude produces in us an abundant harvest of joy, peace, and the ability to bless others.

Our faith, then, is not just about receiving blessings, but a constant turning towards their source. For gratitude is not an occasional feeling, but a daily posture – like the sunflower’s turning, like the Samaritan’s return (Lk.10:25–37), and like that thankful man in today’s Gospel.

So, are you like the sunflower, always turning your heart to Jesus?

Do you remember to say thank you to him, not only when life shines, but also when shadows fall?

And do you let gratitude draw you closer to Jesus, healing not just your wounds but also your whole life?

For gratitude is a form of humility – may we humbly admit that we are not the sun.

And like van Gogh’s Sunflowers, may we always turn towards Jesus Christ, the Son and source of all life.

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[i] Mary Oliver, Wild Geese https://livelovesimple.com/wild-geese-mary-oliver/

Small Gestures

(Hab.1:2-3; 2:2-4; 2Tim.1:6-8, 13-14; Lk.17:5-10)

Many people dream of making a difference in our world, and wonder how they might achieve that.

Sadly, though, some get discouraged. They think this requires a bold, heroic act or a grand gesture of some kind, so they don’t even try.

Well, today Jesus is telling us to not be discouraged, for we can all make a positive difference – and it’s really not that hard.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ disciples are realising how much he expects of them, and they’re starting to worry. So, they ask him to increase their faith.

But Jesus doesn’t offer them more. Instead, he says that faith the size of a mustard seed is enough if it’s placed in him. With such faith, he says, you can work miracles and wonders. You can even transplant a tree into the sea.

He’s exaggerating, of course. Jewish rabbis liked to colour their words to make a point, but his message still stands. Jesus is saying that with genuine faith anything becomes possible, even what might seem impossible. For it’s the quality of your faith that’s important, not the quantity.

And the quality of your faith depends on the way you choose to live.

In his book Balaam’s Donkey, Michael Casey says that there’s a close connection between faith and love. Faith, he says, makes its presence known through love because love represents the full flowering of faith – expressed in movement towards the other, in self-forgetfulness, in self-giving.

The opposite of faith, he says, is not a tangled intellectual denial of truth, but coldness, aloofness, withdrawal, self-concern, narcissism.

In other words, if you’re just not interested in life or in anyone else, then your faith won’t go anywhere and you won’t achieve anything.

But if you do care about people, if you do want to live a good life without seeking reward, then your faith will grow and you’ll find yourself making a difference.

Over the years, many people have done just that. They didn’t intend to change the world; they simply chose to do something good for someone else.

One example of this is Andy Dufresne in the film The Shawshank Redemption. In the bleak confines of that awful prison, he gives a harmonica to his friend Red, who is spiritually dead. That little gift starts to rekindle life within him.

Later on, Andy performs other small but selfless acts. He speaks gently, he offers to help others, he starts building a library, and he plays music over the prison loudspeaker.

All these gestures are expressions of mustard-seed faith, and their effect is to insert some dignity, hope and connection into a place of utter despair. The result is significant change.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux taught that the simplest of gestures, done with great love, hold deep spiritual power.

Calling this her ‘Little Way,’ she made a point of doing ordinary things with very great love, and in the process she grew in holiness and humility. When the world heard about this soon after her death, it became an international sensation and in 1997 she was declared a Doctor of the Church.

Similarly, Carlo Acutis, the Italian teenager who was canonised only last month, did a few small things that have since made a very big difference.

He loved computers and the Church. Putting the two together, he taught himself computer programming and started to help parishes by designing their websites. At the age of 14 he created a volunteering portal, and just before he died aged only 15, he launched an online catalogue of the world’s Eucharistic miracles.  

This website soon became a global resource in dozens of languages, and resulted in an exhibition that has since toured thousands of parishes and over 100 universities. Carlo didn’t expect anything like this. He simply followed his heart and did what he loved, and now we can see how a small, faithful act, even online, can make a major difference.

Today he’s the patron saint of the Internet.

Kindness doesn’t have to be grand. When you do something positive, however small, for someone else, the ripple effects can be significant.

A gentle voice, a sincere welcome, a listening ear, an encouraging word or a small act of service can make a huge difference.

It’s like planting a small mustard seed of faith that grows into a mighty tree.

You might not get to hear about it – St Therese of Lisieux didn’t, and neither did St Carlo Acutis – but even your smallest gestures, performed with purposeful love, can help change the world.