In today’s first reading, Saint Paul posed this question to the Corinthians: “Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough?” In doing so, Saint Paul is reminding us of Jesus’ teachings on how we can be the “yeast” that “leavens” or transforms the culture and society in which we live. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus spoke of this parable, saying: “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” (Matthew 13:33). This is our mission as Catholics, the mission that Jesus entrusted to us at our baptism, to be priests, prophets, and kings, to be the yeast that leavens the dough that is the world in which we live.
At the same time, Jesus also warns us to “[look] out, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6). We see this in today’s Gospel. Jesus came to preach and teach mercy, forgiveness, and healing, yet the “scribes and the Pharisees watched him closely to see if he would cure on the sabbath so that they might discover a reason to accuse him.” They did not want to accept Jesus’ message to become the yeast that leaven those they serve. Are there “scribes and Pharisees” that are obstacles to us in our lives that need to “be expelled from your midst”? Or have we become like the “scribes and Pharisees” that are “inflated with pride”? Are we our own obstacle to being the yeast that leavens the dough that is the world in which we live?
Saint Paul, reiterates Jesus’ preaching and teaching on this, warns us not to be like the scribes and Pharisees, and gives us this advice, saying: “Clear out the old yeast, so that you may become a fresh batch of dough, inasmuch as you are unleavened. For our Paschal Lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” This, in essence, is the universal call to holiness to which we are all called. From the Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium: “Finally all Christ's faithful, whatever be the conditions, duties and circumstances of their lives—and indeed through all these, will daily increase in holiness, if they receive all things with faith from the hand of their heavenly Father and if they cooperate with the divine will. In this temporal service, they will manifest to all men the love with which God loved the world” (41). Therefore, my sisters and brothers in Christ, if we strive for holiness in our lives, then we can be the “little yeast” that “leavens all the dough” that is our world.
