Chickens

I posted three times in one day, but that was five days ago. It's high time I wrote again. Here's a snippet from this morning's homily.

Imagine you're on a farm. Imagine that there are chickens. Now, the parents sends the little children to get the chickens and put them in for the night. So, the little children run out and instantly decide to try to capture the little chicks running around. But, as you all know, little chicks are very fast. Not to mention the fact that their mothers have beaks and claws and aren't afraid to use them. So, the poor little children get frustrated with this and are about to despair utterly when the mother comes out of the house. She takes a basket and places the mother hen in it and covers it. When the mother hen starts clucking (or quacking, as Fr. Michael said) all of the little chicks come running and hop in the basket with her.

The mother hen is the Kingdom of heaven. All of the chicks are the other (morally good) desires and wants and needs that we have in our life. If we pursue the mother hen, all of the little chicks will, inevitably, follow. But going after each little chick individually will never make us entirely satisfied.


I thought it was a good point. A point that is so often illustrated by the world we live in and the people that populate it. Are we, like Solomon in the first reading today, going after the "mother hen"? Or do we ask for the little things that can never really satisfy us?