Chapter 13 of Matthew’s Gospel is traditionally called the Parabolic Discourse, because Jesus structures his teaching around seven parables, each of which concerns the Kingdom of Heaven. A common theme of these parables is the explosive abundance of the Kingdom: It is like a mustard plant that takes over a garden. It is like a woman kneading fifty pounds of dough to make enough bread for a banquet. It is like sown wheat that bears thirty- or sixty- or a hundred-fold. (A hundred-fold wheat yield is really not realistic. In the US, with the benefit of modern agricultural technology, it takes on average a bushel and a half of wheat seed to sow an acre, which will yield on average forty bushels of wheat, though this varies of course for region and seed variety. That Jesus spoke of a hundred-fold yield in first century Palestine speaks to the explosive growth the Kingdom of God can have.)
St. Marcellin Champagnat had similar plans for the congregation he founded, saying, “A brother is a man for whom the world is not large enough,” and “Our plans involve every diocese in the world.” While we have never hit that particular benchmark, the Marist Brothers have still grown quite a bit from what began as a priest and two young men in a rented house in France on January 2, 1817. Today, the Marists are in about eighty countries around the world, operating six hundred schools.
