While parables may seem like simple stories, they contain a deeper meaning. They use one situation to encourage reflection about a different one.
The Old Testament mentions parables and Jesus’ Jewish audience would have been familiar with them.
He used parables to invite his faithful disciples to contemplate about heavenly things while while his adversaries only became frustrated.
Parables have different layers of meaning and reveal different senses of Sacred Scripture.
Jesus tells stories to help us understand:
The Gospel parables are brief accounts that Jesus uses to proclaim the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. Using imagery from situations of daily life, the Lord “wants to show us the real ground of all things…. He shows us… the God who acts, who intervenes in our lives, and wants to take us by the hand”.
Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Address, July 17, 2011
Little stories that reveal large truths:
Parables are both simple and profound:
And when He was alone, those who were about Him with the twelve asked Him concerning the parables. And He said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables; so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; lest they should turn again, and be forgiven.”
Mark 4: 10-12
Jesus told parables to make people think:
Parables are not just stories:
Jesus’ invitation to enter his kingdom comes in the form of parables, a characteristic feature of his teaching. Through his parables He invites people to the feast of the Kingdom, but He also asks for a radical choice: to gain the Kingdom, one must give everything. Words are not enough, deeds are required. The parables are like mirrors for man: will he be hard soil or good earth for the word? What use has he made of the talents he has received? Jesus and the presence of the Kingdom in this world are secretly at the heart of the parables. One must enter the Kingdom, that is, become a disciple of Christ, in order to “know the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven”. For those who stay “outside”, everything remains enigmatic.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 546
Parables are an invitation to a deeper relationship with God:
The parables are based on real history and geography:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
At any given time, a saint was alive:
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