Today’s Gospel is the parable of the seeds and the soil. Jesus uses the parable to explain reasons why the Word of God sometimes does not bear fruit and sometimes bears great fruit.
Our Lord uses four examples to help us to know how the Word of God is affected by the manner in which it is received. The first type of person is this one: “The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it, and the evil one comes and steals away what was sown in his heart.”
This seed unfortunately doesn’t even get a chance to sprout because it didn’t land on soil. There was a lack of understanding and the evil one stole away the word of God. For example: Do we reject part of the message of the Gospel because we do not understand it and so we erroneously support teachings contrary to our faith: artificial contraception, same-sex marriage, abortion, stem cell research, pre-marital relations or other issues where the Church’s teachings are not understood? Have we allowed our lack of understanding to prevent us from seeking to understand why the Church teaches what She teaches, and so we reject part of the Gospel? Whenever we reject part of the message of the Gospel, to use the words of Jesus today, the evil one has stolen the word from our heart.
The second point made by Jesus is this: “The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy. But he has no root and lasts only for a time. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away.”
This time the seed sprouts but when the cross comes – “tribulation or persecution” - we give up. Have we ever been moved in our heart by God through a good experience in Confession or being overwhelmed by grace at Mass or when we received Holy Communion or when we received a spiritual insight in prayer or someone who did some good deed for us and because of one of these circumstances, we resolved to become a better Christian-- a better follower of Jesus, but we quickly go back to our old way of life because we could not see beyond some temporary difficulty or disappointment, such as a sudden health problem, an unexpected death in the family, a misunderstanding with someone, a co-worker or family member who ridicules our Catholic faith, or out of laziness we go back to our old way of doing things and we forget the inspiration God gave us to walk with Him closer, to be a more faithful disciple and so we fall away from what we were inspired to do and do nothing to change our life, even though at first we had the inspiration.
The third type of person is this one: “The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit.”
It is “worldly anxiety and lure of riches” that this time hinder our hearts from being receptive to Jesus. Are there times when we are too busy to pray and to read the Bible? Have we missed Mass because we were too busy or made up some other excuse? Because we are having financial problems or because we just want to live a better lifestyle, we go to a Casino, or play the lottery, rather than use our money to support the poor or the Church? We fail to give our anxieties and our financial problems or even our greed to God. We fail to trust God will take care of everything. We fail to come to Mass to receive the graces we need to help us to have the peace we are longing for. Whenever we put “worldly anxiety and lure of riches” before God, the Word dies in our heart.
With these first three reasons, we can see why the Word of God does not affect our hearts. As Jesus said, “Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes…”
However, the fourth type of person is this one: “…the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. When we come to a difficult teaching which we don’t understand, we strive to learn more about it. We talk to a priest and we turn to the Catechism of the Catholic Church for help to overcome our doubts. In the midst of trials and tribulations we turn Jesus in prayer and we pray more. We are more faithful to our Mass attendance. We go to Confession more. When we are persecuted or despised or when people utter every kind of false things about us, we rejoice and give thanks and praise to God and ask Him for the graces to defend our faith and to defend our self and others. When it comes to money, we seek not to be rich, but only to have what we need, to take care of the needs of others, especially the poor. We live out our Stewardship Way of Life, giving our time, talent and treasure out of love of God and neighbor.
There is some of each of these four types of person in all of us. We could be all four of these persons at once, or predominantly one of these types of person for a certain time. Thanks be to God each of us in many different ways, do hear the word, understand it and we do bear fruit.
Let us open our heart, such that if there are misunderstandings or disappointments and the cross, or worldly anxiety and the lure of riches, we will not render our hearts as unfertile soil for the Word of God, so that we do not grieve Jesus by a “gross heart”. Rather, we will allow our heart to become a fertile soil for God’s Word.
If we have humility and sorrow for our sins, we can say the words of David in Psalm 51, “A humble and contrite heart O God, you will not spurn.” “A clean heart create for me O God and a steadfast spirit renew within me”.
May the Word of God grow and bear fruit in our hearts and yield a hundred or sixty or thirty fold. And may we imitate the Virgin Mary, the first and most perfect disciple of Jesus, who bore the fruit of Jesus in Her Womb, so He could die for us, that we may have life and have it abundantly with Him in heaven.
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