Fifteenth Sunday of the Year July 16, 2023
Isaiah 55:10-11; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23
In the first reading of today, Prophet Isaiah brings a
message of consolation to the people of Israel in exile as he urges them to be
hopeful of future glory. Rain comes down from above and makes the earth
fruitful; the earth produces a good harvest and also prepares the seed for
future use; just so God’s word rains down and enriches the world. The world like parched earth is waiting for
the rain of God’s word. The word of God has the same dramatic influence on the
spiritual landscape. Their lives in
exile were deprived of life and hope.
All of that will change if they allow the word of God into their hearts.
The Parable of the Sower likens the teaching of God’s word
to the sowing of seeds. The seeds fall on different types of soil, the pathway
soil, the rocky soil, the thorny soil, and the good soil. Each of these types
of soil is said to represent a certain type of heart with which hearers receive
the word of God. The question each of us must ask ourselves today is, “What
type of soil for the word of God do I represent? Am I like the pathway where
the seed cannot even sprout, or like the rocky ground where the seed sprouts
but has no roots, or like thorny ground where the word of God is choked to
death by worldly cares, or like the good soil that bears much fruit? Comparing
our different dispositions to different types of soil has one crucial
limitation. Soil cannot help being what it is. We can. And so the question that
follows is: “How can I improve the disposition of my heart so that the word of
God can bear fruit in my life or bear fruit more abundantly?
In this parable Jesus Himself is the sower of the seed. He
is the Eternal Word incarnate, provides the seed and sows it into the hearts of
the hearers in order to provide a harvest of thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold.
The harvest depends on the fertility of the soil/soul where it gets planted in.
But the Word Himself will not make the soil fertile; it just depends on how
much seed falls on the soil and how receptive the soil is to the Word. The
Father provides Jesus with His Divine Word for the sowing, which in turn bears
fruit unto eternal life for those who are willing to listen.
Let us take home with us today the fact that the conditions
of the soil encountered by the sower are not necessarily in four different
fields. Agricultural conditions in the
Holy Land show that all four conditions may be found in one field. It is the
same with each one of us. Sometimes we cannot take the word of God because our
hearts are just too hard. Sometimes we
are enslaved by the attractiveness of the world. Sometimes when the word of God
is given to us we crushed by the situations which take us away from God. Sometimes when conditions are just right we
permit the rain of God’s word to bring forth the blossoms of our love. If the
results have been less than satisfactory, it is because we have not matured
fully enough to produce the supernatural yield of which Jesus spoke. There is clearly, of course, for us one place
in particular where God's word is more clearly experienced and that is in Jesus
Christ.
Happy Sunday
Thank you for the beautiful story and reflection.
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