We are the Ground:A Reflection on the Parable of the Sower

Familiar Story
The Parable of the Sower is a familiar story we hear in the three Synoptic Gospels: Matt 13: 1-9; Mk 4:1-20; Lk 8:4-15. In fact, we hear a variation of this reading several different times during the three year Liturgical Cycle. While the story may be familiar, we can often garner different meanings during different times of reflection. In previous reflections, I have written that we are both the seeds and the sower. Even more recently, I reflected on the call to bear fruit.

We are the Ground
Today, as I was listening to the USCCB Daily Reflection, it struck me that we are the soil – the ground on which the seeds of God's message fall upon. God is kind, merciful and patient in His pursuit of our love. He spreads the seeds of His good news even upon our hardened hearts when we have rejected Him or been complacent to His call. Nevertheless, the Lord waits, knowing that the through the grace of the Holy Spirit even our hardened hearts can be fertile ground for His message, like a flower growing out of a sidewalk crack. God's love can seep its way into even the tiniest of crevice our callous, cemented character.

Navarre Bible Commentary
Like the sower in the parable, God generously seeks to share His love with all of us. We are the one's who get in the way of our own salvation. Through our anger, complacency and lack of fortitude we are like the ground that does not permit the seed to bear fruit. The commentators of the Navarre Bible explain:

God calls everyone to salvation but only those attain it who receive God's call with good dispositions and who do not change their attitude; the value of the spiritual benefits the Kingdom brings--so valuable that one should give up everything to obtain them; the fact that good and bad are all mixed together until the harvest time, or the time of God's judgment; the intimate connection between earthly and heavenly aspects of the Kingdom, until it reaches its point of full development at the end of time. (The Navarre Bible: St. Matthew's Gospel, 101) 

Catechism of the Catholic Church
The types of ground described in the Gospel are representative of our attitude and disposition towards receiving the Lord into our hearts. The Catechism comments:

But this "intimate and vital bond of man to God" (GS 19 § 1) can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man. Such attitudes can have different causes: revolt against evil in the world; religious ignorance or indifference; the cares and riches of this world; the scandal of bad example on the part of believers; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of sinful man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his call. (CCC, 29)

Furthermore, the Catechism goes on to explain how Jesus used parables to invite people into the kingdom of God. Through these parables, he continues to speak to us.

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. (CCC, 546)

Flash Animation Video

The Pill v.s. NFP

Source: Wikipedia

Church Teaching On Contraception
The Church teaches that contraception is morally evil. CCC, 2399 states:

The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).

In 1997, the Pontifical Council for the Family explained:

The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity; it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life. (PCF, Vademecum for Confessors: Concerning Some Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life, February 12, 1997, 2; 4) 

The Effects of the Pill 
Jason Evert Explains Why NFP ≠ Contraception

Navarre Bible Commentary:Online and Offline Options

Daily Word Reflections
Many of you may be familiar with +Mike Harrison's Daily Word reflections from the Navarre Bible. Mike recently sent out a message to all the members of the list:

Many of you will recall that I am fighting throat cancer, and at this point I'm in pretty bad shape from radiation treatment and its quite catastrophic side effects. As a result, this and all my other lists are behind. I'm afraid that posting will be spotty or may cease entirely if I have to be hospitalized.

Prayers
First, it goes without saying that we need to pray for Mike. He asked that we please not "offer to "help" getting the postings done; the logistics of that would be far more of a nightmare than I can handle right now." I recommend we ask St. Blaise, patron saint of throat ailments, for his intercession in asking our Lord for Mike's healing.

Group Archive
For those of you who would like to continue to incorporate the reflections as part of your daily prayer life, I have three recommendations. First, you can go to the Daily Word Google Group and run a search for the reading for that day. For example, Sunday I used "sixteenth Sunday in ordinary" as my search. Sometimes you might need to search using the actual scripture passage to find them. As far as I can tell all of the readings (3 year cycle) are archived on the group page.

In Conversation with God
The other option is to purchase Fernandez's In Conversation with God, available in 7 volumes. Fernandez uses most of the commentary in the Navarre and more. You can buy the individual volumes at a Catholic book store to save buying the whole set. I don't recommend the ebook version because the books are broken up into two parts each and makes it even more expensive.

Navarre Bible
The final option is to buy the Navarre Bible New Testament; it costs about $80, but it is a great investment. The Old Testament is sold in individual volumes and can be expensive. Right now there is no online version other than the Daily Word archive. You can run a Google search and preview much of it on Google Books too.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this post in July, I began including the daily Gospel commentary on this site. Additionally, I have learned that Verbum Bible software, has a reasonably priced version of the New Testament commentary as one of their ala carte packages. They also carry the entire commentary (Old and New Testaments), but that price is similar to the cost of purchasing the full set in book form.

Natural Family Planning Awareness Week

NFP Awareness Week

Did you know that this week, July 21-27, is Natural Family Planning (NFP) Awareness Week? The USCCB has dedicated this week to promote awareness of NFP. Many (if not most) Catholics do not properly know what NFP is and very few Catholics practice it. The USCCB should be lauded for attempting to promote awareness, unfortunately the timing is horrible since all of the media attention – including the Catholic media – is rightly focused on World Youth Day. 

What is NFP?

Pope John Paul II: Evangelium Vitae

In his encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), Pope John Paul II outlined the appropriateness of NFP:

At the first stage of life, centers for natural methods of regulating fertility should be promoted as a valuable help to responsible parenthood, in which all individuals, and in the first place the child, are recognized and respected in their own right and where every decision is guided by the ideal of the sincere gift of self. (EV, #88)

From the scientific point of view, these methods are becoming more and more accurate and make it possible in practice to make choices in harmony with moral values. An honest appraisal of their effectiveness should dispel certain prejudices which are still widely held, and should convince married couples, as well as health-care and social workers, of the importance of proper training in this area. (EV, #97)

What the Catechism Teaches

The Catechism articulates the Church teaching on family planning. Additionally it sets forth the proper disposition for discerning when to regulate procreation.

2368 A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality:When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, the morality of the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of motives alone; but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the person and his acts criteria that respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is practiced with sincerity of heart. (NOTE: CCC cites GS 51 § 3 as an endnote).

2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality.158  These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil:159  Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. ... The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle ... involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality. (NOTE: CCC cites HV, 16; HV, 14; FC, 32 as endnotes).

Links to Documents Cited in CCC:

• Gaudium et Spes (GS)
• Humanae Vitae (HV)
• Familiaris Consortio (FC)

St. Mary Magdalene: Apostle to the Apostles

Patron of Penitent Sinners
Today the Church celebrates the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene who was one of Christ's closest followers and one of the few who remained at the foot of the cross while all the others fled. St. Thomas Aquinas and others have referred to her as the Apostle to the Apostles she was the first to see the risen Lord and took that news to the apostles. According to EWTN, Mary Magdalene is the patron of contemplative life; converts; glove makers; hairdressers; penitent sinners; people ridiculed for their piety; perfumeries; pharmacists; reformed prostitutes; sexual temptation; tanners; women.

Apostle to the Apostles
In 2007, while reflecting on the role of women in the early Church, Pope Benedict XVI examined the life of Mary Magdalene.

The Gospels then tell us that the women, unlike the Twelve, did not abandon Jesus in the hour of his Passion (cf. Mt 27:56, 61; Mk 15:40). Among them, Mary Magdalene stands out in particular. Not only was she present at the Passion, but she was also the first witness and herald of the Risen One (cf. Jn 20:1, 11-18). 

It was precisely to Mary Magdalene that St. Thomas Aquinas reserved the special title, "Apostle of the Apostles" (apostolorum apostola), dedicating to her this beautiful comment: "Just as a woman had announced the words of death to the first man, so also a woman was the first to announce to the Apostles the words of life" (Super Ioannem, ed. Cai, § 2519). [Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, Feb. 14, 2007]

Further Reading

Mary Magdalene has long been confused for the adulterous prostitute described in Luke 7:36-50. Additionally she has been associated with gnostic myths most recently made popular by Dan Brown. Here is some additional reading to help you discover the real Mary Magdalene who has been a popular saint since the early centuries.

• Excerpt from The Da Vinci Hoax entitled The Magdalene: Saint, Sinner or Goddess?
• Audio Interview with Amy Welborn author of Decoding Mary Magdalene
• Mary Magdalene and Peter: Pattern for the Ages by Dr. Marshall
• Learning from the Saint Who was the Apostle to the Apostles by Bert Ghezzi & Brandon Vogt

Apostleship of Prayer Video

Martha, Mary and the Better Part

Source: At Jesus' Feet, Nathan Greene

Two Dimensions
Today's Gospel reading from Luke, tells the account of Jesus' encounter with Martha and Mary, sisters of Lazarus and close friends of our Lord who lived in Bethany. The two sisters represent "the two dimensions of the spiritual life." (Ignatius Study Bible). Martha represents the active life of Christian service, while Mary signifies the life of contemplation, of prayer. In the story, Martha is portrayed as hustling about serving the guests, while Mary remains at Christ's feet listening. Martha is agitated that Mary is not helping and complains to Jesus. He responds by saying. “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” (Luke 10: 41-42)

Balanced Spiritual Life
I don't believe that Christ is telling Martha that service is bad, but instead he is telling her that the contemplative life is better. We would all do well to have a balance spiritual life of both contemplation and service. According to St. Josemaria:

Martha has come to be, as it were, the symbol of the active life, and Mary that of the contemplative life. However, for most Christians, called as they are to sanctify themselves in the middle of the world, action and contemplation cannot be regarded as two opposite ways of practising the Christian faith: an active life forgetful of union with God is useless and barren; but an apparent life of prayer which shows no concern for apostolate and the sanctification of ordinary things also fails to please God. The key lies in being able to combine these two lives, without either harming the other. Close union between action and contemplation can be achieved in very different ways, depending on the specific vocation each person is given by God. 

Far from being an obstacle, work should be a means and an occasion for a close relationship with our Lord, which is the most important thing in our life. 

Following this teaching of the Lord, the ordinary Christian should strive to attain an integrated life--an intense life of piety and external activity, orientated towards God, practised out of love for Him and with an upright intention, which expresses itself in apostolate, in everyday work, in doing the duties of one's state in life. "You must understand now more clearly that God is calling you to serve Him in and from the ordinary, material and secular activities of human life. He waits for us every day, in the laboratory, in the operating room, in the army barracks, in the university chair, in the factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home and in all the immense panorama of work. Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each of you to discover it [...]. There is no other way. Either we learn to find our Lord in ordinary, everyday life, or else we shall never find Him. That is why I can tell you that our age needs to give back to matter and to the most trivial occurrences and situations their noble and original meaning. It needs to restore them to the service of the Kingdom of God, to spiritualize them, turning them into a means and an occasion for a continuous meeting with Jesus Christ (St. J. Escriva, Conversations, 114).

The Better Part
For further reading on the "better part," I recommend reading the Catholic Spiritual Direction blog hosted by the author of the book The Better Part. Here's a sample of today's reflections from The Better Part app which explains how we can tell when our spiritual lives are out of balance:

The crucial sign that we may be following Martha’s footsteps a little too closely is a waning life of prayer. When we skimp on our prayer life, on that precious time that we spend, as Mary did, “at the Lord’s feet listening to him speaking,” we need to stop and check our spiritual vital signs. Maybe we have let ourselves become so “distracted with all the serving” that we have forgotten why we should be serving at all. (The Better Part, 188)

Faith is Not Irrational:Fr. Barron's Commentary on Lumen Fidei

From The Practicing Catholic

There is an urgent need, then, to see once again that faith is a light, for once the flame of faith dies out, all other lights begin to dim. The light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence. A light this powerful cannot come from ourselves but from a more primordial source: in a word, it must come from God. Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love, a love which precedes us and upon which we can lean for security and for building our lives. Transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see; we realize that it contains a great promise of fulfilment, and that a vision of the future opens up before us. Faith, received from God as a supernatural gift, becomes a light for our way, guiding our journey through time. (Lumen Fidei, 4).

Faith, Hope and Charity
Last Friday, Pope Francis published his first encyclical entitled Lumen Fidei (Light of Faith). The encyclical closed out the three part series initiated by Pope Benedict on the three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity (see CCC 1812-1829). Pope Benedict began by writing on charity in Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) and followed it up later with Spe Savli (Saved by Hope). In Lumen Fidei, Pope Francis concludes the third installment on faith, which Pope Benedict had already begun writing before his resignation. Francis described the encyclical as having been written by four hands.

Faith is Not Irrational

In this video, Father Robert Barron gives an overview of the encyclical, highlighting a key point that faith is not irrational.

7-11 Day - Free Small Slurpee

July 11th is 7-Eleven Day and all participating 7-Eleven convenience stores are celebrating by giving away free small slurpees. I remember as a boy riding my bike to the local 7-Eleven with my brother so we could check out the new comic books and buy a Slurpee to cool us off during the hot Texas summer. While there isn't anything particularly Catholic about Slurpees or 7-Eleven, there is when it comes to spending time with family. Take a break from the Summer heat and head on out to get a Slurpee for you and your kids.

Be Salt and Light in the World

From CatholicDude

You are obliged to give good example

You need interior life and doctrinal formation. Be demanding on yourself! As a Christian man or woman, you have to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, for you are obliged to give good example with holy shamelessness. The charity of Christ should compel you. Feeling and knowing yourself to be another Christ from the moment you told him that you would follow him, you must not separate yourself from your equals - your relatives, friends and colleagues - any more than you would separate salt from the food it is seasoning. Your interior life and your formation include the piety and the principles a child of God must have in order to give flavour to everything by his active presence there. Ask the Lord that you may always be that good seasoning in the lives of others. (The Forge, 450)

Lumen Fidei

By now you have heard that Pope Francis's first encyclical, Lumen Fidei has been published and made available to the public via the Vatican website. Currently, you can download the document as a PDF at the site. If you wish to read it on a your Kindle or other e-reader, you can read it as a PDF or you can convert it to any desired ebook format using Calibre (for personal use only).

For a summary of the encyclical you can read the Catholic World Report.

Ignatius Press will be releasing a hardback copy soon.
Rome Reports Video

Catholic Founding Father: Charles Carroll

Charles Carroll of Carrollton by Michael Laty

Declaration of Independence

When we think of the 4th of July, some of us think about more than cooking on the grill and watching fireworks. This is our nation’s birthday and marks the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Most people can remember the names of a few of the signers. They might recall John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Some might even remember that Benjamin Franklin signed the document. Some might even mistakenly think George Washington signed, but few will mention the name Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the sole Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence and the last of the signers to die.

Important Founder
Although few recall his name today, prior to his death in 1832, Charles Carroll was considered one of the most important founders of the United States. Carroll hailed from Maryland (yes, named after our Blessed Mother) and came from a wealthy Catholic family. Some historians credit Carroll for developing the concept of the Senate. Carroll was instrumental in legitimizing Catholicism during the early American Republic. Charles Carroll also served in the U.S. Senate and was an early opponent of slavery.

Archbishop Cousin
His cousin John Carroll, for whom he is often mistaken, was the Archbishop of Maryland. Charles Carroll was the last surviving signer when he died in 1832. The city of Carrollton, Maryland is named after him.

For more on Charles Carroll, I recommend reading American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll by Bradley J. Birzer or for a shorter read I recommend, Christopher Blosser’s post on The American Catholic.

The Eucharist: The Sacrament of Love

The Incredulity of St. Thomas, Caravaggio

My Lord, My God
Today's Gospel relates the scene when St. Thomas doubts that Christ has truly risen from the dead (John 20:24-29). There are two primary passages I'd like to focus on. The first is John 20:28 when Thomas has placed his hands into the wounds of Christ and exclaims, "My Lord and my God!" According to the The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament commentary (Kindle Locations 12210-12211), this is the "climactic confession of faith in John's Gospel." The Catechism explains that "in the encounter with the risen Jesus, this title becomes adoration: 'My Lord and my God!' It thus takes on a connotation of love and affection that remains proper to the Christian tradition: 'It is the Lord!'" (CCC, 448). For this reason, these words are often used by Catholics as an ejaculatory prayer or aspiration "especially as an act of faith in the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Eucharist." (Navarre Bible Commentary). I have several friends who silently proclaim these words upon the consecration during the Mass.

Those Who Have Not Seen
Jesus responds to Thomas by saying, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” (John 20:29). Christ is talking about us! He is acknowledging our faith in true presence in the Eucharist and in His message revealed through divine revelation. Furthermore, Christ's statement "refers to us, provided we live in accordance with the faith, for only he truly believes who practices what the believes" (In Evangelia Homiliae, 26, 9). In other words we have to walk the walk. Sacred Scripture, "carries with it sufficient guarantees of credibility" and when we accept that teaching, each of us "offers the full submission of his intellect and will to God who reveals, willingly assenting to the revelation given" (Dei Verbum, 5).

Spiritual Communion

Still Image from The Passion of the Christ

Not Able to Receive
Most of us can't make it to Mass everyday. On those days, even though we may not be able to receive the Eucharist, we can make a prayer of Spiritual Communion. The concept of spiritual communion has long been a part of Catholic tradition and it consists of "inviting Jesus into one's heart and soul when receiving the actual sacrament isn't possible" (CNS, 2011). Perhaps you have heard a version of the prayer while watching the Mass on EWTN. Many saints, including St. Alphonsus Ligouri, St. Tereas of Avila and St. Josemaria have made prayers of spiritual communion. According to Pope Pius XII, we should make our spiritual communion with a desire for "renewed faith, reverence, humility and complete trust in the goodness of the divine Redeemer" so that we "may be united to Him in the spirit of the most ardent charity" (Mediator Dei, 117).

Anytime, Anywhere
What's great about spiritual communion is that you can make the prayer anytime or anywhere. I say a version of the prayer every time I pass a Catholic Church to acknowledge Christ's true presence in the Eucharist contained in the tabernacle. I get to start every work morning driving by St. Rita's on the Toll Road into downtown Dallas. It's not only a great way for me to start my day, but it insures I don't suffer from road rage when traffic is terrible. You can make the prayer as many times as you like and some of the saints have even recommended making the prayer after receiving sacramental communion.

Origin of the Devotion
In his encyclical Ecclessia de Eucharistia Pope John Paul II wrote about the origin and purpose of spiritual communion.

[I]n the Eucharist “unlike any other sacrament, the mystery [of communion] is so perfect that it brings us to the heights of every good thing: here is the ultimate goal of every human desire, because here we attain God and God joins himself to us in the most perfect union”. Precisely for this reason it is good to cultivate in our hearts a constant desire for the sacrament of the Eucharist. This was the origin of the practice of “spiritual communion”, which has happily been established in the Church for centuries and recommended by saints who were masters of the spiritual life. Saint Teresa of Jesus wrote: “When you do not receive communion and you do not attend Mass, you can make a spiritual communion, which is a most beneficial practice; by it the love of God will be greatly impressed on you”. (EdE, 35)

Prayer of the Saints:
Act of Spiritual Communion, St. Alphonsus Liguori

My Jesus,

I believe that You

are present in the Most Holy Sacrament.

I love You above all things,

and I desire to receive You into my soul.

Since I cannot at this moment

receive You sacramentally,

come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You.

Amen.

Spiritual Communion Prayer, St. Josemaria

I wish, Lord, to receive You with the purity, humility and devotion with which Your most holy Mother received You, with the spirit and fervor of the saints. Amen.

Spiritually Benefits

Pope Benedict recommended spiritual communion "in cases where it is not possible to receive sacramental communion, participation at Mass remains necessary, important, meaningful and fruitful. In such circumstances it is beneficial to cultivate a desire for full union with Christ through the practice of spiritual communion, praised by Pope John Paul II and recommended by saints who were masters of the spiritual life (Sacramentum Caritatis, 55).

31 Days with St. Ignatius

31 Days
In honor of St. Ignatius of Loyola, whose feast is July 31st, Loyola Press is sponsoring 31 Days with St. Ignatius. The event includes special articles, blogs, prayers and videos to help you explore Ignatian Spirituality. If you have ever been curious about the Spiritual Exercises this might serve as an introduction.

Video on St. Ignatius. 
Who Cares About the Saints?...Ignatius from Loyola Productions on Vimeo.