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
No comments:
Post a Comment