WEDNESDAY of 3rd WEEK, uneven year
“Again he began to teach them by the lakeside, but such a huge crowd gathered round him that he got into a boat on the water and sat there. The whole crowd were at the lakeside on land.He taught them many things in parables and in the course of the teaching he said to them :’ Listen! Imagine a sower going out to sow…” The parable of the sower shows us how the Kingdom enters into the human heart.The seed is the Word of God that takes hold of the whole of humanity. The earth is the human heart. We find here four different types of earth depending upon how the word is treated by those who hear it. In each case the seed is the same and the difference of the yield depends entirely upon the kind of earth in which it is sown. We know the importance of the gift of life which bears its fruit : thirty, fifty, a hundred for one. At Christmas we celebrate Mary who bore the Word made Flesh. Mary’s yes is a hundredfold, and reflects that of Jesus’ and the yes of the Eternal Father.
“And it came about that as he sowed, a seed fell at the side of the path and the birds came and ate it up.Some seed fell on rocky ground where it found little soil and at once sprang up, because there was no depth of earth; and when the sun came up it was scorched, and not having any roots it withered away.” The seed falls on the side of the path and the land is so hard that the seed was unable to put down roots in the ground. This refers to people who are indifferent. who are like the path that has been trod upon by people many a time and who have also rejected the Word several times to a point that their hearts have become hardened. In the reality such as a child of God sees it, everything is a gift. “To all who received him he gave the power to become a child of God.” Thus the good seed bears fruit in the beloved children of the Father. The sower sows the good seed everywhere! There is not a rock, nor a ravine that God cannot turn into a marvelous garden. God transforms our heart, Jesus came in the flesh so that we might become like Him.
“And there are those who have been sown in rich soil; they hear the word and accept it and yield a harvest, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.”
The Word speaks to us about our responsibility in the world and teaches us what a joy it brings us to preach the word with fidelity.Each Christian and each community must have an evangelical vision that is
their own, something very personal. Like Mary, we need to give our consent to become a child of God.The Word is always at work! The Body and Blood of Christ are given to us, the forgiveness which Christ gives us is always there for us. In order that this world becomes God’s world each one of us feeds off the good seed in order to become a good seed.Thus the Cross of Jesus operates a work of sanctification in each of our lives. We consent to Son of God who fills our lives with his presence and thus we become transformed in Him. We believe that when we are at the end of our tether his sacrifice is there to save us. In that very place where we are the most in difficulty the Action of the Eucharist fills us with Divine Dew. It is through faith, by believing, that we let the good seed grow and this takes over our entire being so we can become our true selves.