On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.
Such large crowds gathered around him
that he got into a boat and sat down,
and the whole crowd stood along the shore.
And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying:
“A sower went out to sow.
And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path,
and birds came and ate it up.
Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil.
It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep,
and when the sun rose it was scorched,
and it withered for lack of roots.
Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.
But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit,
a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.
Whoever has ears ought to hear.”The disciples approached him and said,
“Why do you speak to them in parables?”
He said to them in reply,
“Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because
they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.
Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:
You shall indeed hear but not understand,
you shall indeed look but never see.
Gross is the heart of this people,
they will hardly hear with their ears,
they have closed their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their hearts and be converted,
and I heal them.“But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.“Hear then the parable of the sower.
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.
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.
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.
But 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.”
The Word Of God Is Alive: Fifteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time, Year A
The Word of God is alive and active (Heb 4:12). In fact, the Word of God is not just mere letters on the sacred page, but a Person, Jesus our God who became flesh and pitched his tent among us (cf. Jn 1:1-18). Because of this, every time we read the sacred Scriptures, we are opening ourselves to a real encounter with Jesus. This is why the Church has always encouraged prayer centred on the Scriptures, such as lectio divina and frequent reading of the Bible. Indeed, the highest form of prayer in the Church (the Mass) has an entire major part solely dedicated to listening to the Word of God. St Jerome goes so far as to say, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ” (St Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah).
However, we learn from this Sunday’s Gospel that for all our access to the Sacred Scriptures, it is possible to be impervious to what they teach, to remain unable to see and love fully the Person to whom they point us. The scribes and Pharisees who persecuted Jesus were men who dedicated their entire lives to the Sacred Scriptures. They could recite whole sections by heart, and their entire ministry was teaching others what the Word of God said and meant. And yet, they rejected Jesus, who was the fulfilment of the very Scriptures they cherished (cf. Mt 5:17; Rom 10:4)! Rather than distance ourselves from their unfortunate situation, we can realise in the Parable of the Sower that we, too, are sometimes like those people who hear the Word of God but never understand, who see Jesus but never perceive (cf. Mt 13:14).
When God speaks His Word to us, there appear to be at least three hindrances to its bearing fruit in us: a failure in understanding, a shallowness of heart and an absence of complete commitment. This list is not exhaustive, nor is it definitive, but it can help us meditate on Jesus’ parable.
Firstly, “when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart” (Mt 13:19). The fact is, the Word of God is not easy to understand. Sometimes the best image for our relationship to Sacred Scriptures is that fight between God and Jacob (Gn 32:22-32). We read God’s Word and find ourselves to be wrestling for many reasons. There are many difficult passages in the Bible, things that God did which could scare us, or even scandalise us. Then there’s how what we read therein challenges how we see the world and ourselves, always demanding what seems to be so much from us. It is because of this difficulty that we have had so many Bible scholars and theologians down through the ages, men and women struggling, wrestling to understand what God has said, who He is.
And this is why God gave us His Church. In our adventure of understanding His Word, we are not—and should not be—alone. For the past 2000 years, many holy men and women have taken to the study of the Holy Scriptures, prayed about, pondered on and written wonderfully, to our benefit, commentaries, exegeses, and meditations that help us understand what God is telling us. The Church has championed faithful translation of the Scriptures from the ancient languages, and through the Magisterium continues to offer guidance on the proper and authentic interpretation of the Word of God. We fail to understand Scripture when we want to come up with our own private interpretation of Scripture which is alienated from the original context and culture, intention, motivation, and much worse, from how the saints and the Church have always interpreted it. The means to understand God’s Word are given to us in the Church (cf. CCC 85, 100), which is His Body; we only have to utilize them.
Secondly, sometimes the Word of God “falls on rocky ground” when it knocks at the doors of our heart. We read the Bible or hear God’s Word proclaimed at Church. It’s good stuff, we acknowledge, and we may even allow ourselves to be moved to change a thing or two about our lives. But see, Jesus is this friend who continuously demands more of us. He wants to take root in our hearts, and that requires radical devotion and openness to His will, which we are sometimes not ready or willing to give. We want to remain at the outskirts and fringes where it is safe; we harden the more tender and deeper parts of our hearts to those roots that would break us in order to recreate us. And so, “when tribulation or persecution arises” on account of Christ, we immediately fall away and abandon the journey (cf. Mt 13:21).
Lastly, the saint is someone whose life is about one thing (Søren Kierkegaard; see Bishop Robert Barron, Sunday Sermons). We learn from Scripture that we cannot serve two masters, especially if one of those masters is God (cf. Mt 6:24). We are either serving Him alone or an idol. Believing in Jesus requires total and complete commitment to Him alone. The Word of God instructs us towards becoming saints, becoming saints necessitates that we say ‘yes’ to Jesus, and saying ‘yes’ to Jesus means that we are saying ‘no’ to everything else that is not Jesus. We can try to juggle both, but eventually “the cares of the world and the delight in riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful” (Mt 13:22). We cannot be saints while at the same time delighting in what is not God. “You cannot be half a saint. You must be a whole saint or no saint at all” (St Thérèse of Lisieux).
God wants us to be fruitful (cf. Gn 1:28), and we want that, too. And yet we often find that we fall short because of our human weakness. Through His Church God gives us many aids and graces to help us on the journey: the lives and teaching of the saints and the Magisterium, our priests, family and friends—people who share God’s Word and show us how to live it. If we ask for His help and use the means He has provided to us, we can find that it is possible to understand Scripture, to be fully devoted to the person of Christ, and to commit our lives to Him alone. It must begin, of course, with taking up our Bible and reading it daily, because, as St Gregory the Great said, “the holy Scriptures grow with one who reads them” (St Gregory the Great, Homilies on Ezekiel).
More Resources For Catholic Gospel Reflections
The Liturgical Sense of The Readings at Mass – Year A by David L. Gray
Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings (Cycle A) (Food for the Soul Series)
Breaking the Bread: A Biblical Devotional for Catholics Year A
The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Mass Readings for Solemnities and Feasts
Through the Year with Jesus: Gospel Readings and Reflections for Children
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