“A sower went out sow"
Mt. 13, 1-23
Rev. Alexander Diaz
This Sunday’s Gospel is one of the better known parables of Jesus “The Sower”, a very simple parable but with lots of meaning and very profound in its’ evangelic content. It is an invitation for personal and interior reflection of the gospel in our own lives. When I analyze this parable, I think about a country person, a peasant, who prepares the land with dedication and care with the hope that the seed he will deposit on the ground will be fruitful.
He dreams of having an abundant harvest, that is the reason why he prepares the land with his own hands lovingly. All human beings are soil in which God each day, tries to sow something new, but just like the peasant prepares his land, He prepares us to be fertile in the dedicated listening of the divine word, so it will develop inside each one of us.
In face of this challenging event, the human being should ask himself the following questions: ¿what place does the word of God occupies in my daily life? ¿Am I capable to read, meditate and try to live this Word in a conscious manner? Sometimes I think that the human being just vegetates on his development. We get stuck and destroy the spiritual nutrients that will let us develop, that will make us grow and develop more. The Word distributes itself but falls in uneven terrain.
It is the same word, but each person has to turn to fertile land in order for it to germinate and grow. Jesus goes over the parable with His disciples, for them He enlarges the sense for the things of God. Each believer has to be a carrier of God to the others, he should become the sower of the spiritual seeds for his brothers’ souls, in other words , we are sowers and seeds at the same time, because we have a challenge, to be fruitful, we also have the responsibility to sow what we produce in the lives of others.
I am sure we are very clear that the terrain where the seed of the Word has to fall is in the human heart, but we also know that not all human hearts are made or prepared for the same things. The worries, desires, fears, ambitions are the ones who give the base to our interior.
The different human characters are represented by different types of terrains. There are four types of hearts, of terrains, in which the word is sowed. I am quite sure there are a lot more types of terrains, when I see how the human being have changed in our days, but our teacher only mentions and gives us examples of a few:
A. Seed sown on the Terrain by the path: is the one who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it. The word does not soak through them, there is no interest to go deeper. They are distracted, are not interested in what they hear. Are those who come once in a while on Sunday, but the way they walk in, they walk right out, they are traditional Christians and have a Christianity that is in its death throes, dying , completely disinterested.
B. The seed sown on - Rocky terrain/rocky ground - is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy, but only lasts for a short time, they have no firm convictions in their minds or their hearts. They have no roots, do not have depth or any idea of what they want. These are the fickle Catholics, they get emotional but have nothing specific in their lives, they will not bother to be trained and are not interested in learning, the rocks are all those habits and complexes that to them are so strong and will not let them breath or develop. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, immediately they fall away.
C. The seed sown among thorns - this overtakes the other two, the seed was received and it grew deep roots, but it bears no fruits because of the hindrances/nuisances that were there while it grew. The thorns did not allow the root to prosper, to do well and stopped it from being fruitful. ¿Which are these thorns? The Word reminds us in another text that there are three things that fundamentally will keep us away from God:
1. Our worries (the toils of the world, the worries in our lives)
2. The lives’ pleasures (they turn their human hearts to others that are not God)
3. The riches (when they become like gods to the human being)
D. The seed sown in rich terrain, rich soil: this is the results of finding good soil with good seed. These are the ones who hear and understand the word and bear fruit. This is the productive soil, it does not mean there are no thorns, but everything is overcome with the force of the growing life. The Christian who stays firm and strong even in the middle of difficulties, anchored only in God. To bear fruit is to practice the word. There are different levels of fruits, we don’t have to give the same or with the same intensity. (Mario Santa Bueno)
We have to allow our prayers to fly high and far in these warm and difficult times. The Word is what makes us strong and merciful. Today, truly, we should think that all, one more time, is beginning. The seed that makes the Word produce, help us to start, to begin a second creation.
Time of truth, of love and of happiness.
AMEN!!
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