Scripture Readings: Book of the Prophet Isaiah 55:10-11; Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans 8:18-23; Gospel According to Saint Matthew 13:1-23
The three Scripture readings offered to us this Sunday are cause for mediation on the mystery of birth, life and death. These are the three basic “building blocks,” of every creature that “lives and moves and has its being,” as Saint Paul says in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 17, verse 18.
In that context, Saint Paul refers to the reality that our entire existence, all our actions and our very essence, is utterly and always dependent on God and sustained by God.
Hence, our Christian belief is that God is intimately involved in the daily life of each person and of all creation, holding all things together.
Expressed another way, life comes from God and returns to God, just like the rain and the snow that fall from above, as the Prophet Isaiah says in today’s first reading. God’s saving plan touches our very being and in the depths of our being stirs up hope that life is more than simply breathing, eating and sleeping.
So much more than that is life! Isaiah puts it in terms of God’s word being sent forth and not returning to God without purpose, but achieving the end for which God sent it.
In today’s second reading, Saint Paul indicates that it is God’s Holy Spirit who brings new life to our mortal bodies and prepares them for transformation in Christ, who redeems those who listen to and put God’s word into action over the course of one’s existence on earth.
Because of these truths, we are called to be people of hope. The rich and divine word of God, that is, God’s desire to save all human beings, is first sown into our lives, which is compared in the Gospel passage today as seed that is sown in the ground, that is, in our hearts.
None of us is “perfect soil,” but most likely a mix of good and poor, containing thistles and rocks, but likely enough good as well to produce a rich harvest.
Jesus insists that the goal for which we are destined comes about through his own resurrection and by our sharing in the great mystery of salvation at the end of the ages. It all takes time and work, but the effort is worth it, because God is with us all along the way.
Saint Catherine of Siena, the 14th century Dominican mystic and Doctor of the Church, is remembered as saying: “All the way to heaven is heaven, for Jesus said, ‘I am the way.’”
Her idea is that the spiritual journey we all take, when it is centered in faith, carries the Divine Presence within it, and so the heavenly goal begins not in some far off moment, but here and now, where we are and who we are.
The rich and divine word of God is especially given to us in the Church and in her Tradition, sown by Jesus for all who are willing to listen with the ear of the heart.
True enough, the good within us can wither from lack of commitment and engagement, through a failure to sink roots or choked by the pursuit of what is not of God. But it is never too late to allow God to take possession of our lives and lead us to our heavenly homeland.
We must do our part, clearing away the weeds and rocks, making ourselves fertile soil for receiving all that God has in store for us. Co-operating with and cultivating the word of God planted within us is always a possibility, and in fact is our call.
If we see and listen to the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives, then we will truly see and listen to what is most important in the cycle of life, where God be “everything in everyone,” as Saint Paul tells the Church of Corinth (chapter 15, verse 28).
May the rich harvest God desires exceed all that we can hope for or imagine. As such, we should at all times and without ceasing shout and sing for joy, for God is with us!
Abbot Christian Leisy, OSB