Scott Hahn with David Scott
The readings this week, like last week’s, ask us to meditate on Israel’s response to God’s Word—and our own. Why do some hear the word of the kingdom, yet fail to accept it as a call to conversion and faith in Jesus? That question underlies today’s Gospel, especially.
Again we see, as we did last week, that the kingdom’s mysteries are unfolded to those who open their hearts, making of them a rich soil in the which the Word can grow and bear fruit.
As we sing in Sunday’s Psalm, in Jesus, God’s Word has visited our land, to water the stony earth of our hearts with the living waters of the Spirit (see John 7:38; Revelation 22:1).
The firstfruit of the Word is the Spirit of love and adoption poured into our hearts in baptism, making us children of God, as Paul reminds us in the Epistle this week (see Romans 5:5; 8:15-16). In this, we are made a “new creation” (see 2 Corinthians 5:17), the firstfruits of a new heaven and a new earth (see 2 Peter 3:13).
Since the first humans rejected God’s Word, creation has been enslaved to futility (see Genesis 3:17-19; 5:29). But God’s Word does not go forth only to return to Him void, as we hear in Sunday’s First Reading.
His Word awaits our response. We must show ourselves to be children of that Word. We must allow that Word to accomplish God’s will in our lives. As Jesus warns, we must take care lest the devil steal it away or lest it be choked by worldly concerns.
In the Eucharist, the Word gives himself to us as bread to eat. He does so that we might be made fertile, yielding fruits of holiness.
And we await the crowning of the year, the great harvest of the Lord’s Day (see Mark 4:29; 2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 1:10)—when His Word will have achieved the end for which it was sent.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem
Baptismal Catechesis, 18, 6
A tree that has been uprooted, even cut down to its base, and then replanted – a willow, for example – grows and blossoms again; and can it be that a human being who has been uprooted from the earth should not live again?
Seeds that have been harvested rest, sleep in the granary and come back to life in the spring; and can it be that a human being who has been harvested and thrown into the granary of death should not live again? A bud on the vine, a branch that has been cut and transplanted, these come back to life and bear fruit; and can it be that a human being, for whom everything was created, should not rise again when he has fallen?
And look at what is going on around you. Meditate on what you see in this vast universe. I sow wheat or some other seed; it falls, it rots, and can no longer serve as our food. But from its rotten state it is born again, it rises, it multiplies. I sowed only a single seed and I gather twenty or thirty more. But who was it created for? Wasn’t it made for our use?
All those seeds did not come out of nothing for their own sake. So what was created for us dies and is born again, and should we, for whom this marvel is worked every day, be excluded from this benefit? How is it possible to believe that we have no resurrection?
Pope Benedict XVI
Angelus Address, July 10, 2011
In this Sunday’s Gospel (Mt 13:1-23), Jesus recounts to the crowd the well-known Parable of the Sower. In a certain way it is an “autobiographical” passage, for it reflects the very experience of Jesus, of his preaching. He identifies himself with the sower who scatters the good seed of the Word of God and notes the different effects it obtains, in accordance with the way in which people hear the proclamation.
Some listen superficially to the Word but do not take it in; others accept it at the time but are unable to persevere and lose it all; there are those who are engrossed by worldly concerns and enticements; and those who listen receptively, like the good soil: here the word bears an abundance of fruit.
However this Gospel also puts the accent on Jesus’ preaching “method”, that is, on his use of parables. “Why do you speak to them in parables?”, his disciples ask (Mt 13:10). And Jesus answers distinguishing between them and the crowd: to his disciples — namely to those who have already decided for him — he can speak openly about the Kingdom of God, to others, instead, he must proclaim it in parables, precisely to encourage their decision, conversion of the heart; indeed, by their very nature parables demand the effort of interpretation, they not only challenge the mind but also freedom. St John Chrysostom explained: “And this he [Jesus] says to draw them unto him, and to provoke them and to signify that if they would covert he would heal them” (cf. Homily on the Gospel of Matthew, 45, 1-2).
Basically, God’s true “Parable” is Jesus himself, his Person who, in the sign of humanity, hides and at the same time reveals his divinity. In this manner God does not force us to believe in him but attracts us to him with the truth and goodness of his incarnate Son: love, in fact, always respects freedom.
Saint Theresa of Avila
Soliloquies no.8
“Worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word”
O Lord my God, how you possess the words of eternal life, where all mortals will find what they desire if they want to seek it! But what a strange thing, my God, that we forget your words in the madness and sickness our evil deeds cause! O my God,…, author of all creation! And what is creation if You, Lord, should desire to create more? You are almighty; Your works are incomprehensible. Bring it about, then, Lord, that my thoughts not withdraw from Your words.
You say: “Come to me all who labor and are burdened, for I will comfort you” (Mt 11,28). What more do we want, Lord? What are we asking for? What do we seek? Why are those in the world so unhappy if not because of seeking rest? God help me!… Oh, what great blindness, that we seek rest where it is impossible to find it!
Have mercy, Creator, on these Your creatures. Behold, we don’t understand or know what we desire, nor do we obtain what we ask for. Lord, give us light; behold, the need is greater than with the man born blind, for he wanted to see the light and couldn’t. Now, Lord, there is no desire to see. Oh, how incurable an illness! Here, my God, is where Your power must be demonstrated; here, Your mercy… I ask You: that You love someone who doesn’t love You, that You open to one who doesn’t knock, that You give health to one who likes to be sick and goes about looking for sickness. You say, My Lord, that You come to seek sinners (Mt 9,13); these, Lord, are real sinners. Don’t look at our blindness, my God, but at all the blood Your Son shed for us. Let Your mercy shine upon evil that has so increased; behold, Lord, we are Your handiwork. May Your goodness and mercy help us.
