15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A – July 12th, 2020

For the next few Sundays, the Church asks us to ponder the famous parables of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. Often, we have become so familiar with these stories that we fail to grasp their true depth, settling instead for bland, moralistic interpretations – they all seem to boil down to, “there are good people and bad people – be a good person, not a bad person.” However, with the help of the Holy Spirit and close reading and study, these stories reveal a far more profound and nuanced teaching.

For instance, this Sunday’s parable of the sower provided us with much material for prayer and discussion. Although we often think of each type of soil (path, rocky soil, thorns, good soil) as a particular class of people, one Sister pointed out that we can find some of each “soil” in ourselves. The complexity of the human heart means that our ability and willingness to receive the Word vary tremendously. We may totally miss God’s communication to us, or we may be victims of shallow “emotional high” devotion, or we may allow the anxieties of life to smother our spiritual life – or we can accept the Word and “ponder it in our hearts” like Mary, allowing it to bear the astounding harvest of “a hundred, or sixty, or thirty-fold.” And even if just one tiny seed takes root, God delights in it and helps it to spread. Sometimes all it takes is one little grace accepted to open us to greater and greater graces.

Furthermore, we can take a lesson from geology: the roots of plants, even tiny ones, are a major force in breaking up rocks and producing good soil. By analogy, even if we still have a long way to go spiritually, every small grace with which we cooperate contributes to “weathering down” the imperfections in us. The saints attest that we don’t receive God’s mercy because we are good … we receive God’s mercy so that we can be good! And even if some “rocks” remain in our “garden” through no fault of our own, God’s love is not thwarted. Some of the most inspiring Saints are those who struggled their whole lives with their own weakness and brokenness, and who by God’s grace came to sanctity through them!

Most of the work of the spiritual life consists in “tilling the soil” – preparing our souls to receive the grace of God more and more fully. One way we can do this is by learning the “ways of the Lord.” Many people are like the trodden path in the parable, where the seed of the Word cannot penetrate, but more through ignorance than malice. If we do not understand God’s way of operating in salvation history and in the lives of individuals, we are liable to miss His graces when they come to us. Reading and studying Sacred Scripture, as well as the lives and teachings of saints like St. Teresa of Avila, St. Ignatius Loyola, and St. Therese of Lisieux, can help to familiarize us with God’s ways. Then we can be more open as He daily showers us with His never-failing grace!

We also spent some time discussing the beautiful Second Reading from the Letter to the Romans. The whole passage sings with the sheer upward desire of all creation, everything from humanity to the inanimate world longing “for the revelation of the children of God.” Just think – all of creation longs for us to respond to God’s call! This desire can prove a powerful force if we channel it and use it to drive our own striving for holiness. When we draw closer to God, we also draw the whole created world closer to Him, and this will one day culminate in the “new heavens and the new earth.”