Understanding the Parable of the Sower

Reading 1 - Is 55:10-11
Reading 2 - Rom 8:18-23
Gospel - Mt 13:1-23

Then and now, Jesus has His disciples, those who believe in the Word made flesh. Then there are those who follow Jesus because they are looking for handouts from Him. An extra fish or loaf of bread here and there, but not true belief or faith or discipleship. There are those who manipulate and weaponize Gods word in order to have power and control over others. Some of us are thrown off course, where it looked like the seed of Gods word was going to bear fruit, but something went wrong along the way. And then those who stopped believing and those who will never believe, no matter the case. Jesus wasn't just referring to the people of his time. He's talking to the people in the church of today and in the world in which we live.

There are still those who believe and who will never doubt and who always trust, willing to suffer and sacrifice for God's will just as Jesus did. There are those who are more casual. We may be. We are faith. Some faith, but it's a fair-weather faith. If something bad happens, we blame God. We turn against God. It's his fault. Why are you doing this to me? If you are God, why are you not good? 

And then there are those who simply have become the modern day Sanhedrin majesties and Pharisees, detractors and objectors who persecute and ridicule the Church. God's Word and those who believe in it in a world that is ever increasingly hostile to the gospel. Where this touches us the most and no family is immune to this, mine included are the children and the grandchildren who no longer practice the faith.

And so many parents shed many a tear and have many a gray hair over the worry, the stress, the distress and the anxiety that they have. Blaming themselves for the choices children and grandchildren have made about whether to walk the path or to just let the seed rot on the ground to be burned up by the sun. And I always challenge parents or grandparents to this situation.

Don't blame yourself for the choices your children make. Some parents are really scratching their heads and saying, "maybe we should have prayed the rosary every day" And then there are those that are saying, "maybe we shouldn't have prayed the rosary every day" and everything in between, but blaming ourselves for the choices that others are making. But if the parent is always to be blamed for the choices of the children, thank God you have a lot to answer for because he is the father of us all.

And if he's to be blamed for our sins, he's in trouble. And so are we. It's not his fault that we sin. We know what we're doing. That's what makes it wrong. That's what makes it a sin. We choose to do it anyway. And we're going to do it again and again and again. But he, who is a fool for love that loves us with reckless abandonment, he who loves us even to death.

He's going to continue to love us always. And anyways. And in all ways, no matter what we do, no matter what choices we make, he made us to be free. And God understood when he created us with that radical freedom that it meant that some would accept him and some would reject him and some would do one and then the other, and maybe others are on a shifting spectrum going back and forth, depending on whether good things are happening in their lives, whether their prayers have been answered.

But the important thing for us, for you parents and grandparents out there, is just continue to love your kids. They'll break your heart, but it's because you love them that hurt so much. God loves all his children, whether they believe in him or not. And even when his people stop believing in God, God never stops believing in his people.

It's the blessing and burden of free will. He offers his hand in friendship. He let his son hand be nailed to the cross to make that same friendship last, to give us the chance to be reconciled with him and with each other. We just have to continue to keep the faith. Even with the last person standing, even with the last person in the pew or the last person that believes the bread and wine becomes Jesus body.

But so in divinity, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His word is unchanging. His truths are everlasting. The Church, Jesus and God don't need to change one thing to bring one person back to the faith. We just have to change hearts. And it will be. Our prayers are suffering, our sacrifice, our kindness, our invitation, our acceptance and our willingness that we will bring the last sheep back to the fold.

So we have to keep the faith on others. Don't we have to allow that same seed that was given to all to continue to give? That is the very fiber of our being nurtured by the body and blood of Jesus.

The most precious sacrament, so that we will continue to run our race and hope that others get back on the course.