In today’s Gospel Reading, we hear the parable of the Sower. “God’s word is the seed,” as Jesus teaches us in today’s Gospel (Luke 8:11), and yet his word will definitely bear more good fruit when it is planted on fertile ground, i.e., in someone who has first experienced God’s love. St. John affirms this elsewhere: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10, emphasis added; see 1 John 15:16-17).
Called
Jesus does call us to participate in the Great Commission of sowing his word, to “make disciples of nations” (Matt. 28:18-20), and yet we first must cultivate his word in our own hearts through regularly encountering Jesus in his sacraments and personal prayer, meditating on his word in Scripture and other good spiritual reading, and through the edifying fellowship of brothers and sisters in Christ.
Because we cannot give what we do not have. But if we receive God’s word and nurture it in him and his Church, we will become the bountiful seed:
But as for the seed that fell on rich soil, they are the ones who, when they have heard the word embrace it with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance (Luke 8:15).
In other words, we will become more credible witnesses in both word and deed to all whom we share the Gospel (see also 1 Tim. 6:14 from today’s First Reading).
The Love of Jesus
And when we share the gospel with those who have endured serious harm in life, let them know the love of Jesus, and how he died for each of us. And employ inspiring examples like Mother Angelica, who overcame a broken home and other trials to become—centered in Christ and his Church—the foundress of the international Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN).
“With God all things are possible,” as Jesus reminds us (Matt. 19:26).
And let us not lose heart when we see loved ones who have strayed from the Faith, who have heard God’s word, but, like the seed on the path, have permitted the devil to take it away; or, like the seed that fell on rocky ground, rejoiced in receiving God’s word, yet fell away in time of trial because they had no roots; or, like the seed that fell among thorns, have permitted “the anxieties and riches and pleasures of life” to choke their growth in Christ, and so “they fail to produce mature fruit” (Luke 8:12-14).
Remember, “With God,” the divine and thus ultimate Sower, “all things are possible.”
