Dear friends in Christ

St Matthew’s Parable of The Sower is one of the best known of the stories told by Jesus. God hopes we will be good soil that will receive His grace and bear fruit. The greater our generosity towards God, the better and more abundant will be the fruit we produce. The only thing that matters, comments St John, Chrysostom, is that we should not be a beaten-down thoroughfare, or rocky ground, or thorns, but that we should be good soil… Our hearts must not be the path from which the enemy, like the birds, snatches the seed, trodden on the foot by passers-by. Our hearts must not be the rocky ground where the shallowness of the soil causes the seed to germinate immediately, so that it is scorched by the sun. Our hearts must not be a thistle-bed of human passions, strangled by the care of this world. (Sermon 101,3)

Anyone, whatever our lives have been in the past, are able to become soil that is prepared to receive God's grace. Any soil could become rich land, although previously it may have been nothing but desert, because God's grace never fails us, and His care is greater than that of the most expert farmer. Once grace has been given, the results depend only on us, who are free to correspond or not. The ground is good, the sower is the same, and the seeds are the same in each case. Nevertheless, how is it that one gives a hundredfold, another sixtyfold and another thirtyfold? We can see that the difference depends on the person receiving it, for even when the soil is good, there is a great deal of difference between one patch of ground and another. You can see that neither the farmer, nor the seed is at fault, but the soil on which the sowing was done. This is not a result of nature, but of the disposition of the will. (St John Chrysostom, loc.cit)

We could daily examine our lives and ask ourselves if we correspond well with the graces God gives us. He has given us so much, and has a right to expect much back in return.

May God bless you all!

Msgr Kevin Hale