We've settled nicely into Ordinary time, with the regular Sundays and readings of the first lectionary year. Mass was offered today for the people of the parish and the readings were all related to God determinedly producing some fruit among us through the sowing of his graces in the world. It's all spoken through the analogy of a farmer sowing seed. In the first reading, God declares that just as rain falls upon the earth to bring fruit from it, so the word of God will bring forth the fruit which God desires.
"'Once fallen from the sky, does rain or snow return to it? Nay, it refreshes earth, soaking into it and making it fruitful, to provide the sower with fresh seed, the hungry mouths with bread. So it is with the word by these lips of Mine once uttered; it will not come back, an empty echo, the way it went; all My will it carries out, speeds on its errand.'" - Isaias, 55: 10-11
This introduces the Gospel, and the great parable of the seed thrown on various types of soil in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of Saint Matthew. This is one of those parables that don't need to be explained, as Christ Himself elaborated on it, when requested to by the Apostles. 'Why do you speak in parables?' they asked Him. And He replied that grace was required to be able to understand the parables well - the grace that would come to the Apostles and to the rest of us through the Sacraments.
"'Indeed, in them the prophecy of Isaias is fulfilled, You will listen and listen, but for you there is no understanding; you will watch and watch, but for you there is no perceiving. The heart of this people has become dull, their ears are slow to listen, and they keep their eyes shut, so that they may never see with those eyes, or hear with those ears, or understand with that heart, and turn back to me, and win healing from me.'" - Gospel of S. Matthew, 13: 14-15
Christ is here entirely quoting from Isaias to justify His use of parables. I see here a clear difference between an intellectual understanding of the teaching of Christ (watching, listening) and the grace-filled appropriation and embrace of it by the Christian heart (perceiving, understanding). This idea is built into the parable itself: for the seed to take root, the soil must be rich, or at any rate with the least amount of thorns to choke it. Although he doesn't quite say this, there is obviously some temporary advantage in not being entirely receptive and open to grace:
"...the man who took in the seed in the midst of briers is the man who hears the word, but allows the cares of this world and the false charms of riches to stifle it, so that it remains fruitless." - Gospel of S. Matthew, 13: 22
That's a difficult line for us, because we are so many of us mired in the cares of this world and charmed by riches and prosperity. Is our growth stifled, does it remain fruitless? As usual, the story doesn't end here, the reading at Mass is long enough. We must continue with chapter thirteen, which continues the theme of verse 22 in a new parable. Thorns and briers of the world stifling Christian development? Christ now speaks of an enemy who sows weeds in God's crop and these cannot be taken up without damaging the crop itself. So, God bides his time; at harvest time, the weed will be burned. Sadly, the crop will not have been as planned, and that's the story of Creation and a summary of the Bible. There is a further sequence of parables in this chapter that draws a picture of the 'kingdom of heaven,' which already exists in the souls which are receptive to grace and have opened up their hearts to Christ. These souls have discovered a great treasure that is worth giving everything else up for; a treasure, that is, which should be prioritised over every other thing.
And Saint Paul's message from his letter to the Romans (today's second reading) convinces us that the toil of the Christian life, the toil of remaining always open to grace and so like a patch of rich soil, is worth it for us. For there is a reward attached to it. We are already producing fruit, but it is a painful process and we seek liberation from it in our final rest, in God. This is what he says, and I'll end on it, as usual:
"The Spirit himself thus assures our spirit, that we are children of God; and if we are his children, then we are his heirs too; heirs of God, sharing the inheritance of Christ; only we must share his sufferings, if we are to share his glory. Not that I count these present sufferings as the measure of that glory which is to be revealed in us. If creation is full of expectancy, that is because it is waiting for the sons of God to be made known. Created nature has been condemned to frustration; not for some deliberate fault of its own, but for the sake of him who so condemned it, with a hope to look forward to; namely, that nature in its turn will be set free from the tyranny of corruption, to share in the glorious freedom of God’s sons. The whole of nature, as we know, groans in a common travail all the while. And not only do we see that, but we ourselves do the same; we ourselves, although we have already begun to reap our spiritual harvest, groan in our hearts, waiting for that adoption which is the ransoming of our bodies from their slavery. It must be so, since our salvation is founded upon the hope of something." - Romans, 8: 16-24
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