To test your memory from last week’s Gospel, Jesus
said: “I give praise to you, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the
wise and the learned you have revealed them to the little ones.”
We had a most beautiful experience of the truth of the words
of Jesus in Vacation Bible School this past week with thirty of our little ones
accompanied by teens and adults. At the
closing Mass on Friday, I asked our VBS students what they had learned about
God’s love this past week.
The students shared with me the five themes of the week:
God’s
love is a gift.
God’s
love changes us,
God’s
love is always with us.
God’s
love saves us.
God’s
love is to be shared.
If I were to summarize the message of the gospel which I
have been preaching for 49 years now, I could not express it in more beautiful
and inspiring ways that these students shared with me at the closing Mass.
What has been hidden from the wise and the learned has been
revealed to little ones.
Again, God’s
love is a gift.
God’s
love changes us.
God’s
love is always with us.
God’s
love saves us.
God’s
love is to be shared.
Moving to this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus shares the parable of
the sower and the seed and the four different types of soil that receives the
seed. Jesus is the sower and the seed is
the Word of God. Sometimes this seed is
thrown on the path; sometimes on rocky ground; sometimes the seed is choked
among thorns; and then about 25 % of the time the seed falls on rich soil and
bears fruit a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.
Without any doubt in my mind this past week in Vacation Bible School,
the seed fell upon the good soil of our younger parishioners. They revealed the
five very basic truths of our faith. You
may be sure that my prayers for these young parishioners that they will trust
and share the mystery of God’s love all the days of their lives.
While I am overjoyed with the
enthusiasm of our young parishioners, what is very sobering for me that the mystery
of God’s love is not received by many, many people to the degree that God’s
love changes us. Sometimes my preaching
and ministry doesn’t have the desired effect I would like. It is in this context that I pray over
today’s Gospel parable.
When it comes to facing failures in life, the farmer in
today’s gospel parable sounds a lot like many of us. We work hard, and only sometimes succeed. Most of what we want to plant in the lives of
those around us doesn’t “take”; it doesn’t become rooted and permanently
planted in their lives.
All of us have to deal with failure, those areas where the
best we’re given to others comes up lacking, falling short of our hopes, our
dreams, and our great expectations.
Jesus himself knew the pain of failure:
·
He was born and raised in Nazareth and his
hometown folks rejected Him.
·
His handpicked twelve apostles? Well, one of them sold Him out for 30 pieces
of silver and the others fled when he was crucified.
·
Peter wasn’t too swift to take His message to
heart, Thomas was the doubter, and the others weren’t much better either.
Up to this point the homily sounds terribly dismal and
discouraging. But my message today is
that we need to remember that Jesus did not let apparent failure stop him. In His parable, Jesus went on to speak about
a crop that yielded a harvest in successful amounts, some yields bringing
spectacular results. Today’s Gospel is
not a dirge -- it is a celebration; it is a story of hope, not of despair.
Amazing to see the sower – apparently how free and generous
of spirit he is – the fact that he is not overly concerned that some of the
seed will not produce crop but he continues
to sow, trusting that eventually his seed will bear abundant fruit.
We can imagine Jesus telling this parable in response to the
disciples’ complaints, “We’re wasting our time”. No one’s listening”. He then points to a sower sowing seed in a
nearby field and answers them, “Let’s learn from him we that we have to
continue sowing.”
What about the experience of many parents who poured out all
of their love and faith into their children, taught them the Catholic faith,
sent them to religious education classes or to Catholic schools, only to have
them, as adults, leave our Church and go elsewhere.
We can easily look at the big picture and say our world is a mess now, but it always has been. We need to see that there is also an amazing amount of goodness in it.
The Gospel message that I have you pray over is simply: LOVE GIVEN IS NEVER LOST. Part of life is trial and effort. Jesus’ attitude was the same. He threw our love like the sower throws out
the seed. He knows it may fall on hard
ground, but he gives it anyway. He gave
love on Calvary to everyone. God is
like that. The seed of our love may
take years to flower but give it away.
In the words: Do not be
afraid. Do not let your hearts be
troubled.
Love given is never lost.
I would conclude by going back to the wisdom of our Vacation
Bible School participants:
God’s
love is a gift.
God loves changes us,
God’s love
is always with us.
God’s
love saves us.
God’s
love is to be shared.
Have a blessed day.
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