Friday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of Saint Sharbel Makhlūf, Priest
Following yesterday’s Gospel about why Jesus speaks in parables, today we have His explanation of the parable of the Sower. Recall that Jesus is not seeking to educate so much as He is seeking to help people come to know Him. Thus He says that the seed sown on the path illustrates the faith of one “who hears the word of the Kingdom without understanding it,” and subsequently it is taken away by the Enemy. Remember that in the desert, Satan quotes Scripture to Jesus: Satan knows the Word of God intellectually, but it is not present in his heart. Similarly, if we receive the word and come to love it without depth, without reflection and understanding, some great challenge or suffering could easily kill it. If we do not allow our faith to be the most important thing in our lives, if it does not have pride of place in our hearts and must compete with other loves, it will be choked out by whatever we love more. But if we have clean hearts, hearts centered on Him, what we receive from Him we have the room to grow and overflow from us, to bear fruit that others can enjoy as well, if only we both hear and understand the Word—Jesus and His teaching—with our hearts.