Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This word today is wonderful as usual. It is far from demanding anything from us, on the contrary it is a word that helps us to rest in the gratuitousness of God. Everything that God does for us is this way; he is not asking anything of us. I have the impression that God does a hidden work before he sends the sower out to sow. He does something that does not appear in this gospel today. What he does will make you rocky ground or full of thorns or good ground. Good soil does not come to us naturally so what is the good earth? The psalm says the seed that falls on good ground will yield a harvest. What is this good soil? Is this good soil only those who are good or who are generous or those who are chaste or humble? What is this good ground? Those who are terrific, who are healthy? There are good ones who are naturally honest and truthful, those who don’t go to Mass, many who do not know God, including many who may even be atheists. Are they good soil? Many, many are good soil. They may not be good soil now, but they are going to be, how?
How will they be good soil? Let’s first think what it means to be good soil. What is it that fertilizes the soil and makes it fruitful? Many of you when you were younger used to go with your parents or your grandparents to the farm, to the country. And there was a smell of poop that was everywhere and at first it was very revolting. There were manure heaps from cows and fertilizer from chickens and it was always surprising that the tomatoes would grow so big and so tasty and fresh. They didn’t taste like the fertilizer. They had a wonderfully rich flavor and so did all the other fruits and grains and milk on that farm. There was a wonderful harvest on that farm.
I hope you can see where I am going with this example. It is not a demand of God that you have to be good soil because so that when the seeds fall, they will bear fruit. The good soil is those who have been fertilized and is capable of receiving this seed of Jesus Christ, which is the Word of God. He is the sower and the seed and the one who is full of fertilizer will be the one most open to his seed or his word. Who can receive this word? The one who is poor. The one who has experienced precariousness, poverty, sins, desperation, anguish. The healthy ones are not in need of a doctor but the sick do. Jesus said, I have not come to call the righteous ones but sinners.
This word of God is very impressive, brothers and sisters, because your life has been very, very much fertilized not so you can play the victim but so that you see where sin abounded, grace abounded even more. This does not mean that we continue to sin, just the opposite. The one who welcomes this word, this seed is the one that knows he has done nothing, nothing. He is like the woman who was hemorrhaging blood for years and spent all of her money on doctors and her condition grew worse. Was this woman a good ground? Absolutely, she suffered humiliation and rejection for many years and nothing, nothing she or the doctor did helped. She only touched the hem of his garment. She could do nothing and there was no one else.
There are concerns that prevent you from hearing this word, the thorns that represent the cares of this world or the riches or material things that drown it or the devil that comes to take this word away from you quickly. Why don’t you understand this word, because you are thinking about other things, not about the word of God or the sacraments. Maybe you don’t understand the word because of your projects or because you do not want to understand it. This is the devil.
Don’t be afraid. This word is wonderful, I love to see how Christ goes to help people. How he stands in the boat at the side of the sea to preach to those on the shore. He stands above the water, which is a sign of death, he has overcome death. To be in the boat is to be in the Church. In the Church you are resurrected, in the Church is the risen Lord.
It is beautiful for me because on the shore is a place that is neither life nor death. The people are not in the sea but also not on the land, and so the Lord comes to speak to them and tells them: I love you; I love you, you are called to be that good ground that bears much fruit. Fruit is to love. We have all screwed up a lot, we have talked a lot, fallen a lot, we have not had enough fertilizer to be good ground. Therefore, let us welcome this great reality, this abundance of mercy and this great love even when we don’t follow him. Don’t ever doubt of his love, of his great love, in your life. The more you are a sinner, the more reason he will welcome you with his merciful heart.