09.22.24 "The Sower and the Seeds"

In the Bible, Jesus liked to teach the people with parables, stories that taught a spiritual principle symbolically. One such parable is about the sower and the seeds. The Teacher of God is the sower. He or she scatters the seeds of truth and healing in anticipation of a "crop," a harvest – an abundant supply of health and joy in his or her wake. However many, perhaps most, of the seeds of truth and healing the Teacher of God scatters do NOT produce an observable crop – no visible healing results. Only the seeds which fall on "fertile soil" will sprout, take root, and grow to produce a healing harvest.

I remember this parable fondly, because it was one of the Sunday pages in my "St. Joseph's Children's Missal" that I brought to Catholic Mass with me every Sunday when I was a boy. I still have my Missal, and the above illustration is from the appropriate page of that book.

This teaching seems poignantly relevant to me at this moment. I have been scattering seeds of truth and healing through the CMC ministry for 38 years. Many of them fell on the hardened foot path and got eaten by the birds. Some fell on shallow soil and while they sprouted for a moment or two, they couldn't develop the deep roots truly needed for robust growth and healing. Others fell with the thistles and weeds which over grew around them and choked them out. "Sigh." "Perhaps [Truth] sighs a little when you throw away its gifts, and yet it knows with perfect certainty that what God wills for you must be received." (OrEd.WkBk.136.13)

I must remember to be grateful for the seeds that DID fall on fertile ground, and HAVE lived to manifest noticeable appearances of healing and spiritual growth. The others are merely waiting for their own perfect moment to embrace the seed / gift truly given and bring it to fruition. "All [the Teacher of God] sees is certain outcome, at a time perhaps unknown as yet, but not in doubt. The time will be as right as is the answer." (OrEd.Mn.4.20)

As for myself, I am guided to keep myself "fertile," so that the seeds sown onto me have ample fertile soil to sprout, root, grow, and bear a harvest of greater healing and abundance. "Spiritual fertility" is a primary purpose to our physical life.

30 min.
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