Friday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 23, 2021

It seems that a number of U.S. bishops realize how fruitful is the offering of the Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form and they are not prohibiting it.  That is true, for now, in the Diocese of Arlington.

Matthew 13:18-23

Jesus said to his disciples: “Hear the parable of the sower. The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the Kingdom without understanding it, and the Evil One comes and steals away what was sown in his heart. The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy. But he has no root and lasts only for a time. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away. The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit. But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

Especially when we are young, we wonder about why apparently reasonable people differ in taste or preference among each other.  We may think that a particular musician is the most skillful and that no one can hold a candle to him or her.  The idea that anyone would rather listen to another musician is ludicrous.  And yet, droves of music fans ignore our favorite musician and flock to others, exhibiting the same passion for that one as we feel for our own.  When we are children and trying to understand this, we might think that there is something wrong with all these other people.  They must have little appreciation for music, or they had not heard our musician perform, or they heard our musician perform under less than ideal circumstances, coloring their opinion.  Or — terrible to think — there is something wrong with us.

To a person in love with the Lord Jesus, it perplexes that other people do not have the same or any love for him.  It perplexes us because he made it more than clear that he is the Son of God who came down to earth in order to cleanse us of our sins and to lead us to happiness in heaven.  He performed innumerable miracles to manifest both his power and his love, and he brought to earth the most beautiful teachings that ever graced the world.  In short, he is infinitely lovable and worthy of love.  He even provides the graces we need with which to love him perfectly and with which to experience his love.  Many of his followers even have died for him, so much did their love for him fill and animate them.  So how could anyone who has heard of him or his life and teachings not be excited to belong fully to him?

The Lord tells the Parable of the Sower in order to make sense of this for us, lest we doubt our own faith in him.  Some who hear him have spent their lives indulging themselves and so they do not understand the Lord’s injunction to love others or his own desire to die for them: “the Evil One comes and steals away” their attention, fixing it on some further self-indulgence.  Some who hear the words of life are enchanted by them, but they are dedicated first and foremost to protecting themselves, and when the teachings of the Lord threaten them or their way of life, either by requiring them to forego some thing because it is sinful or because it demands that they leave their complacency to perform some good act, they abandon them.  And some who at first accept the teachings of the Lord later discover that they do not lead to their principal goals in life of wealth and power, and they drop them.  

The message of the Lord to those who have given themselves to him, body and soul, is that they do not err in this, but that those who fail to do so will not reject the petty gods they worship, for him.  Therefore, we pray for their conversion and for our perseverance in adhering closely to the one, true God.