God sends his Son into the world, and the Eternal Word of the Father is made flesh in the mystery of the Incarnation, so that we might hear the Word spoken and see the Word in all of its light and beauty and power to heal, save and give new life. The Word spoken and sent forth from the mouth of God becomes Incarnate and through the Incarnation teaches us a way of new life.
God sends his Word into the world and Isaiah the prophet tells us that his Word goes forth from him, and it will not return to him void but will accomplish the Father’s will and purpose. The purpose of the Word is to water the earth and make it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to the one who sows and bread to the one who eats. There is power in this Word. It is the power to soften hardened hearts and make them fruitful so that they may understand the hidden truths of the divine life of the Father. God doesn’t want us to live in the darkness of ignorance and agnosticism but wants us to live in the light of his Word, bearing the fruit of love through his Holy Spirit.
God wants to sow the seeds of his Word in our hearts. Jesus, the Divine Word of love and life, goes forth from the Father as the Sower, to sow the seeds of the Word.
The Word of God, incarnate in Jesus, is the way, the truth and the life - new life, eternal life, divine life. In the gospel of Matthew today, Jesus goes out of the house he has been staying in and down to the shore of the sea. The sea is vast, deep, mysterious and within it are hidden all the fish in the sea. Jesus climbs into a boat, a boat that has always been an image for the Church. It is this boat that is able to put out into the deep and bring forth a great catch. It is here that Jesus chooses to begin his teaching in parables. The parables are like the sea in that they are something common that a person may have known all of their lives but at the same time there is something hidden, mysterious and unknown in its depths. If we properly understand the sea then it can give life but if we neglect to understand it, and read its signs, we can perish.
Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis tells us that: “Parables, in a general sense, are “examples” or stories that illustrate by analogy a deep spiritual point or divine mystery by using the symbols of everyday, familiar things and happenings. Jesus works to bring what is sublime, divine, eternal, and profound within the grasp, not of all , but of those who have a pure heart and can therefore understand his words and what they propose. Understanding his parables is one way of “seeing God” of penetrating God’s thoughts, God’s ways - a blessed vision he has promised in the Beatitudes.”
From the boat, Jesus now becomes the Sower who liberally and generously broadcasts the seeds of his words of life, hoping to find some fertile soil in the hearts of human beings where it may grow and produce fruit. Jesus the Sower, knows that not every seed that is his Word will find its target in a fertile, listening and understanding heart. Many hearts that receive the Word of God are hardened, some are shallow and rocky, some are weedy and full of thorny thistles. At the beginning, the seed of the Word will be cast into hardened hearts and will produce no fruit but soon the Sower will become the Farmer who plows the field, breaking through hardened earth and removing the rocks from the fields, and working with the hardened soil, until it becomes rich and fertile. Then from Farmer he can become the Harvester, bringing in the fruit of the field to the Father’s joy and glory.
The Word of God will not return to God void, it will accomplish its purpose to feed the hungry soul and give the bread of life, Jesus, the Holy Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament of God’s love, to those who take and eat. The seeds that are sown in our hearts are seeds of divine and sanctifying grace that give life in abundance. The Word of God that is sown in our hearts is not a human word, expressing merely a philosophy of life but as St. Paul tells the Thessalonians: “And for this reason we too give thanks to God unceasingly, that, in receiving the word of God from hearing us, you received not a human word but, as it truly is, the word of God, which is now at work in you who believe.” (1Thes 2,13) The Word of God, as a divine word, has the power to save and to transform our lives and even now is at work in us. The Divine Word which is sent forth to accomplish the will of the Father - the will to transform and make holy, by the grace of his Word that is at work within us. This Word is at work in us to soften the hardened soil, to remove the rocks and obstacles to receiving God’s grace, to take away the weeds of worldly anxieties that can choke off the Word and to create fertile soil that can bear fruit, thirty, sixty or a hundredfold. The Word is at work in us to water the thirsty soil of our hearts and make our souls a well-watered garden, fertile and fruitful! All of creation is waiting with eager expectation the revelation of the children God, those who have received the Word, believed in the power of the Word to transform us and free us from the corruption of sin, and through the grace of adoption, to live in the freedom of the children of God and to be rich and fertile ground that can receive the Word and bear its fruit in our lives.
God wants to sow the seed of his Word in your hearts today. Is your heart ready to receive that Word? Are you looking to see in light and listening to hear in truth? Is your heart like the heart that Solomon asked of God, “Give your servant therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.” (1Kings 3,9) Is your heart fertile ground that can receive the Word, bear the fruits of the Spirit and yield a great harvest of love? Can the seed of God’s Word penetrate into the depths of your heart and be watered by the well springs of divine life?
Blessed are you who truly look and see and listen and hear and understand the ways of God in your hearts. Blessed are you if you learn the ways of the Lord. God’s ways are not our ways, they are higher and deeper and amazingly fruitful in our lives. Blessed are the pure of heart, fertile and fruitful, for they will see God, hear and receive his Word, and find an abundant and eternal life in his kingdom. Amen!