September 17, 2005
Saturday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
Psalm: Saturday 40
Reading I1 Tm 6:13-16
Beloved:
I charge you before God, who gives life to all things,
and before Christ Jesus,
who gave testimony under Pontius Pilate
for the noble confession,
to keep the commandment without stain or reproach
until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ
that the blessed and only ruler
will make manifest at the proper time,
the King of kings and Lord of lords,
who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light,
and whom no human being has seen or can see.
To him be honor and eternal power. Amen.
Responsorial PsalmPs 100:1b-2, 3, 4, 5
R. (2) Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Sing joyfully to the LORD all you lands;
serve the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful song.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Know that the LORD is God;
he made us, his we are;
his people, the flock he tends.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
his courts with praise;
Give thanks to him; bless his name.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
For he is good:
the LORD, whose kindness endures forever,
and his faithfulness, to all generations.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
GospelLk 8:4-15
When a large crowd gathered, with people from one town after another
journeying to Jesus, he spoke in a parable.
“A sower went out to sow his seed.
And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path and was trampled,
and the birds of the sky ate it up.
Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it grew,
it withered for lack of moisture.
Some seed fell among thorns,
and the thorns grew with it and choked it.
And some seed fell on good soil, and when it grew,
it produced fruit a hundredfold.”
After saying this, he called out,
“Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.”
Then his disciples asked him
what the meaning of this parable might be.
He answered,
“Knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God
has been granted to you;
but to the rest, they are made known through parables
so that they may look but not see, and hear but not understand.
“This is the meaning of the parable.
The seed is the word of God.
Those on the path are the ones who have heard,
but the Devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts
that they may not believe and be saved.
Those on rocky ground are the ones who, when they hear,
receive the word with joy, but they have no root;
they believe only for a time and fall away in time of temptation.
As for the seed that fell among thorns,
they are the ones who have heard, but as they go along,
they are choked by the anxieties and riches and pleasures of life,
and they fail to produce mature fruit.
But as for the seed that fell on rich soil,
they are the ones who, when they have heard the word,
embrace it with a generous and good heart,
and bear fruit through perseverance.”
From: Luke 8:4-15
Parable of the Sower. The Meaning of the Parables
[4] And when a great crowd came together and people from town after
town came to Him (Jesus), He said in a parable: [5] "A sower went out
to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell along the path, and was
trodden under foot, and the birds of the air devoured it. [6] And some
fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had
no moisture. [7] And some fell among thorns; and the thorns grew with
it and choked it. [8] And some feel into good soil and grew, and
yielded a hundredfold." As He said this, He called out, "He who has
ears to hear, let him hear."
[9] And when His disciples asked Him what this parable meant, [10] He
said, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of
God; but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not
see, and hearing they may not understand. [11] Now the parable is
this: The seed is the word of God. [12] The ones along the path are
those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from
their hearts, that they may not believe and be saved. [13] And the
ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it
with joy; but these have no root, they believe for a while and in time
of temptation fall away. [14] And as for what fell among the thorns,
they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by
the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not
mature. [15] And as for that in the good soil, they are those who,
hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring
forth fruit with patience."
Commentary:
4-8. Our Lord explains this parable in verses 11-15. The seed is Jesus
Himself and His preaching; and the different kinds of ground it falls
on reflect people's different attitudes to Jesus and His teaching. Our
Lord sows the life of grace in souls through the preaching of the
Church and through an endless flow of actual graces.
10-12. Jesus uses parables to teach people the mysteries of the
supernatural life and thereby lead them to salvation. However, He
foresaw that, due to the bad dispositions of some of His listeners,
these parables would lead them to harden their hearts and to reject
grace. For a fuller explanation of the purpose of parables see the
notes on Matthew 13:10-13 and Mark 4:11-12.
12. Some people are so immersed in a life of sin that they are the
patch on which falls the seed "which suffers from two kinds of hazard:
it is trodden on by wayfarers and snatched by birds. The path,
therefore, is the heart, which is trodden on by the frequent traffic of
evil thoughts, and cannot take in the seed and let it germinate because
it is so dried up" (St. Bede, "In Lucae Evangelium Expositio, in
loc."). Souls hardened by sin can become good soil and bear fruit
through sincere repentance and penance. We should note the effort the
devil makes to prevent souls from being converted.
13. "Many people are pleased by what they hear, and they resolve to do
good; but as soon as they experience difficulties they give up the good
words they started. Stony ground has not enough soil, which is why the
shoots fail to produce fruit. There are many who, when they hear greed
criticized, do conceive a loathing for it and extol the scorning of it;
but as soon as the soul sees something else that it desires, it forgets
what it previously promised. There are also others who when they hear
talk against impurity not only desire not to be stained by the filth of
the flesh but are even ashamed of the stains that they already bear;
but as soon as bodily beauty presents itself to their eyes, their heart
is so drawn by desires that it is as if they had done or decided to do
nothing against these desires, and they act in a manner deserving
condemnation and in a way which they themselves previously condemned
when they reflected on their behavior. Very often we feel compunction
for our faults and yet we go back and commit them even after bemoaning
them" (St. Gregory the Great, "In Evangelia Homiliae", 15).
14. This is the case of people who after receiving the divine seed, the
Christian calling, and having stayed on the right path for some time,
begin to give up the struggle. These souls run the risk of developing
a distaste for the things of God and of taking the easy, and wrong, way
of seeking compensations suggested to them by their disordered ambition
for power and their desire for material wealth and a comfortable life
involving no suffering.
A person in this situation begins to be lukewarm and tries to serve two
masters: "It is wrong to have two candles lighted--one to St. Michael
and another to the devil. We must snuff out the devil's candle; we
must spend our lives completely in the service of the Lord. If our
desire for holiness is sincere, if we are docile enough to place
ourselves in God's hands, everything will go well. For He is always
ready to give us His grace" ([St] J. Escriva, "Christ Is Passing By", 59).
15. Jesus tells us that the good soil has three features--listening to
God's demands with the good disposition of a generous heart; striving
to ensure that one does not water down these demands as time goes by;
and, finally, beginning and beginning again and not being disheartened
if the fruit is slow to appear. "You cannot `rise'. It's not surprising:
that fall!
"Persevere and you will `rise'. Remember what a spiritual writer has
said: your poor soul is like a bird whose wings are caked with mud.
"Suns of heaven are needed and personal efforts, small and constant, to
shake off those inclinations, those vain fancies, that depression: that mud
clinging to your wings.
"And you will see yourself free. If you persevere, you will `rise'" ([St] J.
Escriva, "The Way", 991).
Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.
He was born at Montepulciano in Tuscany on October 4, 1542, the feast of the Poverello of Assisi toward whom he always cherished a special devotion. The day on which he died, September 17, is now the feast in honor of the stigmata of St. Francis. 
