Reflection for Sunday July 12, Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: Matthew 13:1-9

Gospel: Matthew 13:1-9

On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood along the shore. And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep, and when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it. But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

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Reflection:

Why does Jesus sometimes tell parables?

Jesus often tells parables to His disciples for them to have something to reflect, ponder and think about. These parables are also for us to reflect and discover the lesson that it tries to convey to us.

The sower in the gospel parable is actually God, the seeds that He sowed were His teachings and the environments which the seeds fell are us. Obviously the first three environments on which the seeds fell were not ideal because the seeds did not grew and bear fruit as it should be.

We become the first three environments when we intentionally turn a deaf ear to God’s teachings. For example, in matter of sin, we all know that sin is evil but sad to say many of us shun God in favor of sin. Many of us favor sin because we love this world than God.  No matter how much God wants us to know more about Him if we are not willing to listen He cannot do anything about it. He will not be able to take root and grow in our hearts because we simply don’t want it. We want more to get busy with the things of this world which is oftentimes sinful than the things of God.

The last environment: The rich soil could also be us. This happens when we open our whole being to God’s teachings. We listen to it, we imbibed it, we live it and we share it. It grows within us and in that process we bear fruit. In bearing fruit God uses us to touch lives thus we become an instrument of His blessings for others. The desire of God is for us to always become the rich soil wherein we touch lives and make a positive difference in the lives of our fellow human beings.

In this crisis that we are in right now brought about by the Wuhan Covid-19 pandemic. God wants us to be transformed to become the rich, productive and responsive soil. So that we can help, touch lives and be a force of good towards others. Enough of sin, enough of hedonism and enough of the Me, I and Myself mentality.

Would we want to become the rich soil? -  Marino J. Dasmarinas