There is a question at the heart of today’s Gospel.
Why do some people become saints while others drift away?
Why do some hear God’s word and bear fruit, while others hear exactly the same Gospel and remain unchanged?
Jesus answers with the parable of the sower.
A farmer goes out to sow seed.
The seed is good.
The seed is abundant.
The problem is not the seed.
The problem is the soil.
Some seed falls on the path.
Some among rocks.
Some among thorns.
Some on rich soil.
The same seed.
The same sower.
Different results.
And that is important.
Because when people lose faith, it is tempting to blame the Gospel.
To blame the Church.
To blame Christianity itself.
Jesus says the problem is not the seed.
The Word of God remains powerful.
The problem is whether hearts are ready to receive it.
The first reading gives us a wonderful image.
God says:
“As the rain and the snow come down from the heavens and do not return without watering the earth, making it yield and giving growth, so the word that goes from my mouth does not return to me empty.”
That is a promise.
God’s word is never wasted.
Never powerless.
Never ineffective.
Every Mass.
Every Scripture reading.
Every homily.
Every prayer.
Every act of evangelisation.
The seed is being sown.
Sometimes we do not see the results.
A parent prays for a child for twenty years.
A priest preaches for decades.
A grandparent quietly passes on the faith.
A friend speaks one word about Christ.
Nothing seems to happen.
But the rain disappears into the soil before anything becomes visible.
The seed disappears into the earth before the harvest arrives.
God’s work is often hidden.
Yet it is real.
Then Jesus explains the different soils.
The first heart never really receives the word.
It sits on the surface.
Nothing sinks in.
Faith remains something external.
Something heard but never embraced.
The second receives the word enthusiastically.
But only for a time.
There are strong feelings.
Good intentions.
Great enthusiasm.
But no roots.
And when difficulties come, faith disappears.
The third receives the word, but the thorns choke it.
The worries of life.
The lure of wealth.
The pursuit of comfort.
The endless distractions of the world.
Gradually God is crowded out.
Not rejected.
Just squeezed to the margins.
And then there is the good soil.
The person who hears.
Receives.
Perseveres.
And bears fruit.
Perhaps the uncomfortable truth is that every one of those soils exists in every one of us.
Sometimes we are distracted.
Sometimes shallow.
Sometimes worldly.
Sometimes receptive.
The Christian life is the slow work of allowing God to cultivate the soil.
That brings us to St Paul’s remarkable words.
He says:
“The sufferings of the present are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed in us.”
Paul knows that growth is not easy.
The seed must disappear into the earth.
The plant must struggle upwards.
There is waiting.
Patience.
Perseverance.
And so it is with Christian life.
We want instant holiness.
Instant answers.
Instant results.
God usually works more slowly.
Like a farmer.
Like rain falling upon a field.
Like a seed growing beneath the soil.
The modern world struggles with this.
We live in an age of immediacy.
Everything arrives quickly.
Messages.
Shopping.
Entertainment.
Information.
But holiness grows like an oak tree, not like a social media post.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Patiently.
Year after year.
Think of the people who shaped your faith.
A parent.
A grandparent.
A priest.
A teacher.
Most likely they did not change you through one dramatic moment.
They planted seeds.
Watered them.
Waited.
Prayed.
And eventually fruit appeared.
That should encourage us.
Because sometimes we become discouraged.
We look at our families.
Our parish.
The wider Church.
And we wonder whether anything is happening.
Today’s readings remind us that God’s work is often hidden before it becomes visible.
The seed is working.
The rain is falling.
The roots are growing.
Even when we cannot see them.
And perhaps the most important question today is not:
“What kind of soil is everyone else?”
But:
“What kind of soil am I?”
Am I allowing God’s word to sink deeply?
Am I putting down roots through prayer?
Am I letting the thorns of anxiety, comfort, and distraction choke my faith?
Am I allowing Christ to cultivate my heart?
Because the harvest that Jesus describes is astonishing.
Thirty-fold.
Sixty-fold.
A hundred-fold.
God does not merely want survival.
He wants fruitfulness.
He wants saints.
He wants lives transformed by grace.
The sower is still walking through the fields.
The seed is still being scattered.
The rain of God’s grace is still falling.
The question is whether our hearts will be hard ground, rocky ground, thorny ground, or good soil.
And if we allow the Lord to cultivate us, then in His time, and often in ways we do not expect, He will bring forth a harvest far greater than we could ever imagine.
St. Mary's, St. John Bosco and St. Edward's 