Rich Soil

In today’s gospel, Jesus drives out a demon from a mute man who then begins to speak. The crowd is amazed, but the Pharisees challenge Jesus and say, “he drives out demons by the prince of demons” (Matthew 9:34). This spiteful accusation foreshadows the growing opposition to Jesus. In Luke’s gospel when the same story is mentioned, Jesus says, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Luke 11: 23).

With God, there is no middle ground. If we are not moving forward in our faith, then we are falling backward. Every day we must pray, every day I must lay my life at the foot of the Cross and say, “Not my will, but Thy will be done.” Every day we must meditate on scripture. God speaks to us through the Word. We learn how to imitate Christ through scripture.

We are told that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but that is not the case with Christ. If we do not spend time with our Lord, every day, then we become weak, we are an easy target for Satan. We sin and then are filled with shame; in our shame we get even further from Christ. We fall into darkness that gets deeper and darker making it even harder to connect with Christ.

When Jesus is explaining the parable about the sower, he says, “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” (Luke 8:15). In order for us to bear fruit, we have to be a source of rich soil which means we must read sacred scripture, meditate on it and allow God to speak to us. Blessed John Paul II, states, “The Church is committed to preserving the Word of God and investigating its riches with discernment and prudence in order to bear faithful witness to it before all mankind.” We investigate its riches by studying it so that we may know the Truth.

It is just as easy to “twist” the Word as it is to twist someone else’s words to fit it to our liking. But just as we can’t be cafeteria Catholics, picking and choosing the doctrine that fits our liking, we can’t pick and choose the words of scripture to fit our shallow desires. We need to dig deep, to be open to the Truth. To accept the Truth even though at times it is painful because it causes us to look at those things about ourselves that we like to avoid looking at. But, this same Word will enlighten our mind, renew our spirit, give us strength and provide us with hope so that we are able to endure anything and win the crown of glory.