Young Adult Catholics

This Sunday’s readings:
http://www.usccb.org/nab/071308.shtml
This weekend’s readings can serve as a great mid-summer reminder about the abundant life in the natural world, as well as the pain and suffering of the environment and the planet that have emerged over the last several hundred years. The agrarian images in these readings may not resonate as loudly as they did in an era when farming and relationship to nature was part and parcel of most people’s experiences, but they can still speak to us if we take the time to lift up our heads from our laptops, our Blackberries (and our blogging!) to get tuned back in to nature. (Incidentally, Tuesday of next week is the memorial of St. Bonaventure, a Franciscan saint and doctor of the church, who, in imitation of St. Francis of Assisi, spoke of creation as the original “book of God’s revelation” – a turn of phrase he borrowed from St. Augustine … all to show the influence God’s creation has had throughout our Catholic tradition, even if at times it has not been revered well by many in the church).

The lessons of all this nature imagery aren’t limited to knowing when the rainy season occurs – like in the reading from Isaiah – or the best time or soil to plant seed in – like the Gospel of Matthew’s account of the sowing of the seed. These images, like Bonaventure’s insights, invite us to see how our own growth can mirror that of the natural world, even at times when we feel there is no growth at all.

These images call us back to the basics. They also remind us that the growth in nature, like the growth of our faith and trust in God, is partly dependent on us, but a lot of other things happen that are out of our control and in God’s hands.

Isaiah reminds us that just as the rain is a powerful force that cannot be stopped, so is God’s word. It is a fertilizer for the spirit. It will always accomplish what God intends, which is the full flourishing of the human person, human society, and indeed the whole created order. At first, this might seem to contradict the Gospel account where Jesus talks about all the bad soil where the seed cannot take root and the good soil where it finally does. Yet note that the good soil’s production more than makes up for the seed lost on the path, in the rocky ground, or the thorns. A hundred, sixty, or thirty fold return on any planting would be the dream of any farmer! The point is that God’s word will achieve its purpose – the redemption of relationships between God and us, among ourselves, and between ourselves and creation. The question Jesus seems to confront us with in the parable is: Will we take up the challenge to really allow that word into our hearts and lives to transform us? “Whoever has ears ought to hear!”

Another way of reflecting on the parable of the sower is the very important traditional way of doing so – looking within to see what type of “soil” God’s word is receiving in my life today. Almost certainly, like the land around us, we may be soils of different types of different days or seasons. Some days our faith is as flat as the path; other times it is crowded out by distractions and disinterest; sometimes the weight of responsibilities or difficulties in our lives scorch us. So it is important to be attentive enough to know how we are doing personally.

However, besides that, it is also good to discern beyond ourselves — to seek out and find those places which make our “soil” more receptive to God’s word and God’s activity in our lives. What are the things we do to nourish our spirits in days of frenetic activity? How do we reconnect? Note that Jesus hardly ever tells parables to individuals. He always addresses his stories to communities, to large groups, or to his disciples. I take this as a reminder that it is a very difficult, if not impossible, task to maintain an openness to God’s activity on our own, by ourselves.

We are relational beings and Christians specifically get together in groups each Sunday for the purpose of hearing that word TOGETHER, and many partake of communion or Eucharist as a reminder and living memory of the fact that we work out what God’s word means for each of us and all of us in community. God’s word, like the rain, doesn’t fall on individuals or small groups only. It touches many hearts and those many hearts together give us the ability to hear God’s voice speaking to us as persons, but also to us as a people – a People of God, formed by that word. Just as the seed has to die to become something new and much larger, so are we invited to feel the seed of God’s word break into our lives and yield a bountiful and rich harvest as it calls us to deeper conversion and wholeness. And, like the rest of creation, that may at times involve the pain of inward groaning and the REAL pain of giving birth that Paul talks about in the letter to the Romans.

A good reflection, then, may be on how God is at work in my life preparing me for the “next planting” that can bear fruit for me, but for others as well. How is the “soil” of my parish church or faith community? Is my larger neighborhood or community a place that takes the time to be open to change, newness, growth? Are there enough diverse nutrients to nurture the precious seed of God’s deep desires for us? If we find, in ourselves or our communities, a type of soil that is hindering growth, what can I / we do about it in small or large ways? Can we name the flatness, rocks, or thorns that hinder our growth into a redeemed and renewed people? Are there signs of labor pains birthing something new?

Jesus images God as a for us a Farmer who, as was customary, threw the seed with reckless abandon, knowing some would be lost in places where there was not an openness to receive it, but others would yield richly. Let us pray this weekend that we can all find a way to put our energies toward that which will focus on the nurturing of new possibilities, even as we are often acutely aware of the many things in our church and world that choke off the word. Let us pray to for those places in our world where we are aware of the groaning of creation, or the places where the groaning has become an alarm as our planet suffers the ravages of our failures to live in balance with it. As we experience the deep pains of our lives, the lives of those who struggle on the margins of our society, and the pains of our planet, let us live in the hope that the “firstfruits of the Spirit” that we have received can become seeds in our hearts to truly work to “renew the face of the earth.”

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I offer this week a metric paraphrase of the beautiful harvest psalm that is our responsorial psalm this week. It is titled simply, “You,” and was composed by Rory Cooney, reflecting a beautiful awareness of creation as God’s original book of revelation.