Jesus uses parables to make people think about their own responses to his message. As you read this parable you may recognise that at different times you have been like each of the different types of soil. As you recall times when you presented fertile soil for the word of God, what helped you create that receptive atmosphere?
Perhaps a key to unlocking the meaning in the Readings of this weekend’s Scripture lies in this quote from a sermon by St. Augustine: “Take advantage of moments of peace and solitude to collect the grains of the Word of God and to store them in the nest of your heart. In moments of confusion when you cannot find outside yourself the peace that you seek, you can retire into yourself and feel at ease with yourself and God”.
To store the grains of the Word of God in the nest of our hearts is a much safer place than the rocky pathway where the birds of the air can whisk it away, or rampant weeds can choke its growth. Jesus’ parable goes on to tell us that the seed is the Word of God and Christ himself is the sower so that whoever listens to the Word and nurtures it in their lives becomes the ground or field from which the fruits of the kingdom can flourish and take root.
In the First Reading God tells us “The Word that goes forth from my mouth does not return to me empty, without carrying out what it was sent to do”. And what it was sent to do was to inspire in us attitudes and actions which yield a harvest of good deeds and produce now a hundredfold, now sixty, now thirty, depending on the generosity with which we receive it.