Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production, Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher, is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. Share this program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. Make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Today we celebrate the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The opening Prayer O God, who show the light of your truth to those who go astray, so that they may return to the right path, Give all who for the faith they profess, are counted Christians, the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ, to strive after all that does it honor through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
Amen. A Reading from the Old Testament from the book of Isaiah 55th, chapter 10:11 thus says the Just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down, and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to the one who sows, and bread to the one who eats, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. My word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it. The Word of the Lord Responsorial Psalm the seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest. You have visited the land and watered it greatly. Have you enriched it.
God’s watercourses are filled, and you have prepared the grain. The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest. Thus have you prepared the land, drenching its furrows, breaking up its clod, softening it with showers, blessing its yield. The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest. You have crowned the year with your bounty, and your paths overflow with a rich harvest. The untilled meadows overflow with it, and rejoicing close the hills.
The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest. The fields are garmented with flocks, and the valley blanketed with grain. They shout and sing for joy. The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest. A Reading from the New Testament from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans 8:18 23 Brothers and sisters, I consider the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.
For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord, but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now. And not only that, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit. We also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. The Word of the Lord. Hallelujah.
Verse the seed is the word of God. Christ is the sower. All who come to him will have life forever. Hallelujah. The gospel for this Sunday is taken from St. Matthew 13:23.
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 the 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 to hear. The disciples approached him and said, why do you speak to them in parables? He said to them in reply, because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven have been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted to anyone who has more will be given, and he will grow rich from anyone who has not. Even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because they look but do not see, and hear, but do not listen or understand. Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says, you shall indeed hear, but not understand. You shall indeed look, but never see. Gross is the heart of this people. They will hardly see with their ears. They have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and be converted and I heal them.
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. Amen. I say to you. Many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see, but do not see it, and hear what you hear, but did not hear it. Hear then the parable of the sower. The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it.
And the evil one comes and steals it away what was sown in their hearts. The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the Word and receives it at once with joy. But he has no root and lasts only for a time. And when some tribulation or persecution comes because of the Word, he immediately falls away. The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the Word. But then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word.
And it bears no fruit. But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the Word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. The Gospel of the Lord Take the next few moments as we listen to this music to ponder the images and the thoughts that come to you as you listen to these readings. We’re listening to Jesus in this set of readings. It’s coming to the end of his ministry. And he wants so much for the disciples to understand who he is and why he is in their life.
And he’s telling them some very, very important things. He’s saying something about their way of living that is going to be revealed through their life to other people. So they can live as the apostles have learned to live. And they live with the presence of God. It’s hard to believe that Jesus was God, but that’s who he manifested so clearly. He was a human being so filled with divinity that he was divine at the same time he was human.
That’s a mystery. We can’t understand it. But all you have to believe in is that he is the representative of who we are intended to be. Not divine as he was fully, but participating in divinity on a regular, daily basis. He is in us, with us, doing something for us. If I could do anything to change people’s minds about God, I would say stop trying to earn anything from him or please him by doing things that you think he wants you to do.
Rather, allow him to be who he wants to be in your life. In my life. He wants to be a source, a way, a plan for how we are living our life. So let’s look at this set of readings by starting off with the idea of, in Isaiah, Jesus describing who he is. But he uses another word rather than. Well, it’s not.
It’s God revealing who he will be. And he’s saying that what I am is. I am. I am like rain. And rain comes down and it does something to the soil. Now, these were agrarian people who were listening to this they knew exactly what he meant.
And without water, there is no ability for a seed to become a plant, to become a wheat that becomes the bread. So what he’s really saying is, I am something in your life that without me there will be no full life. And the way I want you to understand this, he’s saying is that I am giving you an explanation, a way of living, a way of seeing that is key to your being in this world, in the way in which you’re intended to be and which will bring you joy and life. Pay attention to what I am offering you, like rain, over and over again, so that this thing called your humanity, the soil of the earth, which is a perfect image of humanity, will grow rich and produce something wonderful. So Isaiah is prophesying something so clear, so powerful, that sets the tone for the Old Testament. But the thing is interesting about the Old Testament is that it’s never able to achieve this goal of God being able to save his people.
I’m not saying that God couldn’t do it, but the history basically, is that the human beings that he worked with were not very docile or open or receptive. And over and over again, they turned against him. And then when you look at the whole story, the whole Old Testament, when you get down to the time that Jesus entered into the world, he came at a time when it seemed clear that everything that had come before him was not received or not able to produce what it promised. And there was the temple, which was the presence of God in their life. And it had become not a source of life for the people, but a burden. And those who were there became thieves, taking away the life that they were destined to have.
It’s an incredible indictment, not just on the religion at the time, but it’s a reminder that the Old Testament is not the full story. The full story is Jesus. And so Jesus comes into the world to make a difference, to fulfill the saying, in a way of Isaiah, something is coming like rain, like moisture, to dry, broken, hard earth. And that coming is God in the presence of a man called Jesus. We call it the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the presence of God in someone. And when you look at the way in which Jesus is talking to his disciples, or to the crowd, of course, but then also to the disciples.
He speaks in parables, which are really interesting because the parable is a way in which it seems to me that God is saying, what I’m teaching you is not so literal. It’s filled with mystery. It’s filled with a deeper understanding. Of what’s going on. Don’t look at just the actions, but look at what they mean. What’s really being said by these actions of God in Jesus, in the world.
And so he describes to his disciples that parables are key. It’s not necessarily that he’s only going to talk in riddles, but it’s. Everything that’s happening to you is filled with meaning and your work. And it’s kind of an exciting work in a way. I have great enthusiasm for paying attention to what I see and paying attention to what I hear, what I see other people doing, what I see myself doing, what I hear people saying, what I say. Pay attention to that and ponder it like you would any mystery.
It’s more than it seems. People are more transparent than they ever, ever realize. And there’s a way in which God gives you the wisdom and the understanding and the power to discern. That’s what he wants you to do. Discern through reflection of what is really happening. We live in the final times.
The earth before was never fertile enough for God to truly enter. In a way, I’m saying in a sense that the Old Testament never was enough. But the New Testament is the essential ingredient to add to the desire that God had that people will always be what he wants them to be, that they will follow his commandments. He wants that, but he doesn’t want it just out of a sense of obligation. He wants it out of a sense of knowing. Knowing what they’re doing.
Don’t do it because I told you to. Do it, because you understand why it’s so important that you do this. So when he’s saying to his disciples this parable about a sower who sows seeds, he’s talking about God the Father and his work. And what he’s saying is that we’re offering. God is offering through Me, in particular, he is doing it through Jesus. I’m giving you something that will enable something incredible to happen.
And that is what he calls a fruitful life, a full life, a life without excessive shame and fear and anger. That that’s our promise. That’s what’s been made fertile in us, the potential of that kind of life. And it was never there before Jesus. It was never there before redemption. We’re redeemed earth, redeemed soil.
We’re redeemed in the sense that our hearts have a capacity to understand. Not our minds, our hearts. There’s something about seeing and hearing without judgment or condemnation, which is much of the theme of the Old Testament. But with mercy and understanding and compassion that radically changes your ability to see and to hear what’s really going on. It’s true when you listen to others. It’s true when you listen to yourself.
It is true when you see yourself doing things or see someone else doing things. If you’re looking at it with judgment or condemnation, you will go nowhere but pay attention. Listen, and you’ll find something beautiful in the fact that there’s a person that is valuable to God, working out their salvation in ways in which you might be called upon to be an instrument of bringing them something that is like rain, like water, like nourishment, so that the thing that they long for to grow and deepen inside of themselves will take root and grow. What an amazing gift God gives us. To be rain, to be truth, to be his presence, to be like him in the world. Just think of what it would be like when you don’t.
If you treat everyone’s self included, not with judgment and condemnation, criticism, comparison, but simply with this thing that God is revealed in Jesus to be compassion, understanding. It’s wonderful. It’s filled with wonder. And it’s your inheritance and mine. And it’s up to us to open our eyes and to listen and to be able to see it for what it is and then to live it. Amen.
Sam Sa Sam Father, your gift of your presence is beyond our imagining. Help us to see as you see, to hear what you hear, to know the truth that we are engaged in is going to bring the fullness of life to ourselves as we offer it to one another. Bless us with this wisdom and we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you.
You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a non profit in Dallas, Texas dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey. Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright 2020.
