We Each Have Our Place
Sep 23: Memorial of Saint Pius of Pietrelcina, Priest
Today is the Feast of St. Padre Pio, who you probably know for his many miraculous healings. He holds a special place in the hearts of my family, because we visited his shrine last summer in the hopes of obtaining a miracle for Amelia. While it didn’t happen then, we can continue to pray for Pio’s intercession.
Reading 1
1 Tm 6:13-16
Beloved: I charge you before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who gave testimony under Pontius Pilate for the noble confession, to keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ that the blessed and only ruler will make manifest at the proper time, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, and whom no human being has seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal power. Amen.
This is Paul’s closing statement to Timothy, encouraging him to keep the commandments, as an example to his congregation and all the world.
There is one more brief passage after this, which continues on the theme from yesterday. Paul asks Timothy to instruct the rich, advising them to make good use of their wealth by aiding the poor. God doesn’t call on everyone to give up their worldly goods, jobs, family and become preachers. The world would die out in a single generation if we all did that.
But He has a plan, a destiny for all of us—immortality that no human being has seen or can see. Everyone’s path is going to be different. But we do know it always flows through Christ.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 100:1b-2, 3, 4, 5
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Sing joyfully to the LORD all you lands;
serve the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful song.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Know that the LORD is God;
he made us, his we are;
his people, the flock he tends.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
his courts with praise;
Give thanks to him; bless his name.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
For he is good:
the LORD, whose kindness endures forever,
and his faithfulness, to all generations.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
This is another universalist Psalm that also remembers the special place for the Jews in God’s plan. Salvation comes through Jesus, who was born a Jew. All nations should praise God, and all have their place in God’s order. We’re not excluded, simply for not being a part of the Chosen People. Our place is just different.
Alleluia
See Lk 8:15
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heart
and yield a harvest through perseverance.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
This is what Paul tells Timothy, and by extension, us. Keep the word, not by adhering only to the letter of the Law, but with a generous and loving heart.
Gospel
Lk 8:4-15
When a large crowd gathered, with people from one town after another journeying to Jesus, he spoke in a parable. "A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path and was trampled, and the birds of the sky ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it grew, it withered for lack of moisture. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. And some seed fell on good soil, and when it grew, it produced fruit a hundredfold."
After saying this, he called out, "Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear." Then his disciples asked him what the meaning of this parable might be. He answered, "Knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God has been granted to you; but to the rest, they are made known through parables so that they may look but not see, and hear but not understand.
"This is the meaning of the parable. The seed is the word of God. Those on the path are the ones who have heard, but the Devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts that they may not believe and be saved. Those on rocky ground are the ones who, when they hear, receive the word with joy, but they have no root; they believe only for a time and fall away in time of temptation. As for the seed that fell among thorns, they are the ones who have heard, but as they go along, they are choked by the anxieties and riches and pleasures of life, and they fail to produce mature fruit. But 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."
This is Luke’s version of the Parable of the Sower, which we heard from Matthew a couple months ago.1 It’s not really different, other than the location. (Matthew and Mark report Jesus telling this parable from a boat.)
Looking at it again, I found an interesting note from St. John Chrysostom about the limits of the allegory.2 “How is it according to reason to sow seed among thorns, or on stony ground, or by the wayside? Indeed in the material seed and soil of this world it would not be reasonable; for it is impossible that rock should become soil, or that the way should not be the way, or that thorns should not be thorns. But with minds and doctrines it is otherwise; there it is possible that the rock be made rich soil, that the way should be no more trodden upon, and that the thorns should be extirpated.”
In other words, our nature and mode of receiving is not fixed, in the way that rocky ground or thorns are. We can choose to be fertile ground, ready to receive Christ’s words.
A rock is a rock and a thorn is a thorn, but a mind can be changed. We should set out to make our minds malleable like the dirt. Just not, you know, a dirty mind.
