Jul 12 Sun
How should I take God’s inspirations?
It sounds as if Our Lord speaks in parables so that people will not understand him. In fact, He speaks in parables so that He will be better understood.
Our Lord speaks to his disciples directly, and little by little they come to understand who He is, what He is going to do, and what He wants of them.
In his parables, Our Lord illustrates truths in stories so these truths can be easily remembered and understood, and thus affect our lives.
The parable of the sower seems to be describing types of men. Don’t we dread the prospect of losing the salvation God offers us through our own negligence? Can’t we easily imagine that such men exist?
The parable can also be understood as describing each one of us. With the Gospel, we can be:
- oblivious to it,
- enthusiastic about it until it costs us something,
- choked with anxiety about getting by in this world, filled with desire for material goods, so the Gospel bears no fruit in our lives.
- We can also be fruitful.
These contradictory and conflicting states, in part, explain the groaning in expectation that St. Paul describes as our condition.
The parable of the sower illustrates the truth that St. Augustine articulated this way: ‘God who created you without you, will not save you without you.’ Our salvation is up to God and us. God always says yes to our salvation. We can say yes and no.
Christ’s invitation is like an invitation to a feast; thus, it can be refused.
If accepted, it requires “a radical choice: to gain the kingdom, one must give everything.”
This giving is not just verbal assent: “Words are not enough; deeds are required.”
The Catechism says the parables “are like mirrors for man: will he be hard soil or good earth for the word? What use has he made of the talents he has received?”
If we find a parable hard to understand, the reason may be that we have not yet become enough of a disciple of Christ: “For those who stay ‘outside,’ everything remains enigmatic.”
Whatever we give to God, we get back in abundance. When we give God our freedom, we are making it possible for him to free us from sin, and also to enable us to blossom and do our best.
Recite daily after Communion this prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola. It can help us to accept God’s Will fully:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and all my will.
All I have, you have given to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.
Now, everything is yours;
do with it whatever you will.
Give me only your love and your grace.
That is enough for me.
Moreover, we are children of God; this is incompatible with fear and cowardice.
We must have confidence in God, our Father, and obey with docility the suggestions of the Holy Spirit in our souls.
Then, we must go to seed the good doctrine of Christ all around us abundantly.