The
Seminal Parable
Of all the things that
Jesus taught, most people find His parables particularly memorable. All good
teachers, of course, strive to not just present facts for their students to
memorize and parrot on tests, but rather, to inspire the students to think about
the facts as they learn them. Parables are well-suited for such efficacious
teaching, since they effectively engage the listener in the search to
understand their meaning - no wonder that the best Teacher made extensive use
of parables in His teaching!
Fr. Rory Pitstick, SSL
The Parable of the Sower is particularly detailed and prominent,
and one of the few parables for which Jesus explicitly appended His own explanation,
simply because of its fundamental theme of exposing the obstacles to the
fruitful reception of the Word of God.
Those who first heard and those of us who most recently heard
again this punchy parable are thus left with some thought-provoking and action-inspiring
questions:
Since I have heard the Word of God, how rich of a harvest has
been yielded?
Thirty? Sixty? A hundredfold?
If less than that, why?
Has my inattention too often allowed Satan to steal the Word
before being well implanted in my heart?
Has my lack of follow-up and follow-through exposed me as one
with lack of rooted convictions concerning the Word of God?
Have my worldly anxieties, the lure of riches, and other
preoccupations choked the Word of God in my life?
What can I, with the help of God, do today about that?