“But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear” (Mt 13:16).
Jesus is present and active in our lives. He is constantly sowing seeds for us, inviting us to receive him and bear the fruit of a deeper relationship with him. Do we see, do we hear?
Following are five seeds that Jesus has sown in my life during my teen years.
I remember going to our grandparents, my mother’s parents often. Especially during holidays, my grandfather would begin our dinner with the Sign of the Cross and the Our Father. My grandfather also encouraged me to spend time with God in silence. A seed of contemplation was sown.
One weekend my dad picked me up for dinner and we went out for Italian. Just before spearing a juicy meatball with my fork, my father asked me if he could say grace. To my recollection, he had never done this before, and the Holy Spirit shot across the table and hit me full on in the chest. Looking back at the experience some time later, I realized I received a healing between me a God at that moment. One night I overheard my parents deciding to divorce, when I was about nine, I told God to fix this by the time I woke up or we were through. This dinner was a turning point in my relationship with God. A seed of reconciliation was sown.
When I was a sophomore or junior in high school, I used to take our German Shepherd, Max, out before school. One morning I was running late and he got away, I returned to the house without Max, frustrated and expressing my present mental state with a few choice expletives. Then I heard my mother sneeze from her bedroom. I thought she was at work. I was mortified, having spoken like that before my mother. I cried the whole way as I walked to school that morning. As Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “Never let evil talk pass you lips say only the good things people need to hear” (cf. Ephesians 4:29). A seed of prudence was sown.
I left a party of friends one evening not feeling comfortable there. I came home, went up to my room, opened a Bible that I had recently purchased and came upon Luke chapter 12:22 and read about how God took care of the ravens and the flowers and there was no need to worry about my life, that he would take care of us as he had taken carry of them. I then heard God speak to me, saying that I would never win the lotto, but that he would always provide me with the ability to work. A seed of faith had been sown.
Finally, when I was about seventeen, I decided to return to church. I hadn’t been to church since my parents divorced. There was a Congregational Church about a half mile down the street, where my mother and step father were married. I walked in and sat down. At the end of the service, the interim pastor expressed that there was a need for Sunday school teachers. The pew seemed to heat up under me. I felt God was encouraging me to volunteer. I resisted the whole idea, but went back again the following week and the same thing happened. I approached the pastor offered to be a Sunday School teacher. A seed of vocation had been sown.
These are just a few seeds Jesus had sown in my teen years; seeds of contemplation, reconciliation, prudence, faith and vocation. Each of which found rich soil and have taken root in my life. I encourage you to give yourself some silent time with God today and each day this week, contemplate about the people and experiences that Jesus has put and continues to put in your life, the seeds he has sown for you. Jesus is still relevant to our lives, just as he was to those we have been reading about each day in the Gospel of Matthew.
Resist closing your heart and mind to the possibility of his reality and seek his forgiveness and reconciliation. Resist the worry, anxiety and doubt that may arise for fear that he will have you do something with your life that would be contrary to who you are, or that in following Jesus, your life is over. God is not some abstract philosophical thought or random energy force. God loves us more than we can ever imagine, for he is Love, and we experience the same love he shares with his Son, Jesus, who is the Holy Spirit.
Jesus is in our midst, sowing seeds that his Father has given him to sow, and sending the living water of the Holy Spirit to water and nourish them. What kind of soul are we preparing to receive these seeds that have been sown? Do we have eyes to see and ears to hear all that God has planned for us?
——————————————
Mass readings for Sunday, July 16, 2017 Parable of the Sower, 15th Sunday in OT http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071617.cfm
Spiritual Stepping Stones