Sexagesima Sunday

From "Divine Intimacy" by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.

Presence of God  -  O Lord, I am here before you.  Grant that my heart may
be the good ground, ready to receive Your divine word.

Meditation

    1.  Today Jesus, the divine Sower, comes to scatter the good seed in His
vineyard the Church. He wishes to prepare our souls for a new blossoming of
grace and virtue.

     "The seed is the word of God." Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate,
eternal Utterance of the Father, came to sow this word in the hearts of men;
it is, as it were, a reflection of Himself. The divine word is not a sound
which strikes the air and disappears rapidly like the word of men; it is a
supernatural light which reveals the true value of things; it is grace, the
source of power and strength to help us live according to the light of God.
Thus it is a seed of supernatural life, of sanctity, of eternal life. This
seed is never sterile in itself; it always has a vital, powerful strength,
capable of producing not only some fruits of Christian life, but abundant
fruits of sanctity. This seed is not entrusted to an inexperienced
husbandman who, because of his ignorance might ruin the finest sowing. It is
Jesus Himself, the Son of God, who is the Sower.

     Then why does the seed not always bring forth the desired fruit?
Because very often the ground which receives it does not have the requisite
qualities. God never stops sowing the seed in the hearts of men; He invites
them, He calls them continually by His light and His appeals; He never
ceases giving His grace by means of the Sacraments; but all this is vain and
fruitless unless man offers God a good ground, that is, a heart, well
prepared and disposed. God wills our salvation and sanctification, but He
never forces us; He respects our liberty.

   2.  Today's Gospel mentions four categories of people who receive the
seed of the divine word in different ways.

      THE HARD GROUND: souls that are frivolous, dissipated, open to all
distractions, rumors and curiosity; admitting all kinds of creatures and
earthly affections.  The word of God hardly reaches their heart when the
enemy, having free access, carries it off, thus preventing it from taking
root.

      THE STONY GROUND: superficial souls with only a shallow layer of good
earth, which will be rapidly blown away, along with the good seed, by the
winds of passion.  These souls easily grow enthusiastic, but do not
persevere and "in time of temptation fall away."  They are unstable, because
they have not the courage to embrace renunciation and to make the sacrifices
which are necessary if one wishes to remain faithful  to the word of God and
to put it into practice in all circuмstances.  Their fervor is a straw fire
which dies down and goes out in the face of the slightest difficulty.

     THE GROUND COVERED WITH THORNS:  souls that are preoccupied with
worldly things, pleasures, material interests and affairs.  The seed takes
root, but the thorns soon choke it by depriving it of air and light.
Excessive solicitude for temporal things eventually stifles the rights of
the spirit.

     Lastly, THE GOOD GROUND is compared by Jesus to those "who, with a good
and upright heart, hearing the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit in
patience."  The good and upright heart is the one which always gives first
place to God, and His justice.  The seed of the divine word will bear
abundant fruit in proportion to the good dispositions it finds in us:
recollection, a serious  and profound interior life, detachment, sincere
seeking for the things of God above and beyond all earthly things, and
finally, perseverance, without which the word of God cannot bear its fruit
in us.

COLLOQUY

     O Jesus, divine Sower, rightly do You complain of the arid, sterile
ground of my poor heart! What an abundant sowing of holy inspirations,
interior lights, and grace You have cast into my heart! How many times You
have invited me to come to You by special appeals, and how many times have I
stopped, after following You for a short time! O Lord, if only I could
understand the fundamental reason for my spiritual sterility, my instability
and inconstancy in good! Will Your light fail me? No, for You are
continually instructing and admonishing my soul in a thousand ways. Oh! if
so many souls living in error and not knowing You had received but a
hundredth part of the light which You have given me so profusely, how much
fruit would they not have drawn from it!


     Will Your grace fail me? Is not Your grace my strength? O Lord, I see
that neither Your light nor Your strength will fail me; What I lack is the
perseverance which can faithfully withstand temptations, difficulties, and
darkness; which can face courageously the sacrifices and austerity of the
Christian life. It is easy to make sacrifices and to renounce oneself for a
day, but it is hard to keep on doing it always, every day of our life. Is
this not the reason that You said, O Lord, that the good heart brings forth
fruit "in patience"?

     O Jesus, who endured with invincible patience your most sorrowful
Passion and death, give me the patience I need to keep up the struggle
against my passions and my self-love, patience to embrace with perseverance
all the sacrifices required by total detachment, to be able to live without
personal satisfactions and pleasures, to do everything that is repugnant to
me, that hurts me, that crosses me and is displeasing to my self-love.

     O Lord, You know that I desire total purification because I long for
union with You; but You cannot purify me entirely if I cannot accept
patiently Your work: the trials, humiliations and detachments that You
prepare for me. O Jesus, divine Sufferer, give me Your patience; make me,
like Yourself, humble and patient.