We All Need Daily Watering
Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne,
Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary
My dear encountered couples:
During the spring and summer many people get into planting flowers and vegetables, grass and shrubs, vines and trees, whatever comes in seed or plant form. After they do so they find that is not all there is to it. Though fertilizer may sometimes be an option (it depends on soil quality), other than for cactus type plants water is never an option. What we plant must be watered or it will wither and die. It is the same with these seeds Jesus is talking about.
The word of God that we find in the Bible needs to be watered. To just read the Bible and head out into the world to love God and neighbor is not going to work without such helps that Christ and his Church have made available to us.
Prayer, meditation, the sacraments, sacramental – all are means of watering the word of God that has been planted in our souls. Your being at Mass on Sundays, your prayers at home, your asking the Holy Spirit to enlighten and strengthen you, placing yourself consciously in the presence of Christ, can supply you with the heavenly water needed by the seeds God has planted in you. Neglect such things and the word of God in you dies.
“A farmer went out to sow. Part of what he sowed landed on a footpath, where birds came and ate it up. Part fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil. It sprouted at once since the soil had no depth, but when the sun rose and scorched it, it began to wither for lack of roots. Again, part of the seeds fell among thorns, which grew up and choked it. Part of it, finally, landed on good soil and yielded grain a hundred, sixty, or thirty-fold.”
Some of those seeds have fallen into us and taken root. May we never forget to give them their daily watering.
