“Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most adults are so afraid, so cautious, so 'safe,'…..that it is why so many humans fail.”

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. ― Dale Carnegie: (1888 – 1955: was an American writer and lecturer)

Gospel Text: (MT 13:1-9)

On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.

Such large crowds gathered around him

that he got into a boat and sat down,

and the whole crowd stood along the shore.

And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying:

“A sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path,

and birds came and ate it up.

Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil.

It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep,

and when the sun rose it was scorched,

and it withered for lack of roots.

Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.

But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit,

a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.

Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

The parable Jesus preaches in today’s Gospel passage is one that’s often commented on by the saints. Perhaps this is so because the parable teaches a fundamental lesson about the spiritual life. Given that the sower is the Son of God, St. John Chrysostom teaches the following:

“…How is it according to reason to sow seed among thorns, or on stormy ground, or by the wayside? Indeed in the material seed and soil of this world it would not be reasonable; for it is impossible that rocks should become soil, or that the way should not be the way, or that thorns should not be thorns. But with minds and doctrines it is otherwise; there it is possible that the rock be made rich soil, that the way should be no more trodden upon, and that the thorns should be removed. That the most part of the seed then perished, came not of him that sowed, but of the soil that received it, that is the mind. For He that sowed put no difference between rich and poor, wise or foolish, but spoke to all alike” (Homily XLIV).

So what if only some of our seeds sprout and grow? The only thing that matters is that we are called to be farmers. We are not responsible for making the seeds grow; we are only the sowers.