Faith lights
up all the faculties of a person, as light inside reveals the pattern of a
stained-glass window. For faith is far more than the passive acquiescence to a
proof; it is a dynamic thing accompanied by an intense desire for the possession
of God as author and finisher of our life
Fulton J. Sheen Lift
up your Heart
Christianity
has, of late, not looked terribly good in the eyes of the world and the media.
If we were to believe what is said of us, it would appear that we are obsessed
by matters of gender and sex: the ordination of women, clergy in civil
partnerships and the proposed redefinition of marriage to include same-sex
couples. In the eyes of the world we are wrong, we are completely out of touch,
and we need to conform ourselves and the Church to the ways of the world. We cannot,
I would suggest, allow this to happen; we need instead to stand up and be
counted, proclaiming a truth rooted in Scripture and the Tradition of the
Church even if it means that we appear foolish in the eyes of the world: for
our faith is foolishness and a stumbling block, but the foolishness of God is
wiser than men.
In this morning’s Gospel we have St
Luke’s account of the parable of the Sower and its explanation – Jesus is
showing us what the Church and the Proclamation of the Gospel look like in
practice. He uses an agricultural image which is as clear to us today as it was
two thousand years ago. It’s designed to be transparent, it isn’t complicated,
but it does not necessarily make for terribly easy reading. The sower casts out
a great deal of seed, and not all of it even lands on soil. Even when it does
it necessarily lead to much – the plants bolt and die or are choked by weeds.
Only a few seeds grow up into healthy plants, which produce a wonderful
harvest, even an hundredfold.
There are people, who are initially
very enthusiastic about the Christian Faith, but who quickly lose interest;
others find themselves distracted by the cares of the world, by their riches,
and the enticements of pleasure. This reminds us of the salutary fact that
living the Christian life is not easy: things get in the way, we get
distracted, it is a huge struggle and if we were just left to our own devices
then we, generally speaking, are not terribly good at resisting. So what do we
do? We need to rely upon God as our help and strength, and also to support each
other as we grow together in a community of faith and love, helping each other,
through God’s grace, to resist the ways of sin and the world.
Only a few plants produce a great
deal of seed – the Church grew from a small but committed community of faith
gathered around Our Lord and the Twelve Apostles. Instead of hearts hardened by
superficialities or worldly preoccupations, they display hearts which are open,
open to the God who loves them, to the God who heals them, and to the God who
saves them, who shed his blood on the Cross for their sake and ours, to take
away their sin. They are people who trust God, and who live lives which
proclaim God’s saving truth regardless of the cost to themselves, gladly laying
down their lives to serve the truth which sets them free. They then reap a
harvest of billions of souls saved over the past two thousand years; and we are
called to be like them, to live lives like theirs, to trust like them, to be
fearless in our proclamation of the Gospel, supporting each other in our lives
and in spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ in word and in deed, so that the
world may believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Ghost, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory
dominion and power, now and forever
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