September 18, 2010
Saturday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
You fool! What you sow is not brought to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel of wheat, perhaps, or of some other kind; but God gives it a body as he chooses, and to each of the seeds its own body. 1 Corinthians 15:36-38
The seed is the word of God…But as for the seed that fell on rich soil, they are the ones who, when they have heard the word, embrace it with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance. Luke 8:11, 15
Piety
Seed, scattered and sown, wheat, gathered and grown, bread, broken and shared as one, the living Bread of God.
Vine, fruit of the land, wine, work of our hands, one cup that is shared by all, the living Cup, the living Bread of God.
1. Is not the bread we break, a sharing in our Lord? Is not the cup we bless, the blood of Christ outpoured?
Seed, scattered and sown, wheat, gathered and grown, bread, broken and shared as one, the living Bread of God.
Vine, fruit of the land, wine, work of our hands, one cup that is shared by all, the living Cup, the living Bread of God.
2. The seed which falls on rock will wither and will die. The seed within good ground will flower and have life.
Study
Is there any more apt analogy for the change needed within our lives than the seed. The analogy of the seed in both our readings drives home the importance of change in our lives. For the new to emerge, the old must pass away. There is no turning back.
Look at a seed. Take one out of a piece of fruit. When you contemplate the seed of an apple or orange, what do you see? The small shell that is buried in the ground, surrounded by dirt, mud, fertilizer? The sprout shooting up from the ground? The fragrant apple or orange blossom that must wither and die to make way for the fruit?
What do you see?
Now leave behind your fruit seed and think of a grain of wheat. Imagine all the change and transformation that takes place with the seed from a stalk of wheat. Just like our apple seed, it is planted and sprouts. The seed becomes a plant. The stalks yield grains which are ground to become flour. Just like you can not turn the flour back into the stalk, the stalk cannot be changed back into the seed. It has changed.
Take that flour and mix it with a little water and yeast to make dough. Bake that in the heat of an oven and you have bread. Bless and break that bread and it changes again into the body of Christ.
The farmer who planted the seed will no more recognize the loaf of bread transformed into the Eucharist than will the disciples recognize the body of the Risen Christ.
Action
We are asked to change just like the seeds in the garden of life. However, we do not known if we are on rocky ground or fertile soil. We do not know if we will win when we fight against the weeds of our life. Let today’s Word of God be the yeast of change in your life.
