“God’s Plan Will Prevail” by Colleen O’Sullivan
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| Icon depicting the Sower, Sts. Konstantine and Helen Orthodox Church, Cluj, Romania, GNU Free Documentation License, Wikimedia Commons |
"Hear this! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed 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 and it produced no grain. And some seed fell on rich soil and produced fruit. It came up and grew and yielded thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold." (Mark 4:3-8)
Piety
“All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” (Julian of Norwich)
Study
When I got out of school, one of the things I wanted to do was have a garden, so I was delighted when my first parsonage came with a huge back yard. I arrived a little too far into the summer to do much the first year, but come spring my next-door neighbor brought his tractor over, dug a decent-size plot and worked up the soil. Inside, I enthusiastically planted my seeds - yellow squash, zucchini, bell peppers, and tomatoes. I set all the containers on card tables on my sun porch. I watered them when needed and anxiously checked them every day. I was delighted when they sprouted and began to grow. One day I came home from making hospital visits and noticed that a plate which covered the spot on the wall where an old stove had been vented had been knocked off. I was annoyed but got up on a chair and put it back up. I changed my clothes and went to check on my seedlings. To my horror, they were all uprooted. Many of them were just plain gone. Three birds had come in and had had fun snacking while I was out! I had quite a time catching them with a crab net and getting them out of my house. I ended up having to start all over again.
The next summer, I was in a different location. A serious gardener must have lived there before me because there was a huge, ready-made garden with nice, sandy soil in the back. I planted all sorts of things – 8 tomato plants, 18 pepper plants (I had absolutely no concept how many peppers those plants would yield), bush beans, squash, cucumbers, carrots, and corn. No carrots ever showed up. Likewise, with the corn. First thing every single morning, there I was out weeding and hoeing and looking over what was ready to pick that day. Despite the carrot and corn failure, my garden was so productive I had to buy a freezer and invest in a canner.
The parable Jesus shared with his disciples and the crowd by the sea is so true to life. We set out to do something for the Lord, but sometimes our efforts just don’t yield the results we hope for. A bird comes and snatches the seedlings right out of the soil and they die. You invite your friends and acquaintances to make a Cursillo weekend, and not one of them ends up going. Despite your example and the many things you’ve said on the subject, your adult children don’t seem interested in going to Mass or having anything to do with the Church. As a Church, we thought we had a handle on clergy sex abuse only to discover years later that the problem was so much deeper than we knew.
On the other hand, sometimes our efforts meet with success beyond our wildest dreams. The pepper and tomato harvest turns out to be so bountiful you hardly know what to do with all of it. One of your friends’ teenage children asks you out of the blue if he can go to Mass with you, and you have an unexpected, in-depth conversation about Jesus’ death on the Cross because you got there early enough for him to look around and ask questions. And, then, he asks you over dinner if he can go with you again! Or a Cursillo weekend has so many would-be participants that a waiting list needs to be created. Your children have children and eventually decide they want their offspring to have faith and receive the sacraments, so they come back to the Church after all.
There are many ways we could look at this parable, but for me, it’s a story of faith and hope. God’s plan is for success in the end. No matter what happens along the way, God’s harvest will be more bountiful than anything you or I could ever imagine. Because we are God’s beloved children, God invites us to share in sowing the seeds of the Kingdom. Don’t worry about the ones that don’t seem to sprout or grow. Be extravagant. Continue sowing indiscriminately. God’s overall plan will never be thwarted and God’s Kingdom will come in all its fullness at a future time. The last word will always be the yield of thirty-, sixty-, and a hundredfold and never the trials and errors along the way.
Action
Where in your life have you encountered pesky birds, rocky soil, shallow roots or thorns? What discourages you as you toil for the Lord? Offer it to God in prayer, and rest assured that God is always more interested in our efforts than in the immediate results. God’s plan over all of time is for success, and God’s plan will prevail.
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