309. Sixteenth Wednesday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 287 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The parable of the sower: dying to ourselves in order to give fruit.

Early one morning Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. As usual, great crowds gathered about him. He began to tell them the parable of the sower who went out to sow the seed. Borne on the wind, some of the seed landed on rocky ground, some among thorns, some along the path, while other seed fell on good soil and bore fruit.

It is a vivid scene. The divine sower is also sowing his seed today. The work of salvation is still going on, and our Lord wants us to share that work. He wants Christians to open to his love all the paths of the earth. He invites us to spread the divine message, by both teaching and example, to the farthest corners of the earth. He asks us, as citizens of both ecclesial and civil society, to be other Christs by fulfilling our duties conscientiously, sanctifying our everyday work and the responsibilities of our particular walk of life.

If we look around, if we take a look at the world, which we love because it is God’s handiwork, we will find that the parable holds true. The word of Jesus Christ is fruitful, it stirs many souls to dedication and fidelity. The life and conduct of those who serve God have changed history. Even many of those who do not know our Lord are motivated, perhaps unconsciously, by ideals which derive from Christianity.

We can also see that some of the seed falls on barren ground or among thorns and thistles; some hearts close themselves to the light of faith. Ideals of peace, reconciliation and brotherhood are widely accepted and proclaimed, but all too often the facts belie them. Some people are futilely bent on smothering God’s voice. To drown it out they use brute force or a method which is more subtle but perhaps more cruel because it drugs the spirit, indifference.

Jesus asks us for total commitment, to be grain that dies and yields fruit. Before us we have the example of our Founder, a man who lived only for God, the Church, the Work, and his daughters and sons: in a word, for souls. We are to imitate him, dying to ourselves in a spirit of constant concern for others. For if we, the labourers, are not faithful, there will come to pass what was described by the prophet Joel: The fields are laid waste, the ground mourns; because the grain is destroyed, the wine fails, the oil languishes. Be confounded, o tillers of the soil, wail, o vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley; because the harvest of the field has perished.

There is no harvest if we are not ready for constant, generous work, which can be long and tiring: ploughing the land, sowing the seed, weeding the fields, reaping and threshing… The kingdom of God is fashioned in history, in time. Our Lord has entrusted this task to us, and no one can feel exempt.

Our effectiveness is bound up with forgetfulness of self.

The good seed has to disappear into the soil. If the grain of wheat does not die, it remains unfruitful. -Don’t you want to be a grain of wheat, to die through mortification, and to yield stalks ripe with grain? -May Jesus bless your wheat field! The fruitfulness we desire, and which God promises, comes from detachment from self and communion with him. Have you not heard from the Master’s own lips the parable of the vine and the branches? -Take consolation: he’s making demands on you, because you are a branch that bears fruit… And he’s pruning you, ut fructum plus afferas, so that you may yield more fruit. * This pruning will rid us of pride, of excessive concern for self, and of that lazy comfort-seeking attitude which is so hostile to a steadfast apostolic life.

We have no right to sit back when souls all around us need our care. Only a real commitment on our part will allow us become all things to all people. We do not want to remain alone. We want to widen our family and leave a furrow that is bright and deep. So let us leave the “animal man” behind and launch out on a spiritual plane, seeing events and people in all their supernatural significance. As St Paul puts it, being apostles means bearing Christ crucified within us.

How could we imitate Christ without following in his footsteps? Co-redeeming means accompanying our Lord in his sacrifice; it means denying ourselves, saying “no” to things - small things most of the time, but following a constant rhythm - in the knowledge that this dying to ourselves is a guarantee of our effectiveness. It is only through this self-denial, and through our taking advantage of the opportunities offered to us by difficulties from within and without, that our apostolate will be fruitful. As our Father explained: Let me tell you how the Work has spread so quickly. Like a sack of wheat, it was mistreated and kicked around, but the seed was so tiny that it survived; it was scattered to the four winds and ended up all over the world, finding hearts that were ready, hungry for truth. That is what produced so many vocations: we are now a thriving family, and there are millions of souls that revere and love the Work, seeing in her a sign of God’s presence and his unfailing mercy towards us.

Since our effectiveness comes from travelling that path, God allows us to experience difficulties and misunderstandings. By accepting them from his hands we die to ourselves, and thus we are able to yield the spiritual and apostolic fruit he wants us to have.

Sacrifice leads to happiness and apostolic fruit.

We are here to serve, and to enable Christ to live in people’s souls. We do not belong to ourselves any more. That sort of generous attitude is what produces real happiness, and we hardly notice the Cross it involves. Giving, giving, giving! That’s the way: serving others. The way to be happy is not to have any problems of one’s own. The secret of happiness? Give of yourself without even expecting to be thanked for it. This joy is indispensable for encouraging others, for, in the words of St Augustine, if the preacher is not aflame how will he enkindle his audience?

Our Founder, with fatherly pride, spoke of the members of the Work in the following words, and what he says should be applicable to us all: Many people have spoken to me in amazement of the joy which, thanks be to God, my children in Opus Dei have and which they spread to others. Faced with this evident truth, I always give the same reply, because I know no other. Their happiness has its foundation in the fact that they fear neither life nor death; that they are not overwhelmed when they meet with misfortune; that they strive daily to live with a spirit of sacrifice, in spite of their own defects and weaknesses, and they are constantly ready to deny themselves in order to make the Christian path easier and more pleasant for others.

A passing enthusiasm will not do. May the fire of your Love not be a will-o’-the-wisp - an illusion, a deceitful fire, that neither sets ablaze what it touches, nor gives any heat. We are talking about a genuine, burning flame, which feeds off its own self-denial and ends up in a total gift of self. We are the seed in Christ’s wounded hands, and the divine Sower then casts the seed into the furrow. The sower puts his hand into the sack and brings it out full of shining golden grains, which he flings far and wide. That is how you and I have to give ourselves, without looking for any recompense on earth, or inventing imaginary trials. But, as the Gospel states, the grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die - so it seems - in order to bear fruit. Only if we do that will we be good seed for the sowing that our Lord wants to do, to open up divine paths on earth.

We ask our Lady, Handmaid of the Lord and Queen of Apostles, to foster our desire to serve souls and to make that desire bear fruit. Our Father’s advice on this point will also help: Sincerely examine the way you are following the Master. Ask yourself if your self-surrender is of a dry, officious type, with a faith that has no sparkle to it; if there is no humility or sacrifice, nor any good works throughout your day; if you are all show and pay no attention to the details of each moment… In a word, if you lack Love.

If this is the case, your ineffectiveness should come as no surprise to you. React right away, and be led by the hand of our Lady.