Sowing, Growing and what is in between!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 24th week in Ordinary time

September 17, 2022: I Corinthians 15: 35-37, 42-49; Luke 8: 4-15

The Word today speaks to us of sowing and growing, and what goes on in between these - between dying and being reborn! Our Christian history is so full of martyrdom, and it highlights in a vivid manner, the aspects of dying to ourselves and being reborn in Christ is a criterion for Christian living (cf. Rom 6). In fact, it is true of every Christian... our very life has to be one of daily martyrdom - dying to our ego and growing in a deep sense of being; dying to our petty desires and growing in the sense of the Will of God; dying to our pleasure-seeking tendencies and looking at the nourishing value of suffering and hardships in life. 

Many of us who claim to be followers, disciples and apostles of Christ, still refuse to die to certain tendencies and elements within our self, which militate against the Spirit who wants to dwell within us, for we are called to be the temples of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 3:16, 6:19). When there is a resistance to death, there is a resistance to new life, a resistance to resurrection. Where there is resistance to dying, there is a big struggle against growth.

These are indeed instances that are against our becoming totally the dwelling place of God: like the parched land or the scorching heat or the choking thorns. They are everyone's experience and cannot be cited as valid reasons for our personal lack of commitment to belong to God and for our lagging in efforts to grow closer to God. God has sown, God has called us and chosen us and appointed us each, in our life and in our own context. What matters now is our personal commitment, perseverance and loving decision to belong and to grow into the image and likeness of the One who has loved us into existence.