St. Anthony the Abbot Catholic Church

Christ's words have power. Immense crowds press upon Him as He teaches. The crowd was so big, Jesus actually got into a fishing boat and used the lake as His speaking platform, so that He could address everyone gathered on the shore.  Crowds like this hung on His every word wherever He went.

He could easily have turned them into a revolutionary army and manipulated them for any number of   purposes.  But instead, He simply invites them to change their hearts.   Jesus truly is the Lord, but He refuses to bully us into following Him. He is the "sower" of the parable, spreading God's Word and announcing God's invitation, but never forcing hearts to welcome it.

Jesus desired to spread the Gospel to all people with combination of eagerness to win over disciples, but respect for His listeners' freedom is especially evident in Jesus' use of parables. A parable is a simple comparison between a hard-to-understand divine truth, a truth about God and His plan of salvation, and a well-known earthly reality. Some interpreters say that Jesus used these stories and comparisons to conceal His meaning from His opponents.  But there is also another way to look at it.

Sometimes people don't want to accept the plain truth, because it means they have to change.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught the plain truth. But many didn't accept it. So now He takes a more roundabout way to convince them. The parables offer His listeners a chance to accept certain truths in the abstract, before seeing how they apply to them personally. It's a way of sneaking uncomfortable truths through His listener's mental defense mechanisms, penetrating indirectly the minds that have closed themselves to His direct proclamations. Jesus always respects our freedom, but He never gives up on convincing us to use that freedom well.

"It is necessary that each person freely accept the truth of the love of God. He is Love and Truth, and love as well as truth never impose themselves: They knock on the door of the heart and mind and, where they enter, bring peace and joy. This is the way God reigns; this is his plan of salvation." Pope Benedict XVI, Homily for the Solemnity of Christ the King, 25 November 2006

One important truth this parable teaches is that our freedom doesn't operate in a vacuum. We truly are free to choose to follow Christ or not follow Christ, but outside factors influence that freedom, trying to get us to choose a self-centered life over a Christ-centered life. The first influence is the devil, represented by the birds that eat the seed of the path. The devil is real. He and his army of fallen angels hate God and God's followers. They influenced our first parents, Adam and Eve, successfully tempting them to disobey God's commandments, thereby breaking off their friendship with God. The devil wants to do the same thing to us.  So he is always planting half-truths in our minds: God won't mind if you have a little fun; God won't be able to forgive that sin; you don't really need the sacraments, you can just go to God directly, all by yourself... He uses subtle deceptions to uproot our friendship with God.

The second influence is our own tendency to laziness and comfort, what St. Paul calls "the flesh."  This is represented by the rocky soil. Many times, God's will demands self-sacrifice - we have to carry crosses, just as Jesus did, if we want to be faithful to our life's purpose. Our ingrained love for comfort resists self-sacrifice.

The third influence is the culture around us, which is a product of fallen human nature. This is represented by the thorns. This fallen world promises perfect happiness in money, achievements, popularity, or passing pleasures. That's a false promise, because God alone satisfies the human heart. When we follow God's will and stay true to our friendship with Christ even in the face of these contrary influences, then our lives bear the abundant fruit of wisdom, compassion, and lasting happiness.

God knows that using our freedom well is not easy. He knows better than we do the subtlety of the devil's deceptions, the force of our selfish tendencies, the allure of the world's treasures and pleasures. And so God, because He loves us with a perfect Father's love, has provided helps for our freedom.

He has given us the sacrament of confession, which is a healing sacrament as well as a sacrament of forgiveness. Whenever we give in to our selfish tendencies and sin, we damage our freedom, we put chains around it. The sacrament of confession breaks those chains and strengthens us against future temptations.

He has given us the sacrament of the Eucharist.  Holy Communion is not just a symbol of the Last Supper.  It is our reception of Christ's own body and blood, of Christ's very own strength.  It bolsters everything that is good in us, strengthening us against all that is evil.

He has also given us the Church's guaranteed teaching authority, the Magisterium.  When the pope and the bishops in communion with Him teach us that certain actions or behaviors are morally wrong, like abortion, pre-marital sex, and contraception, we have Christ's own guarantee that they will not lead us astray. This clarity about right and wrong strengthens our freedom, because the devil operates best in grey areas.

Finally, Jesus has given us the incredible gift of prayer.  Whenever we feel our freedom under attack, we can pray.  We have non-stop direct access to the all-powerful God, Who will never fail to come to our aid.

The sacraments, Church teaching, and prayer - these are our front-line defenses against the devil, the flesh, and the world. Today, let us thank God for these gifts, and promise that we will use them well.