The Human Heart

Wednesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time A-1

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 96 (95): 1, 6 O sing a new song to the Lord; sing to the Lord, all the earth. In his presence are majesty and splendour, strength and honour in his holy place.

Collect Almighty ever‑living God, direct our actions according to your good pleasure, that in the name of your beloved Son we may abound in good works. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: 2 Samuel 7:4-17; Psalm 89:4-5, 27-30; Mark 4:1-20

Jesus again began to teach by the sea side, and a great multitude gathered before him so he boarded a boat and sat there on the Lake. The whole concourse stood on the land by the shore. He taught them many things in parables, and said to them: “Listen. Behold, a sower went out to sow. While he sowed some seed fell by the wayside and the birds of the air came and ate it up. Others fell upon stony ground where it had little soil and it shot up immediately because it had no depth of earth. When the sun rose it was scorched and because it had no root it withered away. Some fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked it and it yielded no fruit. Some fell upon good ground and produced a crop that grew, increased and gave its yield, one thirty, another sixty, and another a hundred.” He then said, “He that has ears to hear, let him hear.” When he was alone the twelve who were with him asked him about the parable. He said to them, “To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. But to those outside all is explained in parables in order that seeing they may see and not perceive and hearing they may hear and not understand, lest at any time they should be converted and their sins forgiven them. He said to them, “Are you ignorant of this parable? How shall you know the other parables? He that sows, is the sower of the word. Those by the wayside are those whom, upon hearing the word that was sown, Satan immediately approaches and deprives of the word that was sown in their hearts. Similarly the seed sown on stony ground are those who when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with joy. But they have no root in them and last only for a time. When tribulation and persecution arises on account of the word they stumble. Others there are who are sown among thorns. These are they who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts after other things enter in and choke the word, and it is made fruitless. The ones who are sown on good soil are those who hear the word and receive it. They yield fruit, one thirty, another sixty, and another a hundredfold.” (Mark 4:1-20)

The Human Heart What must have been the thoughts filling the heart of our Lord as the crowds sought to be with him? We are told of his immense compassion and of how power continually went forth from him. But our Lord had no illusions about the crowds as such. In our Gospel passage today we are told that the numbers were so great and importunate that he chose to move out from the shore and teach them from the water. He sat in the boat and spoke from there, gazing on the people whom on another occasion he said were like sheep without a shepherd. As he spoke his eyes roved among the people, observing persons of all ages and various walks of life. Our Lord did not look on people as simply members of a crowd. He, we are told elsewhere in St John’s Gospel, knew their hearts. So what do we find him speaking of? He is speaking of the attitude of those who listen to his word. Very many do not listen with the attitude that is necessary for what he is saying to have its effect. He is trying to alert the crowd to the change of heart they must undergo as they listen to him. He uses a parallel from their everyday life drawn from their work in the fields. Some are hard of heart and his word will not penetrate at all. They are like the seed that falls on the path and the birds take it away. What our Lord is saying to them gets nowhere at all. Others are like the seed that gets a happy reception initially, but there is no depth to them. A little difficulty and it is gone. Others are filled with other interests and cares, such as their income, their possessions, their worries and ambitions. With them, what our Lord is speaking of in his discourses does not have a chance. It is choked out of life. But there are some among the crowd who will do well with what our Lord is saying. They will do well because they will truly receive the word into their hearts and retain it, allowing it to germinate and bear fruit. They hang on to what our Lord is telling them. They treasure it in their hearts and because of their readiness, their appreciation, their inner freedom to appropriate it, it flowers in the results God intends.

We observe that our Lord deliberately spoke to them only suggestively. He was not explicit in his description of their dispositions. He told a story and let it stand without its explanation, hoping that the crowd would ponder on it and grasp its point. Why did he do this? He explained to his Apostles that he did this because basically they were unwilling to accept the light. “To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. But to those outside all is explained in parables in order that seeing they may see and not perceive and hearing they may hear and not understand, lest at any time they should be converted and their sins forgiven them” (Mark 4:1‑20). They were blind to their own unwillingness. It was an unwillingness to convert from their sins and hardheartedness, and so have their sins forgiven them. In this way our Lord reveals man’s basic problem, and the problem facing all those who hear the proclamation of the Good News of Christ. That problem is the condition of their own hearts, the readiness to turn away from sin and believe what Christ has revealed. They are not ready because they do not want it — all the while, perhaps, not realizing it. The sin that is in their hearts is at times before them and at times somewhat hidden to them, but it is due to their own fault. They are unwilling to recognize and turn away from their sins and be converted. It is this attitude and stance of the will which our Lord saw in the crowds who converged on him and who pressed about him. As already mentioned, St John in his Gospel tells us that our Lord could read the hearts of all, and here in our Gospel passage today our Lord is speaking of the hearts of the crowds before him. It was precisely because of the condition of their hearts that he spoke here to them in parables. We are all thus warned. It is so very difficult to be alive to the starting points and assumptions that pervade our hearts, let alone to set them right. We ought ask the Holy Spirit to make us truly ready for the word of Christ.

Our vocation in life is not merely to be very good people, which the natural conscience presses upon every man and woman. No, we are called to the holiness that Christ came to offer us through the gift of the Holy Spirit. But we must on our part be the good soil of our Lord’s parable. This means having the readiness to receive wholeheartedly the word and teaching of Christ which, generation after generation, comes in and through the word and teaching of the Church he founded on the Apostles with Peter at their head. That readiness is a gift of the Holy Spirit — and for this reason our Lord tells his Apostles in our Gospel passage that to them it has been given. Let us pray to the Spirit of God asking that this grace be given to us too — and then let us be faithful to it.

(E.J.Tyler)

----------------------