Page 227 - spiritual_accompaniment_montreal_archdiocese

HOMILIES

How does the Gospel continue? Jesus proclaims: “I will heal them.” Jesus has the power to
heal us from our fears. He has the power to heal our fears to hear his Word. He has the power
to heal us from our fear to convert. He has the power to heal us from our hardness of heart,
the hardness of the heart which closes it to conversion.

When the Bible speaks of a heart that is afraid of conversion, it speaks of hardness of heart.
The rock is a symbol, so to speak, of a heart that is hardened. It follows that when Jesus speaks
of sowing on rocky ground, he means in hardened hearts. He does it anyway, because he has
the power to transform hearts of stone into hearts of tenderness. This is the faith of the Bible!
And God has the power to transform our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.

Hearing this parable of the sower and the different types of soil, a parable which we have
known so long and heard so often, we ask ourselves, how do I fit into this text? Each one of us
will probably say to himself, “Well, yes, I have problems, I am not perfect, but there must be
at least some good soil in me.”

But perhaps we should look at this question from another angle. Perhaps we should say, more
fundamentally, “Well, this hardened heart is in me!” There probably are certain areas of hard-
ness deep down in my heart. Some areas remain open, yes, areas of tenderness, yes, but there
are also still areas of stone. Therefore, the hardened heart that Jesus refers to is probably
mine!

The path, on which some of the seed mentioned by Jesus fell, could represent times when we
were rather indifferent to God’s Word, times during which we neglected to take the Word of
God seriously enough, letting the Evil One stop the Word of God from reaching us. Somehow,
the image of the path applies to us as well. We might have a forgetfulness of God, a forgetful-
ness of his Word, and a forgetfulness of his will.

Now we consider the other image used by Jesus, the one of the thorns representing life’s
worries, our being preoccupied with material well-being and anxieties, which may be
legitimate. But we can let our concerns about health and wealth, as much as they are linked
to our wellbeing, suffocate our life, take control of it, paralyze us and keep us from living our
life and loving. Perhaps we can find some or all of this in ourselves. But Jesus comes to heal us!

Jesus mentions all these types of hearts, but he says, “I will heal them.” Jesus has the power
to heal all our forgetfulness of God, all hardness before God, and our anxieties which we have
allowed to imprison us. Jesus has the power to heal us.

(cont’d)

Collection of texts by the Most Rev. Christian Lépine 227