Pope Francis reflects on parable of the sower

July 17, 2017

Pope Francis reflected on the parable of the sower (Mt. 13:1-23), the day’s Gospel reading at Mass, during his July 16 Sunday Angelus address (Italian text, video).

The Pope told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square that Jesus spoke in a different manner from the “doctors of the law,” who used “complicated language” that “was not well understood, but was full of rigidity and distanced the people.”

In the parable, Jesus performs, as it were, “a ‘spiritual x-ray’ of our heart, which is the soil on which the seed of His Word falls,” the Pope continued. “Our heart, like the soil, can be good and then the Word bears fruit—and so much—but it can also be hard, impermeable.”

After reflecting on the different types of soil in the parable, the Pope concluded:

Let us find the courage to make a good soil remediation, a good remediation of our heart, bringing to the Lord in Confession and prayer our stones and our brambles. Thus Jesus, the good sower, will be happy to carry out an additional work: to purify our heart, removing the stones and thorns that choke the Word.

May the Mother of God, who today we remember with the title Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel, unsurpassable in receiving the Word of God and putting it into practice (cf. Lk. 8:21), help us to purify our heart and to keep the presence of the Lord.

 

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Further information:

• Angelus Address: On the Parable of the Sower (Zenit)
• Angelus: As the sower Jesus performs a spiritual radiography of our heart (Vatican Radio)