The Rich Soil of Saints Timothy and Titus, January 26, 2022

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Wednesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of Saint Timothy and Titus
January 26, 2022
2 Tim 1:1-8, Ps 96, Mk 4:1-20

To listen to an audio recording of today’s Mass please click here: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Three days ago the Church celebrated Sunday of the Word of God. Today Jesus gives us one of his most important parables about how we are to receive the gift of that word and what to expect when we seek to share that word with others. He calls the word a seed, he describes how he, and later his followers, sow that word, and then he talks about four different types of response to it in four different types of soil. Today is an opportunity for us to take a soil sample of our receptivity to God’s word in our life and more broadly our openness to God’s action. It’s also a day on which we can see the fruitfulness of the Word in the lives of the great collaborators of St. Paul, SS. Timothy and Titus.
• Let’s begin with the Parable of the Sower and the Seed. Jesus uses not just this parable but every parable to bring into the light the receptivity of those who hear him. When he was asked by those with the apostles why he spoke in parables, he said, quoting the Prophet Isaiah, “The mystery of the Kingdom of God has been granted to you. But to those outside everything comes in parables, so that ‘they may look and see but not perceive, and hear and listen but not understand, in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.’” Jesus uses parables because it exposes whether those listening are hungry to grow in truth. The parables require some work to understand and especially to grasp their application by analogy to the things of the life of faith. There are some — we could say, some with the first three types of soil Jesus will say later in the Parable — who won’t really put in the work to comprehend them. They’ll look and see but not perceive, hear and listen but not understand precisely because they don’t think they really need the truth of the parable at all or enough to justify the effort. They don’t really think they need conversion, need saving, and need that word. It’s only those with good soil, who hunger for the truth, who will put in the effort to decipher the meaning of the parable and live by it. They’re the ones who will struggle, together with God’s grace, to hear and listen in order to understand, to see and perceive.
• To understand the meaning of the parable, we first need to grasp how farming was done in Jesus’ day. Farm plots were long and thin and there were paths between them on which the farmers and all pedestrians would walk. Sowers would just scatter seed everywhere and it would land in various places. Then the farmers would go and try to turn over the soil — rather than turning over the soil and then planting, as we do today.
• Jesus describes four types of earth that the seed of his Word and work falls upon. The first is soil along the path. Over time, the dirt would be packed down, the seed couldn’t penetrate it, and the birds would come and eat the seeds that had fallen upon it. This refers to those with stubborn soil, who are not receptive to God’s word, either because they’re inveterate sinners or because they think they already know what they need to know. Jesus says, “As soon as they hear, Satan comes at once and takes away the word sown in them.”
• The second type of soil is “rocky ground,” where there is “little soil.” These refer to those who are superficial. In the Holy Land, many areas have a thick layer of limestone a few inches beneath the surface. It keeps most the water within those three inches and so at first a seed will sprout up immediately, but because of the limestone, the roots can’t go very deep and when the not Middle Eastern sun arises, it desiccates the soil quickly and scorches and withers the new plant. Jesus says these are the ones who “when they hear the word, receive it at once with joy. But they have no roots; they last only for a time. Then when tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.” We find this soil in those who listen to the Word looking to “learn something” or to “be entertained” or to “like” it, rather than to have their life changed by it. These are the ones who will discard it as soon as the going gets tough because they were receiving it mainly for their pleasure rather than as a life-saving rescue. These are the ones who won’t do the work to drill down through the layers of limestone so that the roots of faith will be solid and will remain even in the midst of storms.
• The third type of soil is “thorny,” in which the thorns choke the growth of the seed such that it produces no grain. This soil is otherwise good, but there are other things growing in it that not only consume the nutrients but choke the growth of the good seed so that no fruit comes. Jesus describes that those with this type of soil “hear the word, but worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the craving for other things intrude and choke the word, and it bears no fruit.” Notice that thorns are not described as sins, which obviously can be poison for the growth of the seed of God’s word, but rather “anxiety,” “lure of riches” and “craving for other things.” If we’re preoccupied with something, or drawn to some god or pleasure of our own making more than we are to God, then obviously God’s seed won’t grow, even if the soil would be able to be fruitful. If we’re worried about a loved one’s health, or if we are really thinking about breakfast, we’re going to be distracted from receiving and responding to the word of God.
• The final type of soil is what Jesus hopes and wants each of us to have: It’s “rich” or “good soil,” and Jesus says that those with it feature three things. First, they “hear the word.” They’re listening in order to understand and to obey, not just giving idle ears. Second, they “accept it.” They’re actively seeking to welcome it, to say “fiat” to it, to put it into practice. And third, they “bear fruit” from it. And Jesus doesn’t say they just bear “some fruit” or a “little fruit” but massive fruit: 30, 60 or 100-fold. If we have rich soil, the seed God implants will bear a cornucopia. It will change our lives 30, 60 or 100 ways, not necessarily all at the beginning, but it will continue to bear fruit just like a good plant or tree does. Those with good soil are the ones who drill down below the surface; they constantly seek to put their heart in God and in his providence rather than let preoccupations rob them of their faith or riches or other things take the place of God. They are the ones who listen differently, who see differently, who hunger, who starve to receive God’s word as the light of their life. Jesus wants us all to have this type of receptivity and response to all that he seeks to do in us.
• Today in SS. Timothy and Titus, like with their spiritual Father, Saint Paul, we see the extraordinary fruitfulness of the Word of God. St. Paul praises St. Timothy for having been acquainted with the Scriptures since childhood (2 Tim 1:5) and he encourages him in his letter to have greater confidence still. “Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction and for training in righteousness so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:14-16). When in today’s passage St. Paul urges him to “stir into a flame the gift of God” Timothy had received, a key part of that gift was love for God and his holy word. We are all called to have our love for knowing God’s word and doing it grow into a bonfire.
• Likewise St. Paul communicated that same holy desire to do God’s will to his collaborator St. Titus. In the passage the Church proposes today as an alternate first reading, St. Paul described how God “at the proper time revealed his word in the proclamation with which I was entrusted.” He heard the Word of God, meditated upon it and had an inner woe until he shared it as of the first importance with others. He knew that Titus, too, had been entrusted with the proclamation of that word and throughout his letter he urged Titus to “say what is consistent with sound doctrine (Tit 2:1), encouraging him to see that the way that he would be able to exhort others effectively would be by “holding fast to the true message as taught” (Tit 1:9).
• As we, like Paul, Timothy and Titus, seek to “proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations,” to “sing to the Lord a new song,” to “bless his name,” to “announce his salvation day after day,” to “tell his glory among the nations, [and] among all peoples his wondrous deeds,” to “give to the Lord glory and praise, … the glory due his name!,” we need to get to know more and more deeply the “lyrics” of Sacred Scripture, the deeds of God throughout salvation history, the sound doctrine for training in holiness we find there. We sing that song ever new, because the deeper we enter into it, the more we discover and we learn how to sing those truths in different melodies, modes and moods. St. Paul and his collaborators proclaimed this message in all its freshness not with, as Paul says to Timothy today, “a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.” They were willing to suffer for it, to “bear [their] share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God,” knowing that God’s word gives strength to do his will. They received the word of God on good soil and bore fruit through their sowing it with joy across all the soil samples of the ancient world.
• St. Paul, St. Timothy, St. Titus proclaimed the Word of God in various ways as they built up the Church, but the most privileged way of all was in the celebration of the Mass, as they went from the Word of God to the sacrament of the Word made flesh. They were present with St. Paul as he celebrated the Lord’s Supper for the first Christians. They were ordained to lead the first generations of followers in grounding their whole existence not just on the words of God, but the Word of God incarnate on the altar. This is the means by God stirs into a flame the gifts he has given us. This is the means by which we do his will, as we “do this in memory of” him. This is what strengthens us to leave Mass with a holy woe to proclaim, like they did and with their intercession, these most marvelous gifts of all to the whole world!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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