SPEAKER_00 0:00

The parable of the sower is one of many moral stories that Jesus told to teach us how we ought to seek out our salvation. Let us unpack the basic elements before we examine its content. Firstly, God is the sower, and he wants all to be saved, but not all will be. Secondly, the seed represents the truths of salvation, those truths we need to learn and live by. Christ imparts his truths to all people, as the sower broadcasts his seed far and wide. Thirdly, the same seed survives or dies depending on the environment in which it finds itself. Now this is most important. In like manner, the same truths are given freely to all, but they do not all bear fruit, and some are not saved, and some are. Note it's not the seed's fault that it dies. And whose fault is it? Well Jesus explains that there are three distinct causes of the seed's death. Firstly, the birds came and devoured them. Secondly, thorns grew up and choked them. Thirdly, shallow soil meant that they were scorched, didn't have roots. Apart from these natural and biological causes, which are clearly explicable, we can draw a deeper meaning for our own spiritual welfare. Note again the three causes. One is animal life, which is higher than seed or plant life. The other is choking thorns, that is plant life versus plant life and one stronger. The last is inorganic matter, the soil, or rather the lack of soil. This is something that ought to be there and isn't. For example, in rocky terrain, the soil is very shallow and you can't grow crops. The land's only good for grazing. Now in our own spiritual life we can see that the majority of people around us have given up the practice of the faith. For only one in ten go to mass. This loss of faith, why people don't believe in the truths of salvation can be traced back to these three same causes. Firstly birds. Birds are higher beings than plant or seeds. There are higher beings that have devoured the faith of many by lies and scandal. For example, how many young people have been deceived in our universities and academic institutions about our Christian heritage and history and the real existence of Christ? Also lies come from the evil one and his spiritual predators, who have devoured the hearts of many young people by immorality and drugs. Is not Satanism today a recognized religion in our culture? Is there not an unhealthy fascination with the occult in our modern world? Thorns. Other people have choked or suffocated the selvific fruits of God. How? Well our politicians ever since COVID regard God and religion as a non essential service. Church is not important, as classified with entertainment. Constant social media suffocates our well being, advertising physical pleasures, while denying us the spiritual truths for which our souls were created for. Also our medical professionals constantly clamor for our bodily attention at the expense of our spiritual and mental well being. Holistic health, on the other hand, can help both body and soul and increase our overall well being. Thirdly, shallow soil. Deformed spiritual growth is caused by a harsh home habitat. Harsh means devoid of virtues of prayer. The fruits of Christian living peace, joy, kindness, gentleness just don't happen. They must like the soil be cultivated. Grace and prayer are the spiritual minerals and fertilizers that help and enable the soul's life to expand and take root. Otherwise the faith remains only on the surface, like many nominal Catholics, somewhat like the veneer covering on some houses, which eventually peels off. Let us be like the seed that fell on good soil and yielded a crop because it was fed by means of grace and virtue. Thus our spiritual roots will be deep, and we can contend with the issues and temptations set before us. One such person who struggled in that regard and produced much fruit was Saint Camillus. His feast is this week. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XV in seventeen forty two, and is the patron saint of the sick, hospitals, nurses, physicians and wait for it gamblers. Born in Abruzzo, Italy in fifteen fifty, his father was an officer in the army, and rarely at home, and failed to provide him with much formation so that the virtues weren't cultivated. And after the death of his mother, Camillus grew up like his father, with a violent temper, joined the army, where the addiction of gambling tragically suffocated his well being. Eventually, after a leg injury, Camillus left the army, was forced to, and because of his abject poverty had nothing. The Franciscans cared for him in spite of his faults and flaws, and they sought to cultivate in him some virtues. He was in his twenties at this stage. They tilled the soil of his soul, that it gradually allowed roots to become visible and profound. While recuperating in the hospice, he received an actual grace that he was being called to provide care for the sick. The deplorable situation of the sick in the sixteenth century before hospitals inspired him to become a priest and found a religious order whose health care workers would assist those in sick and suffering circumstances. Their uniform was a black cassock with a large red cross on the front as a symbol of charity and service. During a horrible famine and plague where sixty thousand people died in Brahmaloan, Camillus and his nurses wasted no time in reaching out to the poor, clothing them, feeding them, offering shelter and administering the last rites to the dying. Camillus even went back to the battlefield, only now as a soldier of mercy. The Red Cross on his breast administering to the sick and the dying. His companions went into the battlefields of Hungary in Croatia in the years fifteen ninety five and six oh one sixteen oh one, and they formed what we call the first military ambulance. This was the original Red Cross. They gave rise hundreds of years later to our well known International Society of the Red Cross. For God had sown the seeds in the heart of Camillus that in time bore much fruit for all.