On Saturdays, we pre-send the Sunday reflection for families - the same one Hearth & Altar subscribers receive at the table together.

Have a blessed Sunday - we'll be back Monday morning.

Sunday's Reflection — Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Is 55:10-11; Ps 65:10, 11, 12-13, 14; Rom 8:18-23; Mt 13:1-23

My word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it. The rain and snow do not return to the heavens until they have watered the earth, made it fertile, given seed to the sower and bread to the one who eats. The word of God works the same way: it goes out and it does something. It achieves what it was sent to do.

The Parable of the Sower is not primarily about the soil. The sower goes out and sows - and the sowing is generous and indiscriminate. The seed goes on the path, the rocky ground, among the thorns, and on the rich soil. The sowing does not first assess the conditions. The word that was sent does not return void, and it is sent without calculating the reception.

The thorns choke the word and it bears no fruit. The anxiety and the lure of riches are the thorns. They do not uproot the word - they grow up around it and steal the light. The word is still there. The fruit is what is missing.

All creation is groaning in labor pains, waiting for the redemption of our bodies. The household in ordinary time is a household in labor - in the groaning that is between the firstfruits and the full harvest, between the seed and the hundredfold. The waiting is itself the form of the faithfulness.

Universal Prayer

• For our family, that we would tend the soil of our household's spiritual life - pulling the thorns of anxiety and the lure of riches before they steal the light from the word already planted, we pray to the Lord.
• For those whose word has been stolen from the path before it could take root - who heard without understanding - that another sowing would come and the conditions for receiving would deepen, we pray to the Lord.
• For those who received with joy on rocky ground and fell away when the persecution came, that the root would go deeper before the next tribulation arrives, we pray to the Lord.
• In this Precious Blood month, for the Precious Blood that is the rain and snow of Isaiah - the word that goes out and does not return void, achieving the end for which it was sent, we pray to the Lord.

Faith in Action

Worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word. Name the specific thorn in your household's spiritual life right now - not anxiety in general, the specific worry that has been stealing the light. Pull it this week. The word is already planted. The soil needs tending.

A Note for Parents

Blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear. The formation that produces seeing eyes and hearing ears is the long work of the household. The good soil is prepared over time. What you are doing with the word this week is the preparation.