One of my lasting COVID-19 pandemic hobbies is gardening. I began it, with the encouragement of a friend, and it has become an incredible blessing in my life. Not only is it great to eat fresh vegetables out of the garden, but the activity of planting, pruning, nurturing and harvesting is giving me such a real experience of life and all its cycles. The Gospel this weekend comes to life in my activity of gardening. Where is it that you experience the fertility and cycles of life?

I think it is common sense to know that you can’t plant a seed on a rock and expect it to grow and be fruitful. I remember as a child in a city parish celebrating the rogation days, days in which we prayed a blessing upon the crops so that we would have food to eat. I remember processing around our asphalt parking lot and sprinkling it with holy water. I knew in my child’s mind that there was something wrong with that. Once I moved to All Saints Parish in St. Peters as a young priest, the farmers of the parish taught me the significance of this Gospel, and how important it was for all of us, in both a literal and figurative sense.

There is so much talk in the Church today, and especially in our archdiocese, about sowing the seed of faith. We use the word “evangelization” or “new evangelization” and expect people to get excited about sharing their faith. Thank God, we are beginning to offer people opportunities to learn how to do that, rather than just tell them to do it. Each of us has to overcome our fear of sowing the seeds of faith. Maybe we believe that we don’t know enough about our faith to actually share it with another. That might be because we view our faith as a set of words in a book, rather than a relationship with Jesus. We might have to change our beliefs about the nature of faith. Do we still view it as an individual relationship with Jesus Christ to be kept private, or are we called to experience the fruitfulness of that relationship and share it with others so that they may also have it?

We all know that we can’t give to someone else what we don’t have. This Gospel is an invitation to make sure we are doing what we can to receive the seed of faith through constant encounters with Jesus in the well-tilled soil of our minds and hearts. How much time do you spend reading the Scriptures? How much time do you spend praying? How much time do you spend celebrating the Eucharist with others? Celebrating the sacrament of reconciliation? Do you take any time to spend with the poor and the downtrodden? How are you trying to increase your habit of forgiveness and reconciliation for others, especially your enemies? All of these habits till the soil of our minds and hearts, preparing to encounter Jesus Christ.

There is so much about the growth of faith that depends on the grace, mercy and love of God, but that does not exempt us from working to make sure that the seed of faith is available to others around us. Next time you get a chance to talk to a farmer, ask them how much of their harvest depends on them and how much of their harvest depends on God. They will tell you that they have a constant relationship and dependence on God because of the elements of life they do not control, but that does not keep them from tilling, fertilizing, cultivating and harvesting so they know they have done everything they can. Have you become cynical and hopeless, or are you still working to make the harvest for Jesus Christ more fruitful?

Father Donald Wester is pastor of All Saints Parish in St. Peters.