"You cannot change the seed,
but you can change the quality of the soil."

The lesson of today's Gospel is very simple: You cannot change the seed, but you can change the quality of the soil.

This is something that every gardener knows quite well. For example, when I planted my vegetable garden many years ago at our house in Barrington, I was not able to change the quality of the seed I bought at the local nursery. Once I had purchased it, that factor was beyond my control. But it was within my power to control the quality of the soil in which I planted those seeds--that's why I had one of the local farmers bring me a big load of cow manure every year! Tomatoes and peppers always grow better in soil that's well-fertilized, be it with processed fertilizer or the more "natural" type.

In telling us this parable Jesus is reminding us that we cannot change the quality of the "seed" (which is his Word), but we can control the disposition of our heart (which is the "soil" in which the Word is meant to take root). Now--to be sure--there are some people who do think they can manipulate God's Word to their own liking, but they're living in a dream world. God's Word is what it is; it comes to us in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition and it cannot be changed--not even by the pope!

This is why the seed is constant throughout the parable. It's always the same, because God's Word--God's Truth--is always the same. The only variable in the equation is the quality of the soil. Jesus mentions four types here, representing four possible responses we can have to the Lord's unchanging Word. The first type of soil is the hard, packed-down type found on the footpath. This represents people who--among other things--fall asleep at Mass. These are men and women who couldn't care less about what the Church teaches, or why the Church teaches what it teaches. And so, as Jesus tells us in his commentary, Satan steals the Word from them almost as soon as they're presented with it, because they hear the Word without understanding it. Implicit in the Lord's remark seems to be the idea that these people also have no desire to understand it. If you asked them to read the Scriptures or the Catechism in order to be enlightened they would probably say, "Forget it. I've got better things to do."

The rocky ground represents those who let their trials take them away from God. A very common phenomenon, unfortunately. "I prayed to be healed, but it didn't happen, so I gave up on that religion stuff." Sadly, most of us have heard statements like that at one time or another.

The thorns growing in the third type of soil represent not only the lust for money, possessions and power (which can easily undermine our devotion to God), but they also represent what Jesus calls "worldly anxiety." Imagine someone saying this: "That Gospel message of love and mercy is fine for church on Sundays, but it's a 'dog eat dog' world out there! You've got to get the other guy before he gets you! There's no way anybody can live the message of Jesus in the real world, so I don't even try." Those are the words of a person experiencing "worldly anxiety."