Wednesday July 20, 2022

Making scripture meaningful to your daily life

Wednesday of the 16th Week of Ordinary Time
Memorial of Saint Apollinaris, bishop and martyr
July 20, 2022

My Lord, give me the grace to open myself up to Your Word and to practice it, to be patient with my limitations and to consecrate my life to proclaiming You in every time and place. Amen.

Jeremiah 1:1, 4-10
Ps 71:1-6ab,15,17
Matthew 13:1-9
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072022.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/2022-07-20

You are a modern-day Jeremiah. God has given you a Word to speak: his holy Word in the form of encouragement, affirmation, faith-building, or healing. You have knowledge about the kingdom of God that will benefit others. You have experiences that can inspire others to grow closer to God. You have wisdom from the Holy Spirit that’s meant to be shared.

God appointed you to be one of his prophets while you were still in your mother’s womb. Though you might feel inadequate for the task (like Jeremiah did when he thought he was too young in today’s first reading), God is the one who will place the words in your mouth. What he shares with you to share with others is more than adequate!

So what’s stopping you from doing more? Why do you hesitate? What do you fear? For most of us, the feeling of inadequacy is a consequence of focusing on ourselves and forgetting that God has a bigger role than we do in fulfilling what he calls us to do. He supplies us with everything we need for success.

Consider how much you enjoyed helping people in the past, but alas, some of them have not responded well. Do you feel like you failed? This contributes to the feeling of inadequacy. Are you afraid that you can’t make a big enough difference, so why try? Have you decided that to care so much about someone is just too painful and too sad, because you cannot see good results coming from your attempts to help?

We don’t like being the farmer of the parable in the Gospel reading for Wednesday of the 16th Week of Ordinary Time. We don’t like working hard in the blazing sun only to watch the crops die.

To find renewed energy, we must spend time appreciating the differences that we have made. Not everyone has rejected our help. Some have been rich soil, and the seeds we’ve sowed have sprouted and produced new growth.

And where our efforts have failed, well, we never know when rocky soil is going to become fertile soil. The groundwork we’ve laid is never futile, but it might take another farmer to produce results. God appreciates the hard work we do, even when the soil produces nothing good. Apparent failures should never stop us. Why should someone else be denied the seeds we can give, just because we’ve stubbed our toes on dry or rocky soil?

We should take our stubbed toes to the Lord and let him heal us. Then the seeds of our healing will produce a harvest of courage, and the fruits that grow will produce seeds that can help others find healing too.

So what if only some of our seeds sprout and grow? The only thing that matters is that we are called to be farmers. We are not responsible for making the seeds grow; we are only the sowers.

Thank you for reflecting with us on this Wednesday of the 16th Week of Ordinary Time!

Reflect more on this subject with our video: “How to see the unseen” @ https://gnm-media.org/how-to-see-the-unseen/.