You visit the
earth and water it,
make it abundantly
fertile.
God’s stream is
filled with water;
you supply their
grain.
Thus do you
prepare it:
you drench its plowed
furrows,
and level its
ridges.
With showers you
keep it soft,
blessing its young
sprouts.
You adorn the year
with your bounty;
your paths drip
with fruitful rain.
The meadows of the
wilderness also drip;
the hills are
robed with joy.
The pastures are
clothed with flocks,
the valleys
blanketed with grain;
they cheer and
sing for joy.[1]
What do you do with this
reading? The notes in the NAB tells us
this refers to agriculture, as do some commentaries. Therefore, such passages as these, we
normally read and dismiss, deeming there is nothing here that we do not already
know. What we must meditate upon is that
agriculture is an allegory of life, especially of spiritual life.
Man was created from the earth. In Genesis, we read, “The LORD God formed man
of dust from the ground.” This is God
visiting the earth. Because the Holy
Spirit is often portrayed as water, we have God watering the earth when he
says, “And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” God made the “earth” fertile when “man became
a living soul” by virtue of God breathing into him His life. However, man preferred death to life by
willingly disobeying the law of Life.
Because of His love of mankind, God
would continually visit mankind, giving him hope until He, in the fullness of
time, He was to manifest Himself, by sending his Son in the flesh. Therefore, God, the Son, “visits” the earth
by means of the Incarnation. He visits
mankind’s nature. God’s stream, Jesus,
is filled with water, with the Holy Spirit, because he is Divine. Because Jesus is the Word, he supplies
mankind their grain. It derives from
seed, his Word. The Son of God prepared
our food, which automatically brings to mind the Eucharist, which he instituted
at the Last Supper. He prepared it thus:
by his Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension. His persecutions throughout his life,
especially his Passion and Death, are the “plowed furrows.”
Today, God visits us in the Catholic
Church, his visible Body. He visits us,
the “earth,” in the Mass and the Sacraments.
In Baptism, he comes into us and we, into him. In Baptism, he washes away original sin,
making us “abundantly fertile.” “God’s
stream,” the Holy Spirit, supplies our “grain,” teaching us all things about
Christ. In order that we do not become
hardened, due to concupiscence, he must constantly be “preparing” us, sometimes
with the plow, sometimes with the hoe, sometimes with the rake, etc. He also must continually “fertilize” us by
virtue of the Sacraments.
The plow causes injury to the earth,
which has become hardened. Humanity had
become “hardened” by virtue of sin. It
was not receptive to God’s Word and Spirit.
When he heard the Word without understanding it, the evil one came and
stole away what was sown in his heart.[2] If the surface soil was soft enough to
receive the seed initially but, because the soil had no depth, the grain grew
quickly enough; however, due to the hardness underneath, it soon died out and
could not bear fruit.[3] God’s life is love. Love produces if it is focused
outwardly. If love is focused inward, it
becomes smothered and dies. It is as a
wide candle in which the melted wax eventually puts the flame out. In agriculture, the soil must be continually
softened in order that the grain will materialize. In the example of the candle, the melted wax
(self) must be continually poured out in order that the flame might keep
producing light. For mankind, the plow
is the hardness in other human beings and other outside circumstances. This hardness causes persecution which—if allowed—softens
the soil. Otherwise, it is as a plow
striking large stones. It is love
focused outward which receives the hardness in love, knowing God is conditioning
us, and not looking at the evilness of the other person’s will.
If we are seeing only the evilness
of the other individual’s will or the hardness of the trial, then this saying applies
to us: “You shall indeed hear but not
understand, you shall indeed look but never see. Gross is the heart of this people, they will
hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with
their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be
converted, and I heal them.”[4]
“I consider that the sufferings of
this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.
For creation awaits with eager
expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made
subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected
it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption
and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor
pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the
firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for
adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”[5] It is this that we know God is doing in
us, the Catholic Church. We see the end,
and it is not far off. The end is near,
and we see the goal. We can now see the Light
at the end of the tunnel. Though the
plow is hard and sharp, we only have to endure it for a short while.
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