From the Gospel acclamation: "The seed is the word of God, Christ is the sower;
all who come to him will live for ever."

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark (Mark 4:1-20)

Jesus said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand any of the parables? The sower sows the word. These are the ones on the path where the word is sown."

Using a parable about a sower, Jesus describes conditions in life that we all face at one time or another. Jesus explains to the crowd gathered around him by the sea that the seed represents the word of God and that different types of ground symbolize the various responses to his word. Whether through persecution or distraction or anxiety or succumbing to the evil one, we sometimes fail to see God's word take root. "But those sown on rich soil," Jesus says, "are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” What kind of soil will the sower of the word find in us as he comes to sow his word?

God, help me prepare my heart to receive your word so that it takes root and bears fruit "thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” The seed that you come to plant will grow throughout my life and continue to grow even into eternal life through the single sacrifice of Jesus Christ your Son. You are the sower who promises and delivers, as Jeremiah prophesied, through the New Covenant to put your laws into our hearts and write them upon our minds. Give me the grace, Lord, to make of myself a good seedbed of rich soil, ready to receive your word. In fruitfulness, let it grow abundantly in this life and continue to grow under the eternal light of your presence. Let me hear and accept your word.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.