"A sower went out to sow... Some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold." (Mt. 13:3-9)

I have known so many people in the course of my ministry that I could put ‘names’ to these seeds. People who have started out feverishly in the state of piety and prayer, involving themselves in everything they could in the parish, only to burn out. Others have been pained by the reality of sin and Church... sin and backbiting, division and discord, scandal and hypocrisy. At the same time, all this affects us and infects us, yet there are so many people who have been good soil and have yielded harvest and born fruit in abundance.

The crux of the matter is the disposition of the hearer, and the openness of their mind to Christ and their heart to His holy Will. For indeed the Lord calls vast numbers of people only to be rejected by those vast numbers for rather frivolous reasons. They are not yet ready... and maybe they never will be.

The Lord is calling you. He calls and it is ours to respond as He wills.

"‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.’ (Jer. 1:4-10)

Don’t be afraid.

Psalm 33: "The Lord loves justice and right; of the kindness of the LORD the earth is full."

St. Bridget, d. 1373, in Rome; born in Sweden; mother of eight; mystic, prophet, and foundress of the Order of the Most Holy Savior "Bridgettines"; sought an end to the luxury and dissipation of the Avignon papacy and the return of the pope to Rome; patroness of Sweden.