Sowing and Scattering
All throughout the Easter Season, we have readings from the Acts of the Apostles. This often seems like a triumphant procession of the Faith. But read carefully, it is also the story of the beginning of almost endless persecutions that will go on for the next several centuries. Immediately after the stoning of Saint Stephen, Saul is breathing fire and persecuting Christians. We read in Acts 11:19 and 8:1 that the believers were scattered for their own safety. It seems that these seeds are scattered by the wind. However, we know that they do bring forth fruit in cities and in regions far away from Jerusalem.
When I was young, I lived on a farm and most of my cousins were city kids. We had several areas of fields which were too wet to use machines to sow crops and so we would sow the crops by hand. One of my city cousins got very upset at this because he said we were throwing away all this expensive grain. Little did he know that we were sowing and not throwing away. Scattering can look like that, but God’s work will always bring forth fruit.
We have just gone through a federal election. It looked like the pro-life cause was completely forgotten or sold out. The leaders of both the Conservatives and Liberals may be baptized Catholics but both of them stood up for pro-death ideologies. It’s only natural for this to be disheartening and to feel that what one works at has been useless. “I’m very discouraged,” a priest said to me years ago. “I’m accomplishing nothing. I’m only writing in water.”
This is manifestly untrue. It’s a hard thing to see our work seemingly not bringing forth fruit. Are we just having our energies and time in our lives just scattered and wasted or are they scattered and sown as it says in the gospels (John 4:37)? The farmer scatters the seed on the soil and it grows night and day and brings forth its fruit even while farmer rests. I cannot know how much of my work will bring forth fruit. When as priests we baptize, are present at deaths, celebrate innumerable Masses, preach and teach in all circumstances, we cannot know the results. That is not up to us!
A young man a few years ago came to me and said that he wanted to marry his girlfriend because she was pregnant. At first, he had wanted to have an abortion, but he remembered years ago being in a youth group of mine and being present at a pro-life youth conference when he was only about 13 years old. He said, “I just can’t go through with it because I know what I’m doing would be wrong in taking this child’s life.” He told his parents that they were going to be married and that she was not going have an abortion and his mother took him aside and said, “You know you are the product of an unplanned pregnancy and we had considered having an abortion because of all the pressure in our families, we decided no, it’s wrong and we just can’t do it. You’re choosing the right path.”
All actions have consequences, not just immediately, but also many years and generations later. Hold fast to the certainty that what we do matters. As we work hard politically, educationally, and with groups and individuals to bring forth this Culture of Life and Love, our actions are not wasted, but scattering the necessary seeds that will bring forth fruit. This election is not the last election. This article will not be my last. When you next console a family facing mercy killing, it will not be the last time. But God will bring forth the fruit from our meager efforts - 20, 60, and 100-fold if we but hold fast and are truly faithful before Him.
Fr. Tom Lynch (PFLC National President)