Dominican Sisters of St Ceclia Retreat, Motherhouse Nashville Tn., July 24, 2026
T. S. Eliot once observed that “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”[1] His point was not to encourage plagiarism and artistic theft, but rather to acknowledge that good writers often take the best of their predecessors’ work and, by adding their own insights and experience, transform it into something new. That is also true of good theologians: they do not invent so much as faithfully rework that which is received in the tradition. So, to comment on the Gospel of Matthew, Aquinas first gathered the wisdom of those who went before him. His Catena Aurea weaves together insights of Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom, and others as a continuous thread of interpretation. For today’s Parable of the Sower (Mt 13:18-23), this golden chain is particularly rich.
So, John Chrysostom points out that when Jesus says “the sower went out to sow” this was no tautology. As a farmer, he could have gone out hoeing, weeding, harvesting, fencing, milking… Planting is not all a farmer does. But our Farmer is clearly an eager seeder, casting grain generously, almost indiscriminately. Of all activities, Farmer Jesus seems most enthusiastic about Gospel seed sewing — evangelization.[2]
Next, St Thomas reports Jerome’s observation that the sower’s behavior refutes the Gnostics who divided humanity into goodies and baddies, those predetermined for salvation and those created for damnation.[3] Our divine farmer is interested in all sorts! Which is not to say He doesn’t care what becomes of them: as Augustine makes clear, God calls the wayward, stoney and thorny to repentance, to become good soil.[4]
Thomas builds on these patristic insights to offer his own distinctive reading of our parable. Ever the schoolman, he analyses the story carefully. Noting that, of the four grounds upon which the Sower casts His seed, only one succeeds, he asks: what does the good soil have that the others lack? His answer: three virtues, one of which is missing from each. All lack something the heart needs if it is to receive the Word and bear fruit.
The first ground is a path so hardened the seed cannot penetrate its surface and is exposed for hungry birds. A Franciscan wouldn’t mind, since St Francis loved birds and butterflies and bunnies. But Dominicans lack such sentimentality. Our only story of Dominic and birds comes from Blessed Cecilia Cesarini. Dominic, she says, was “always joyous and cheerful” unless pitying someone’s sorrows.[5] But one evening, when he was preaching to the nuns in Rome, he grew suddenly serious. A sparrow had flown into the chapel, was noisily interrupting his sermon, and was distracting the nuns by hopping from one veiled head to the next. So, Dominic asked a sister to catch the bird and bring it to him.
In a most unFranciscan way, Dominic then proceeded to pluck the bird alive. He knew that only Satan would deliberately interrupt his preaching and so this bird must be one of his minions! In an equally unFranciscan way, all the nuns burst out laughing. Dominic then threw the naked bird out the window, charging it theatrically: “Fly now if you can, enemy of mankind!” The nuns then focused intently on Dominic’s sermon, their attention restored by what Cecilia called the “laughter-stirring miracle.”[6] (I’m advised there was a similar incident recently involving a bat in the noviciate: I hope it stirred similar laughter.)
This story of Dominic probably came to Thomas’ mind when he read our parable of diabolical birds. To ensure the pathway resists the seed, Aquinas says the demons harden people’s hearts with vanity and distractions.[7] They barely hear or understand the Word because their soul-soil lacks receptiveness; divine truths simply bounce off them. This morning I will reflect with you on how this affects not just faith but also vocation. Both are resisted by hardened hearts, and the avian demons have a field day!
The second grounding is rocky. Some things can grow in rocky soils, but their growth is usually temporary and stunted for they have no depth of root. Such souls hear the Word and receive it joyfully at first but abandon it as soon as trials come. What these soul-soils lack is the virtue of perseverance.[8] They have no staying power. Fair weather faith is fragile and can’t survive the heat of the noonday sun. So, too, fair-weather vocations.
What about the third, thorny soil? Here the seed is received and grows but then is choked by competing vegetation: cares, riches, desires. Thomas diagnoses a lack of detachment.[9] The divided heart cannot properly serve God. We have to choose between God and Mammon, God and Dionysius, God and Ego. And if this is true for any disciple, it is doubly true for religious.
Only the fourth soil — the good ground — has what it takes. Instead of the poisons of pride, fickleness, and worldliness, this soul-soil has the nutrients of receptiveness, steadfastness, and detachment.[10] From such good soil, a great yield is possible: thirty, sixty, a hundredfold!
Of course, the four soils don’t necessarily represent four distinct classes of person. Everyone is probably deficient in one or more of the necessary virtues at one time or another. Think of the times your own heart has been hard, distracted, or shallow. As we come to the end of our retreat but continue on the retreat of religious life, we might ask whether charity is daily growing more perfectly in us, or whether there are problems with our soul-soil. Are we cultivating that receptivity, perseverance, and detachment that Jesus and Thomas so laud? Sisters, soon to be perpetually vowed, or renewed, or habited, sisters soon to witness this and renew your own profession in your hearts: offer your souls as soil for God’s word to grow and yield abundant fruit!
In Jeremiah’s prophecy today, God addresses a people whose hearts are ‘stubborn’ (Jer 3:14-17). The Hebrew word שְׁרִירוּת (sherirut) suggests a hardness, obstinacy, resistance, as in an uncooperative donkey or hard ground that resists the plough.[11] But God will not give up on His land and so He promises, “I will give you shepherds — farmers after my own heart — to feed you with knowledge and understanding.” Our pastoral role is often to soften hearts and enlighten minds. But that requires that our own hearts be virtuous.
There’s no greater farm for souls, no better project to improve soil quality, no more reliable source of spiritual nutrients, than St Cecilia Agriscience Inc. So, God bless you dear sisters, as His grace mediated by your conventual life turns the mustard seed of your faith and virtue into a big bush for many birds — the good kind of birds — makes your two fish and five barley loaves into a feast for thousands, and turns the seeds of your vocation into a harvest one hundredfold!
[1] T. S. Eliot, “Philip Massinger,” in The Sacred Wood (London: Methuen, 1920), 114–15.
[2] St John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 44, 3; St Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea Ia, on Matt 13:5–6, 20–21.
[3] St Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 2.13.3.
[4] St Augustine, Sermons on the New Testament XXIII, 3.
[5] Gerard de Franchet OP, Lives of the Brethren (1255-60),3.14.
[6] Lives of the Brethren,3.10. Aquinas quoted Cicero to the effect that “when the audience is weary, it is best for the speaker to try something novel or amusing”: STh IIa-IIae q. 168, a. 2, ad 1. Cf. Basil Burroughs OP, “Surprised by playfulness” Dominican House of Studies August 9, 2022 https://dhs.edu/surprised-by-playfulness/
[7] St Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, on Matt 13:4, 19.
[8] Aquinas, Catena Aurea, on Matt 13:5–6, 20–21.
[9] Aquinas, Catena Aurea, on Matt 13:7, 22.
[10] St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia–IIae, q. 84, a. 4; II–II, q. 137, a. 1 (on perseverance); II–II, q. 118, a. 1 (on avarice).
[11] Dt 29:19; Ps 81:12; Jer 3:17; 7:24; 9:14; 11:8; 13:10; 16:12; 18:12; 23:17.
