Our St. Therese school opened so many year ago with the aim of assisting Chinese immigrants to get the best education for their children. It was hoped to reach out, through the children, to Chinese families and have them exposed to the Gospel.

The figures of Baptisms from school-children were very scanty: it proves that the children were never “pushed” to be baptized  and that Missionaries were respectful of their traditional Chinese beliefs. It is a fact: the Maryknol Missionaries  seldom witnessed the seed that the sawed sprout and flourish.

The seed was good and so was the soil: it took years to yield some kind of harvest. Usually those who ask to be baptized  are adults, alumni of St. Therese. Many times I feel that I harvest what I did not plant.

It is the same with the work of Fr. Dario: he worked so hard at reorganizing the parish and I now gather, gratefully,  the results of his much sweating.

I came to realize that the seed is a very good one while I was in Africa, as pastor at the Makeni Cathedral, Sierra Leone. I had been working very hard, using all my skills and my strength, but with very little results. It happened towards the end of my mandate at a time when I was tired and disappointed. I was approached by the leader of a far distant village who was asking for a catechist. I went to see that community and reluctantly I scattered the seed of the Gospel; I didn’t want to have problems with my conscience. I had to cross two swamps, carrying my clothes over me head. That seed sowed with difficulty and much sweat, sprouted and by the time I left Africa that village had more Baptisms that the Cathedral itself.

Jesus expressed much of what he wanted to say to people in parables.  Jesus talked about nature and everyday life, used short stories as vehicles for teaching about God’s kingdom and got his listeners to think about it.

One of the major audiences for Jesus’ parables were Galilean farmers. They knew all about sowing seeds and waiting for the harvest. “A sower goes out to a field to sow.” That is how the story begins.

All the listeners know what it is talking about, how sowing was done then and how barren and poor most of the soil in the Holy Land. The sower of whom Jesus is talking sows liberally to the point of being wasteful.

What would have surprised them in the story was how generous the sower was in casting the seed: he sows abundantly in all kinds of soils.

Farmers are able to appreciate this parable better than the people in cities. Farmers know that sowing-time is a hard time. The seeds entrusted to the earth could become bread and used by the family. Farmers deprive themselves of food in the sure certainty that the seed will yield a generous harvest.

The sower is a generous person and a person of great faith and trust.

The seed is good, the sower is generous, We are the soil.  Jesus is directly asking me and you the question: “How does the field of your life look?”

After Baptism I bless the lips and ears of the little babies with the prayer:” The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May He soon touch your ears so that you can understand His word, and open your mouth to prayer”. If God does not come to our aid, we cam hear over and over again the Gospel, but never understand it. The see is chocked and doesn’t bear fruit.