The Memorial of Saint Januarius
But someone will say, "How are the dead raised?" and, "With what kind of body do they come?" You foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not made alive unless it dies. That which you sow, you don't sow the body that will be, but a bare grain, maybe of wheat, or of some other kind.
So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body.
So also it is written, "The first man Adam became a living soul." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, that which is spiritual isn't first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the one made of dust, such are those who are also made of dust; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. As we have borne the image of those made of dust, let's also bear the image of the heavenly.
In God, I will praise his word. In the Lord, I will praise his word. I have put my trust in God. I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? Your vows are on me, God. I will give thank offerings to you.
For you have delivered my soul from death, And prevented my feet from falling, That I may walk before God in the light of the living.
When a great multitude came together and people from every city were coming to him, he spoke by a parable: "The farmer went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some fell along the road, and it was trampled under foot, and the birds of the sky devoured it. Some seed fell on the rock, and as soon as it grew, it withered away, because it had no moisture. Some fell amid the thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. Some fell into the good ground and grew and produced one hundred times as much fruit." As he said these things, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"
Then his disciples asked him, "What does this parable mean?"
He said, "To you it is given to know the mysteries of God's Kingdom, but to the rest it is given in parables, that 'seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.'
"Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those along the road are those who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, that they may not believe and be saved. Those on the rock are they who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; but these have no root. They believe for a while, then fall away in time of temptation. What fell among the thorns, these are those who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life; and they bring no fruit to maturity. Those in the good ground, these are those who with an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it tightly, and produce fruit with perseverance.
We celebrate today Saint Januarius, a fourth-century bishop of Benevento who was martyred during the Diocletian persecution — a man whose faithfulness cost him everything, and whose witness has endured seventeen centuries.
And what a day to remember him. Paul is talking about seeds and resurrection. Jesus is talking about seeds and soil. Januarius himself was a seed dropped into the ground of Roman violence, and what grew from that death is still bearing fruit.
Notice how both readings circle the same quiet truth: transformation requires a kind of dying. Paul is almost impatient with his audience — "You foolish one," he says — because the answer is right in front of them. Every farmer knows it. You put something small and vulnerable into the dark earth, and what comes up looks nothing like what went in. The dying is not the end of the story. It is, in fact, the condition for the story.
Jesus then gives us a harder question: what kind of soil are we? Not in some abstract, theological sense, but right now, this week. Are there places where the word of God lands in us and immediately gets crowded out — by the news cycle, by financial anxiety, by the low-grade noise of a life that never quite goes quiet? The thorns in Jesus' parable aren't dramatic sins. They're just... busyness. Distraction. The ordinary weight of ordinary days.
There's a tenderness in the psalm underneath all of this — "you have delivered my soul from death, and prevented my feet from falling." That's the promise we're invited to trust, even when the soil feels thin, even when we wonder if anything is actually growing.
What is competing for root space in your heart right now? Where have you felt the word of God begin to take hold, only to let it get crowded out? And what might it look like today to hold it a little more tightly?