Today the Church observes the Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Quite naturally, this points us back to the Immaculate Conception. The dogma of Mary’s Immaculate Conception holds that looking forward to the redemption of her Son, by a unique and singular grace, she was preserved from the “stain” of original sin.
As to her parents, our Blessed Mother was conceived in the normal way. This prelude leads us to our Gospel for today, which is an excerpt from our Gospel for the Sunday before last. Rather than restate Jesus’ unpacking of the allegory of the seed, it’s good to focus on what it means to make our hearts rich soil in which the word of God can be planted, germinate, sprout, be nurtured and grow.
I think most of us are familiar enough with gardening to know that simply taking a handful of seeds and scattering them across a patch of ground isn’t likely to yield a successful garden. Before planting you prepare the soil. At the end of the previous season, you might fertilize. Then, in the spring, you typically till, hoe, weed, and water.
It is by doing these things that plant a successful garden and produce a good crop, be it tomatoes, onions, peppers, beans, squash, or even flowers. This parable extends to our hearts, to our souls. Are you preparing the soil, that is, your soul for the word of God?
The spiritual equivalent of fertilizing, tilling, racking, and hoeing is the practice of the spiritual disciplines. There are three fundamental spiritual disciplines taught by our Lord himself: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Beyond these are penitential practices, solitude, and spiritual reading. One particular form of spiritual reading that involves God's word directly is especially efficacious: lectio divina.
These practices, when done intentionally and consistently, open you up to God, and make you more attuned to the movements of the Holy Spirit. These are time-tested practices. They are called disciplines because it is important to engage in them whether you feel like it or not.
In spiritual life habits become habitus. While it is a polyvalent word with several contextual meanings, habitus in the context of spiritual life means habituating one’s self to God through the consistent practice of spiritual disciplines. Spirituality is nothing other than the effects of spiritual practices.
Perhaps the biggest killer of spirituality is impatience. Grace takes its time. The life of the spirit is not a hurried life. When we don't achieve some preconceived results quickly, we're tempted to mix up our routine or abandon it altogether. Not too long after meeting Israel's demand for food, Moses began to hear grumbling about eating the same old thing day in and day out.
Another way to understand our impatience when it comes to practicing spiritual disciplines is a child who plants seeds for the first time, after planting, watering, and ensuring the seeds receive enough sunlight, she begins to ask when they will sprout. After they sprout, she asks when they blossom. After they blossom, when they will bear fruit. Once they bear fruit, when will ripen enough to eat. Spiritually, most of us have a tendency to be like that. Engaging in spiritual practices each day is not likely to yield, or even really geared toward effecting, deeply profound subjective experiences daily or even weekly, or even monthly.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola dubbed such experiences "consolations." According to Ignatius, these experiences, as nice and even as important as they are, are not to be sought. When they happen, these experiences are to be received gratefully and enjoyed. Unlike drinking, we don't engage in spiritual practices to feel a buzz. Spiritually experienced Christians understand advent, understand waiting.
Eugene Peterson observed that
When nothing we can do makes any difference and we are left standing around empty-handed and clueless, we are ready for God to create. When the conditions in which we live seem totally alien to life and salvation, we are reduced to waiting for God to do what only God can do, createThis seems certainly to be the case with the Annunciation, or, in the case of the Blessed Virgin’s parents, the normal delivery of a healthy baby girl who would become the Mother of God.
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