In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus highlights how the Word of God is received and assimilated in different ways – and consequently bears different fruit – depending on the nature of the soil.
The new Evangelist of these end times, Francis, was in love with the Word of God and listened to it constantly, to the extent that it was etched into his memory.
He was good soil that yielded a hundredfold.
The Sources inform us:
“Bathed in the splendour of the eternal Light, he scrutinised the depths of the Scriptures with a clear and keen intellect.
His intellect, pure of every blemish, penetrated the secrets of the mysteries […]
He would read the sacred books from time to time and held fast in his memory whatever he had once taken in: for he continually pondered with loving devotion what he had heard with an attentive mind” (FF 1188).
“With equal care and devotion he endeavoured to put into practice the other teachings he had heard.
For he had never been a passive listener to the Gospel; rather, entrusting everything he heard to a commendable memory, he sought with every diligence to carry it out to the letter” (FF 357).
As Celano calls him in the First Life – ‘a river of Paradise’ – Francis, “the new evangelist of these latter days, has spread the waters of the Gospel throughout the whole world with loving care, and through his works has pointed out the way and the true doctrine of the Son of God” (FF 475).
In the Unconfirmed Rule (1221):
«Let us therefore remain faithful to the words, the life, the doctrine and the Holy Gospel of Him who deigned to pray to the Father on our behalf» (FF 62).
And «let us take great care not to be like the soil by the roadside, or the stony ground, or that choked with thorns, as the Lord says in the Gospel:
«The seed is the Word of God […] the seed sown on good soil are those who, hearing the word with a good, indeed excellent, disposition, understand it and keep it, and bear fruit through perseverance»” (FF 58).
The Poverello was, for his time, a concrete and fruitful embodiment of the Gospel.
«Some [seeds] fell on good soil and produced a crop—some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty» (Mt 13:8).
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year A (Mt 13:1–23)
