What’s your “Spiritual Personality”?
Like Myers-Briggs tests or other temperament quizzes, today’s Gospel seems to offer us a unique kind of spiritual personality test. Which seed are you? Is your “spiritual personality” most like the seed of the Path, the Rocks, the Thorns, or Rich Soil?
Whenever I hear this Gospel my first thoughts are always quite self-righteous, “Yes, I’m definitely the Rich Soil. I totally do all those things.” About half-way through that thought, the truth that I am really in the Thorny quadrant seems to be more accurate. It’s so easy to swept up in anxiety. I am often choked by thorns of worry, the glitter of beautiful things, because who doesn’t like comfort or riches? Although the pleasures of life are not always bad, they can definitely become a real distraction from hearing the Word of God.
What about the Path? How many times have I let the Word of God be taken away from me by evil or sin? It’s so easy to become disillusioned and hardened by the experiences of sin and suffering. Life can be hard and not always such an easy path to tread. The Devil is real, and he is working hard to try to take away the seeds of faith that have been planted in our hearts.
Yes, I am also a member of the Rocky Ground camp. Jesus is awesome, and it’s easy to be all about Jesus when everything is going great. But life sometimes becomes quite rough and rocky. In the midst of the real battle of temptation, I find that my faith in this “awesome God” is not always so strong or deeply rooted.
And yet, each one of us is called to be the Rich Soil. The seed of faith has been sown within us through Baptism and nourished by the sacraments. Tilled through our penance and personal sufferings, this seed is made fertile by the outpouring of the Spirit. We truly ARE the Rich Soil. We can leave behind that wrong path, those jarring rocks, and all the suffocating thorns of our lives. Jesus nurtures all the growth within us through His tender love and care. It is our job to persevere. Through perseverance, we will bear much fruit. Today let’s be the Rich Soil. May we accept our true identity in Christ and remain in the rich soil of His love.
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