Endure Pains for Good (Saturday, Week 24, Year 2)

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Talking about seed sowing, we have few things to learn from farming or agricultural practice. When seeds are sown, they go through the crushing experience of death and decay before they are finally transformed into a new life. Thus, between the seeding/sowing time and the germination time, there is an intermediary period of death and decay. And this intermediary period is not a period of “sweetness and joy” for the sown seeds. It is always a period of pain or suffocation which ultimately leads to death and decay. But all these will certainly give way for a beautiful life when a new life germinates or resurrects from it.

In the first reading (cf. 1 Cor. 15:35-37.42-49), St Paul uses this agricultural analogy to explain to the Corinthians that the resurrection of the body is a possibility. For a new life to emerge (for resurrection to take place), there must also be a painful and crushing intermediary period of death and decay. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. The transformation unto imperishability and incorruptibility does not just happen overnight. It begins with a lifelong interaction with the word of God which is sown in our hearts. Just like every other seed, there must also be a time of decay and death. When the word of God is sown in our hearts, it brings about the death and decay of vices so that a new life of virtue could germinate. For us to be productive in virtue, we must allow the word of God to crush our pride, burn away our filths and transform us completely. 

From the Parable of the Sower (cf. Luke 8:4-15), it is clear that some seeds were unproductive because there was no solid and enduring intermediary period of decay and beneficial pains for transformation. When the word of God calls us to abandon our vicious lifestyles, it may be painful for us to leave but growth and lasting transformation can only come when we finally leave. That could be our period of positive transformational death. Life is a long journey of constant dying and rising to life in preparation for the final resurrection which comes on the last day. Our little endurances of the momentary painful challenges from the word of God will prepare us for that final and great transformation into glory on the last day. Let us endure for good!  


     

    


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