Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
To Yield a Hundredfold

To Yield a Hundredfold

Last updated on: October 18, 2020 at 10:31 pm by Mary Pezzulo

To Yield a Hundredfold 2020-10-18T22:31:25-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

We’re still going to liturgy via video livestream right now.

Now that I’m driving, if we can just get a car and get me used to driving on the freeway, we’ll go over to the diocese of Pittsburgh where they have parking lot Masses and indoor Masses enforcing masks and strict low numbers, which they don’t do around here. Here, the lax standards make Mass very dangerous for Michael with his asthma, and I don’t want to know what COVID-19 would do to my fibromyalgia either.

We might even be able to get to a Byzantine Catholic liturgy pretty soon, if the churches in Pennsylvania are being safe.

I miss that rite. It’s the place where I feel at home even though I was raised Latin. I miss it so much that it hurts to watch it on livestream. It makes me too homesick. So I watch and pray along with the Latin rite, most of the time, and hug my icons and feel hungry for grace. That hunger is a different sort of grace, of course. But it’s difficult.

Yesterday evening, Michael was praying along with a livestream Byzantine Catholic Divine Liturgy in California. The priest chanted the Gospel and it was one of my favorite passages, because it’s about planting and harvesting.

“A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell along the path, and was trodden under foot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns grew with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew, and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said this, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Longtime readers know I’m avid about my garden. I’ve been writing for months about my gardening adventures and misadventures. The garden is the place where I feel closest to God, whether that’s a good or a scary feeling. I blame my passion for gardening on two childhood influences. The first was my grandfather, a wonderful man with a green thumb. The second influence is another saintly man, Fred Rogers.

When I was a little girl I watched a particular Mr. Rogers story arc that enthralled me. You can watch the whole thing yourself sometime, if you’d like. It starts with episode 6 in Season 1984. The story concerns the Neighborhood of Make Believe and a raggedy puppet called Old Goat. Old Goat looks as though he’s made from a mop with horns on it; he speaks only in bleats: “Meh-meh-meh-meh-meeeeeeh.” You can tell what he’s saying because the other characters translate for the audience: “What did you say, Old Goat? You’re bringing them to your friends in Northwood?”

The story begins when X the bright blue Owl installs a planter on the front of his knot hole and sends away for “Speedy Seeds,” which look like marbles. The magic seeds produce a crop of carrots overnight, but before he can serve Lady Aberlin and Henrietta a nice vegan supper, they are stolen by Old Goat. Old Goat then goes on to pilfer vegetables from other neighbors’ gardens before he gets caught. When they catch him, the neighbors are angry, but they also stop to ask questions. It turns out that Old Goat is only stealing food because his entire neighborhood of Northwood is in the throes of famine from having “not enough sunshine and rain.” The neighbors run to tell the king, who commands the Neighborhood of Make-Believe to engage in an “All-out effort” to plant magical seeds and grow emergency supplies for Northwood. Every square inch of space in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe is sown with Speedy Seeds. The sound stage promptly sprouts colorful cloth and plastic prop vegetables, all of which are delivered to Northwood by boat along with Speedy Seeds for them to plant for themselves. The queen even donates a record-setting strand of spaghetti several feet long to go with all the roughage. Daniel Striped Tiger tries to add to the effort by burying a small can of soup in a flower pot; when it turns out that soup doesn’t grow, he’s devastated. But Bob Dog reminds him that there are many kinds of food. Friendship is one of them, a food for the soul just as important as vegetables are for the body. So Daniel and Bob Dog walk off joyfully to Northwood by themselves, empty-handed, with no gift to bring except friendship. Friendship is a beautiful gift.

That ridiculous story was burned into my mind as a child, and I showed it to Rosie when she was in preschool as well. That’s the Gospel. I believe in that world Mr. Rogers showed me, because I believe it’s the same world that Christ showed me. It’s a world where, when you see a terrible injustice, you stop what you’re doing and help. I believe that where there is hunger that leads to desperation, the only appropriate response is to plant some food and share it. And if you can’t plant food, buy a can of soup to give away. And whether or not you can give plants or soup, give your friendship.

So I garden, and I view my garden as my place of contemplation and my living of the Gospel. Someday we’ll move, and we’ll have a nice big triple lot for an orchard and a bigger garden like my grandfather had. For now, we have a small yard, and I have a small vegetable patch. Whatever we get, we try to pass some along to the Friendship Room.

X the Owl’s planter in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe was filled with ridiculously beautiful, soft potting soil. It was black like dark chocolate. My planters also have dark chocolate potting soil, but the main vegetable patch is dirt. Steubenville soil is a mess; it’s polluted and it stinks, and I’m always digging up bricks and broken beer bottles. I’ll be glad when we can get out of here and plant on more gentle soil. But for now, I work with it. I turn the soil over and sprinkle it with organic fertilizer made of chicken bone meal and chicken manure. I pull the crab grass but I leave some of the weeds where they are, because they actually help make the soil better. I don’t use herbicides or toxic fertilizers that could make the soil even worse in the long run. Every year I change the location of the corn patch because corn is a greedy plant that gobbles all the nutrients out of the soil. I plant bush beans in every bare patch because bush beans make the soil richer. When the Autumn growing season is finally over, I’ll spread the stinky compost I’ve been working on all year on it to add more nutrients, and next year will be better than this one. If we finally get to move before Spring, I’ll pack my compost into a giant box and spread it on the new garden.

You see, it’s not enough to just sow seed. Unless you live in the Neighborhood of Make Believe and your soil is make-believe potting mix provided by the prop department, you have to work the ground.

Michael mentioned that gospel passage he was listening to from the Byzantine Catholic Church, and he added that he’d never heard anyone talking about how important it is to work the ground. That’s why I’ve been thinking about gardens and Mr. Rogers all day.

Some people will claim that God made some souls a hard path and some souls rocks or thorns, and only a few are fertile ground; the majority of people were created on purpose to not accept the Gospel. I don’t believe that at all. I believe God desires that all of us receive the Gospel and become great saints. There has never been a human being who wasn’t supposed to be a great saint. We can all receive the Gospel and yield a hundredfold. But we have to work our soil. None of us is make-believe potting mix. We’re all gravel.

We have to work that gravel.

We have to be willing to do some digging, to look honestly at ourselves let Christ help us dig out the bricks and broken glass. We have to be willing to nourish ourselves and fill in the nutrients we lack. We have to reject the quick fixes, the spiritual herbicides that promise to kill our vices quickly and really just make us complacent. We need to yank weeds and have the humility to accept that certain things we’re told are weeds are actually beneficial. We must tolerate that nasty steaming compost heap that spoils the garden’s aesthetics, and spread the mess all over the places that need it, and tolerate the harsh winter, and believe that Spring will come. That’s the spiritual life. It’s something the Holy Spirit does to us more than something we do, but we have to yield to the Holy Spirit and that’s hard work.

This takes knowledge and study. It takes prayer and meditation. It often takes the help of a good spiritual advisor, and I know those are hard to find. It takes frequent reception of the sacraments, which I fully realize are very hard to come by at this terrible time in history. And it also takes an awful lot of waiting in dry, miserable, unproductive times while you trust that there will be a Spring someday, even though feel like you’ll never bear fruit again. I’m afraid it will also take a lot of trying and failing and making a fool of yourself, like a make believe tiger planting a can of soup in a flower pot. But I believe that the sower will bring fruit even out of our failures. There are all kinds of food, after all.

The Sower will come. I believe and profess that the Sower is coming into the world and in a different way is already here. He will drop that bright marble of the Gospel, so beautiful you think it must be make believe, into your soil, and if you’re ready for that seed it will yield a hundredfold and you will be a great saint who saves your personal neighborhood from famine. That will happen.

But we’ve got to be ready.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Image via Pixabay.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, visit our donate page.

Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

Neighborhood of Make Believe

Previous Post

October 18, 2020

I Cast My Ballot For President

Next Post

October 19, 2020 The True Effect of COVID and the Pro-Life Movement on Abortion

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What is the correct sequence of the fruit of the Spirit as listed in Galatians?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control Love, peace, joy, kindness, forbearance, faithfulness, goodness, self-control, gentleness Love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, forbearance, faithfulness, self-control, gentleness Joy, love, peace, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, forbearance, gentleness, self-control