Day 22: The Sower Goes Out (Mark 3:31–35; 4:1–9)

By Sindhu Nadarajan · Wednesday, October 14, 2026, Memorial of Pope St. Callistus I

Who belongs to Jesus

Yesterday's sandwich closes with Jesus' family standing outside, asking for him. Jesus looks at those seated around him and redefines family: whoever does the will of God is his brother, sister, and mother. Belonging to Jesus is no longer a matter of blood but of hearing and doing. With that, Mark moves straight to the sea, where Jesus teaches a crowd about how the word is heard. The question hanging over the parable is the same one: who is inside, and who stays outside?

What is a parable?

A parable is a simple story that anyone can understand, even a child. A sower, some seed, different kinds of ground. Nothing hidden, nothing complicated. Yet to those who stay with it and dwell deeply, more and more is revealed. The parable does not shut anyone out at the surface; it simply waits for those willing to go deeper.

Jesus is the parable

In this sense, Jesus himself is the parable. He came as an ordinary man, unassuming, a carpenter from Nazareth. That ordinariness is exactly what made it so hard for people to believe that he is God. But those who come slowly to him and begin to live with him come to know who he truly is. The surface is simple; the depth is infinite. The same is true of every parable he tells.

The generous heart of the sower

Jesus is the sower, and his heart is extravagantly generous. The seed does not fall on the path, the rocky ground, and among the thorns by accident, as if it slipped from his hand while he was not paying attention. He sows deliberately, everywhere. He does not first check whether the soil is worthy. The path, the rocks, the weedy patches all receive the same seed as the rich soil.

By ordinary farming standards, this looks wasteful. St. John Chrysostom admits as much: a farmer who threw seed on rock and road would be scolded. But the soil of the human heart is different. A road can stop being trampled, rock can become good earth, thorns can be rooted out. So the sower never treats any heart as a lost cause. He sows because he hopes.

This is the heart Jesus revealed to St. Faustina: "There is no misery that could be a match for My mercy, neither will misery exhaust it, because as it is being granted, it increases" (Diary, 1273). The sower's supply of seed never runs low. The more he gives, the more there is to give. No hardness, no shallowness, no tangle of thorns in us can outlast his generosity.

St. Callistus: hard ground made fruitful

Today's saint shows this generosity in a real life. According to an early account, Callistus was born a slave, lost his master's money, fled, and was condemned to the mines of Sardinia. By any worldly measure, he was rocky or thorny ground. Yet the sower sowed there. Freed, he became a deacon and, around 217, Bishop of Rome. As pope, he sowed the way he had been sown, welcoming back repentant sinners, and was criticized for being too lenient, the same complaint made against a farmer who throws seed on rocks. He died a martyr around 222: the slave who became a shepherd of mercy.

Change while you can

The generosity of the sower is not a reason to stay as we are; it is the reason we can change. St. Augustine, preaching on this parable, spoke directly to the path, the stony ground, and the thorns: "Be changed while ye may: turn up with the plough the hard ground, cast the stones out of the field, pluck up the thorns out of it." Real soil cannot change itself. We can, by grace, as Callistus did. The seed keeps falling; the question is whether we will let our ground be broken open to receive it, and then, having received mercy, sow it generously in others.

Ponder

• Is there any misery in me that I secretly believe is bigger than his mercy?

• What one stone or thorn could I let him remove this week?

• Pray for the grace of ongoing conversion.

Closing prayer

Lord Jesus, generous sower, you scattered your word in the life of a runaway slave and made him a shepherd of your Church. Your mercy only grows as you give it. Break open what is hard in me, clear what is choking me, and give me a heart that does the will of the Father, so that I may truly belong to your family and be generous with the mercy I have received. St. Callistus, pray for us. Amen.