Journeying: 5th Sunday Lent- Two seeds: One grows, the other fail to live.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” - really?

Two seeds are buried and both die. Later one lives, the other does not. Why? Because one is a good seed, the other is already rotten… corrupt…The first is a situation called sin. The other is a situation called corruption. There is a difference.

The first seed that dies is a situation of sin. We are all sinners. And just like that seed that is buried in darkness, we realize we need light in order to survive. So we ask for God’s help and mercy. We do not stay dead, we do not want to. So like the seed that searches for the light, we long for God to save us. When we acknowledge and admit: Yes Lord I am a sinner…we are actually plunging ourselves into the mercy of the Father, who loves us and waits for us every moment. And just like that seed which moves up the ground towards the light, we too look up to God’s light. And as the plant starts to live so do we in God’s grace.

The second seed, the rotten one, however is in a state of corruption. This is when God is no longer the treasure of our heart – when he does not matter anymore to us. A corrupt person feels very comfortable and happy with himself like that man who was planning to build new barns (Lk 12:16). "If you eat you'll die. If you don't eat you'll die. You will die just the same... so why not eat and die!"

If the situation becomes difficult, the corrupt one knows all the excuses to get himself out of it. “Stealing? That’s fine… as long as you don’t get caught.” Corrupt people have built up their self-esteem on that type of deceitful attitude. And they go through life taking the shortcuts to their self-advantage, at the price of their own dignity and that of other people. Their expression is: “Oh I didn’t do it” with a matching face of a saint. Corrupt people berate and blame themselves unconsciously and then project their irritation with themselves to others. So instead of attacking themselves, they attack others.

In “The Way of Humility” Pope Francis makes this conclusion: It would be fair to say that sins could be forgiven, but corruption cannot be forgiven. Why? Because at the bottom of every corrupt attitude is a weariness with the transcendent. Instead of turning to God who never tires of forgiving, the corrupt person turns to himself as sufficient for his own salvation – in short he cannot be forgiven because he has tired of asking for forgiveness.

The first seed continues to grow because in dying it has seen its mission to live, the second seed, the rotten one, the corrupt one, has lost hope in the hereafter and sees death as the interruption of his life and his mission to enrich himself here.

Instead, Jesus saw death as a fulfilment of his life and mission. Many times in the gospel the people had planned to entrap him but Jesus always escaped from their hands because "his hour had not yet come" (John 7:30). But now: "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.... And what should I say: “Father, save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour" (John 12:23, 27). Jesus uses the parable of the grain of wheat to explain that when we shy away from death when the hour has come, we only forsake our life and mission (our mission remains just a single grain). But when we give up ourselves in death when the hour has come, we bring forth life (our mission will bear much fruit).

Let me show this in a story: In the 1970’s in El Salvador, power and wealth were in the hands of a few, while the great majority of the people were poor and marginalised. Any widespread protest or unrest was suppressed by the army and by the death squads of the rich and powerful. At that time Oscar Romero was bishop of a small country diocese- timid, hesitant of change, and conservative. So when he was appointed Archbishop, the rich and powerful felt he was under their control. Romero’s conversion occurred just three weeks after his appointment. In a small country town in his archdiocese a young Jesuit priest he knew (Fr. Rutilio Grande), together with an old man and a boy were assassinated. On hearing of their killing, Romero went immediately to the village and celebrated mass there with the Jesuit provincial. That night, with the many peasants who had come in from the surrounding countryside, he kept vigil. That night he read the Gospel message anew through the eyes of the poor and oppressed. He said to the Provincial, “When I looked at my friend priest lying there dead, I thought, ‘If they killed him for doing what he did, then I, too, have to walk that same path’.”

On his return to the capital, he summoned his priests and advisers and determined to boycott all state occasions until an official investigation of the killing was carried out. It never happened, and so he never attended a single state occasion, not even the swearing in of the new president. He also closed the Catholic schools for three days, inviting teachers and pupils to reflect on what had happened. Finally, he decided to suspend all masses in the capital the following Sunday, except the one in the cathedral as a sign of protest and to which he invited the priest and people of the city to attend. Over 150 priests concelebrated that Mass. Over the next three years, Romero, visibly growing in strength and confidence, became the defender of the oppressed, the voice of the voiceless. Then the Archbishop appealed to the ordinary soldiers of the army to disobey orders of higher ups to kill their fellow citizens: “Brothers, you come from your own people. You are killing your own brother peasants. God says: Thou shalt not kill. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God.”

Two weeks later, in an interview a journalist asked him: “Are you afraid of death?” He answered: “I have often been threatened with death. As a Christian, I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me, I will rise again in the people. As their pastor, I am obliged to give my life for those I love, my countrymen, even for those who are going to assassinate me. May my death, if accepted by God, be for the freedom of my people and a witness for hope in the future. If they come and kill me, I forgive and bless those who do it. A bishop may die, but the Church of God, which is the people, will never perish.”

On the 24th of March 1980, as he was celebrating evening mass, right after he finished the sermon and just as he had taken the bread to begin the liturgy of the Eucharist, a hired marksman fired a fatal shot through the doors of the church; Romero fell dead behind the altar. What a way to die!

Two months from now, on May 23^rd, Archbishop Oscar Romero will be declared blessed in his native land, El Salvador. And this brings me back to the first statement: When a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, will it really bear much fruit? "Real"-ly!