Mustard Seed, St. Andrew formation house 🇯🇲

by fr. JLucas, July 12, 2026

Today marks the seventh day of my retreat, and while preparing for Mass, I found myself praying with the Gospel of Matthew 13:1–23, where Jesus tells the parable of the sower and the seed. At first, my attention rested on the different kinds of soil. Then my mind drifted to the little plants waiting for me back at the rectory, and I caught myself wondering who would water them in this summer heat. As I sat with that thought, my reflection shifted from the soil in the Gospel to the soil of my own heart. This retreat has been reminding me that God is just as concerned with what is growing within me as He is with the ministry I carry out. Before He asks me to bear fruit, He first wants to care for the condition of the soil.

I think I have become addicted to making everything useful. Think about it. My reading on Amazon isn’t just reading anymore; it has to make me smarter or help me understand how the world works. Running has to make me fitter. The way I enjoy taking pictures with my phone or camera has somehow become about posting something aesthetic on Instagram. Without realising it, I have convinced myself that everything I love has to earn its place in my life by producing something. Maybe that’s why so many of us are exhausted. Nothing is allowed to simply exist. And perhaps that’s why those little plants at the rectory have become so important to me. Not because I’m trying to become the best gardener in the world—trust me, I’m not—but because, for those few minutes I spend watering them or simply looking at them, there are no deadlines, no meetings, no notifications, no algorithms, no students calling, and no parishioners asking questions. It’s just me. The more I reflect, the more I realise it isn’t even about the plants. They have become God’s quiet invitation for me to take care of myself. They remind me that my worth is not measured by what I produce, that I don’t always have to perform, and that growth is rarely dramatic. Most of the time it looks like showing up, watering, waiting, pulling a few weeds, and trusting that something is happening beneath the surface. The plants never seem anxious about growing; they simply keep reaching for the light.

Maybe that’s what we have forgotten to do. We are so busy trying to become that we have forgotten how to simply grow. Perhaps your garden isn’t filled with plants like mine. Maybe it’s cycling, music, painting, baking, running, or simply making yourself a good cup of coffee on a quiet Saturday morning. It doesn’t really matter what it is. Find something that reminds you that you are a person before you are a producer. I have a feeling that some of the healthiest moments of our lives come from these quiet spaces that make us no money, win us no awards, and often go unnoticed by everyone else. Yet somehow, they slowly shape us into the people God created us to be. So, as we reflect on the soil in today’s Gospel, perhaps we should also reflect not so much on the “SOIL” but also on the “plants” that are growing both within us and around us. What’s your garden?