Ukrainian Catholic ChurchAustralia, New Zealand and Oceania
Homily by Fr. Vasyl Motrichenko on the Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
November 1, 2025
Beloved in Christ, let us strive throughout our lives to keep our hearts — the receptacle of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God — always pure and blameless. And if there is anything hardened there, let us hasten to free ourselves from it through the holy Sacrament of Confession and repentance.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Every Gospel reading inspires us, encourages us, poses questions, or gives answers to people. Today’s reading from the Holy Scriptures presents us with the story of a sower working in his field.
In this sower, we see the Lord God; the seed He sows is the Word of God, and the soil is the human heart. Today, it is important to pay attention to this seed — the Word of God, through which the Lord addresses each of us. If we look at the books of the Old Testament, we see that through the word — through conversation — God communicates with our ancestors Adam and Eve; through the word, God speaks to Moses and leads the chosen people to the Promised Land. And especially that the Word of God became flesh: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14). And Christ addresses people with these words: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come into judgement but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).
Therefore, by listening to and accepting the Word of the Lord in our hearts, we invite God into our lives, because it is through the Word that the Lord has revealed Himself to us — His truth, love, and goodness.
Today’s reading also speaks about different types of soil — that is, different perceptions of God’s Word. Sometimes the human heart is hardened, like the soil by the roadside or rocky ground, and the seed that falls cannot sprout. At other times, the seed of the Lord’s Word falls on good soil, takes root, and yields a good harvest. We all listen with our ears and understand with our minds, but does this Word reach the depths of our hearts? It depends on each of us — how well we are able to receive what the Lord sows in our hearts, and how pure and blameless our hearts and souls are.
“There is only one caretaker of the soil that is in people — the One who, from the beginning, from the foundation of the world, sows seeds that can grow; the One who sends the rain of the Lord’s Word at the right time. The times and places when this earth within people receives God’s seeds, watered by the rain of God’s Word, vary.” (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 1,7,2).
Therefore, beloved in Christ, let us strive throughout our lives to keep our hearts — the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God — always pure and blameless. And if there is something hardened there, let us hasten to free ourselves from it through the holy Sacrament of Confession and repentance, so that with a pure heart we may approach the Eucharistic Christ and repeat the words of St Augustine: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
