A Grain of Wheat

Thursday, May 4th, 2023

A Grain of Wheat

Deacon Lex Ferrauiola

And Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12: 23 – 24

When we are conceived, God puts a little piece of Godself inside of us. That little piece of God is our immortal soul; it is the essence of who we are, and the seed of what we will become — it is our true Self.

God places that soul into our human body. To navigate this body through life we develop an ego. The ego gives us our sense of personal identity and relationship to others. It would be impossible to get through life without one. But where our soul is eternal, our ego — like our body — is temporary. It can be an obstacle to our soul’s development if we take it too seriously.

Jesus warns us against this in the Gospel when he says, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” The grain of wheat is our human ego. For our souls to produce real fruit for God, our egos must figuratively fall to the ground and die.

During his life and through the Gospel, Jesus calls us to produce much fruit; to open our hearts with love and forgiviness to all those around us; to cherish and nurture the loved ones in our lives; to trust in God’s love for us and to surrender ourselves to that love without fretting about the past or having anxiety about the future.

How often have we allowed our egos to close our hearts, and shut out a friend or relative who may have offended us, or not measured up to our moral standards? How often have we allowed our egos to waste our precious time and energies in the pursuit of false gods — like wealth, power, status, and perfection — while our loved ones go wanting for our time and attention? How often have we allowed our egos to drag us into the quicksand of anxiety and depression while the precious hours that God has given us slip away?

Today is a good time for us to let our egos fall to the ground. It is a good time for us to unlock our hearts, to banish anger from our lives, and to reach out to those we may have shut out. It is a time for us to reassess our priorities, and to redirect our time and our energies to our loved ones before it is too late. It is a time for us to take Jesus’ hand and let him lift us up from anxiety and depression. Today is an excellent time for our souls to produce much fruit for God.

With love, Deacon Lex

deaconlex@nullgmail.com

Lex Ferrauiola is a husband, father, grandfather and a Catholic deacon serving as a pastoral minister and hospital chaplain within the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey. His newest book, All Shall Be Well: Finding God Among the Pots and the Pans is available now.

$12.00 available at Amazon.com and through local booksellers (ISBN-13 979-8767368921)

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