by CCW | 8 February 2026 10:00
The ‘gesima’ Sundays belong to the Lenten pilgrimage of our souls to the source and end of our lives in Christ. The readings for Septuagesima and Sexagesima complement one another in the metaphors and images about the nature of our lives in faith. They are all about the nature of our labours and activities in relation to the free gift of God’s grace and love. The kingdom of heaven is likened to a vineyard in the Gospel for Septuagesima and that agricultural image is further developed in today’s Sexagesima Gospel with the parable about the sower and the seed.
Such images concern the relation of human labour with the natural order of creation but extend that labour to ethical and spiritual matters. But more than just the parable itself in today’s Gospel, we have the unpacking of its meaning, the explication of the sign and the thing signified, as it were. If we are really serious about the challenge of living in the word proclaimed and celebrated in our liturgy then we have to pay close attention to the way in which ideas are made known to us so as to live in us. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,” Jesus tells us at the conclusion of the parable. That is the challenge for us. Contrary to popular belief, the parables of Jesus are not all that simple and easy to grasp. They have to be interpreted in order for us to enter into their meaning. It requires learning how to think our way into the images and metaphors and to begin to appreciate their radical power and vitality.
Life is in the seed as a kind of potency towards its actualization in the fruit. Life, in all its rich diversity, is something given but for it to come to fruition something is required by all living things. And so, too, for us as human beings. We have to work with the gift of life that is given to us in order for that life to come to fruition in us. The lovely metaphor of the seed as the word of God is complemented by the wonderful and humbling metaphor of our humanity as the ground in which the seed is planted and grows. Something is required of us in working with the grace of the gift of life and the gift of light, of illumination by grace. The ‘gesima’ Sundays belong to the interplay of the classical virtues of temperance, courage, prudence, and justice with the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity which transform all of the virtues into forms of love.
Those who strive for mastery have to be temperate in all things, as the Epistle for Septuagesima shows in pursuit of an “incorruptible crown” in contrast to the passing and “corruptible” crowns or goods of this world. We labour in the vineyard whether long or short but receive “whatsoever is right” or just from the standpoint of the eternal justice of God whose will is not constrained to our expectations and thoughts about what we think we deserve and want. In other words, as today’s Collect says, we “put not our trust in any thing that we do.” It is not us in our boastings about ourselves but the working of God’s grace in us, as Paul makes quite clear in today’s Epistle.
Yet something is required of us, an activity of the soul. The classical virtues which contribute to the idea of the excellence of human character are reworked by God’s grace. They are not negated nor destroyed but perfected. Paul is talking about the things which he has had to endure in his ministry. It takes a kind of courage, a matter of what moves in the heart in the face of all manner of struggles, not the least of which is “the care of the churches.” What moves in the heart, he suggests, is not a matter of boasting about how great he is. Quite the opposite. “If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities.” The opposite of vainglory is humility.t
The word humility relates, literally, to the ground, humus, and thus connects to the Gospel theme about the ground in which the seed is sown. The point of the parable, in its images and explicitly in its explication, is about what kind of ground we are: the dry rocky ground, the ground choked with thorns, or the good ground? Jesus’ exhortation to us is to have ears to hear and hearts to understand. But hear and understand what? That to be the good ground is to be prudent: “they which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.”
Prudence is required for the proper operation of all the virtues. Why? Because as this Gospel shows us we are meant to labour in knowledge and love, not unthinkingly but thinkingly. Prudence is practical wisdom. Jesus says to the disciples and to us that what is wanted is for us to understand the parables and to enter into their purpose and meaning. That itself is a kind of wisdom. It means working with the Scriptures even as farmers and gardeners work with the soil and the ground, working with the givenness of creation, we might say, in the sowing of the seed which is also given. Thus it means working with the revelation of God’s word sown in our hearts by being proclaimed and received. But it can’t just remain passive and inert. As the potency – the power – of life it has to be acted upon by us.
The seed is God’s word. Not my word, not your words, not the words of bishops and synods, not the words of flattery and praise, of folly and foolishness, of vanity and self-regard, not the words of lies and self-deceit, of coercion and exploitation. No. God’s word is truth and grace. It is all about the labour of our hearts and minds to understand what is given in revelation and which redeems all that belongs to the truth of our humanity even in spite of ourselves. This is what the ‘gesima’ Sundays show us.
The parable and its explication illustrate what it means to “stay close to the language of the images” of Scripture, “the primary form of revelation. It is a matter about how we read and think. You might want to consider this evening’s second lesson from Luke 10. 25-37 which begins with the questions of Jesus to the cynical lawyer about ‘what is written in the law?’ and ‘how readest thou?’ before going on to the parable of the Good Samaritan as the illustration of the love of neighbour. It is followed by the story of Mary and Martha and the words of Jesus that “one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen the good portion.” It is about our listening and thinking with Jesus. The point is that the contemplative life shapes the active life of service and care. How we think and read governs how we act and feel. Thus the parable of the Good Samaritan is framed by this intellectual theme about reading, listening and learning.
We can only work with what we have been given, the life and light of God in Christ Jesus. As we shall see, we can only “go up to Jerusalem,” another metaphor for the kingdom of heaven, for our life in God, by way of faith, hope, and love. They are the virtues that perfect all our human labours understood in terms of temperance, courage, prudence, and justice. They have their true source and end in faith, hope, and love alive in us but only if we act with prudence in tending to the seed which is the word of God sown in our hearts.
This way of thinking is about discovering the supernatural ground of our natural lives. It is found in the revelation that signals the redemption of our humanity. It is, I think, wonderfully illustrated in the baptismal font by Giovanni Pisano for the Church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitatis in Pistoia, Italy. It depicts the reworking of the classical virtues by grace, graphically and clearly. The pedestal of the font bears the images of the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity (or love) which upholds the bowl of the font carved with the images of the cardinal or classical, natural virtues of temperance, courage, prudence, and justice.
Let me conclude with Fr. Crouse’s simple explanation of the symbolism of the font which extends, I think, to the logic of the ‘gesima’ Sundays in the programme of Lent.
“It’s a very humanistic statement, in that the new life at baptism is seen as a renewal of the natural human virtues; but at the same time, it’s a powerful affirmation that the restoration of authentic humanity depends upon and is sustained by, the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity.”
Fr. David Curry
Sexagesima 2026
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