Photo by Lucas Foglia. Bishop Brendan J. Cahill of Victoria, Texas, says an annual Mass to bless seeds and soil. “How blessed are we...from our farms, there are people being fed.”

A farmer once told me the work of farming was simple: Plant seeds, and pray.

It was a joke with a kernel of truth. There is plenty of hard work and complications in working the land. There’s great effort and study in finding the right seeds, cultivating the land, tending crops, and trying to maximize the bounty.

Simple? No, not at all. The idea and the process are relatively clear-cut, but there is so much outside human control that can go spectacularly wrong. The best planning, work, and execution can be ruined by the weather or a weevil.

Veteran farmers know the worry and concern that comes after the ground has been tilled and seeded and the sprouts come up. An ill-timed freeze or an unseen virus can end a crop prematurely. Thus, the mantra: Plant seeds and pray.

The Bible is filled with agricultural allusions because the original audience understood it so well. A drought meant suffering, if not death, to people and cultures. A bounty provided life for another season.

Those analogies can be more difficult to grasp today, particularly as the science of agriculture and the international market have shielded society from the scares and scarcity of the past. And, as many people in North America have become further and farther removed from agriculture and the cycles that go with it – preparing, planting, tending, and (hopefully) harvesting – the principles and life-and-death lessons that go along with them are often lost in the distance.

The Bible reminds us that just as farmers reap what they sow, so too do people in how they live their lives.

In times like this, when the cultural winds seem uncertain and the future is clouded, it’s worth considering those agricultural truths, especially when it’s difficult to envision hope. But the Bible reminds us of the remarkable and transformative property of the seed.

Once planted and hidden out of sight, the seed does what it was designed to do: germinate and produce a harvest, even in the most difficult circumstances.

As the psalmist says: Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.

May it be so, as we hopefully plant and prayerfully wait upon the Lord of the harvest.