TOMATO SEEDS

Feast of St. Lawrence

Jn 12:24-26

When I was yet a kid, I could not understand why tomato seeds had to be dried before they were planted. Dry seeds seemed dead seeds to me. But when planted, the dried tomato seeds sprouted after a few days and eventually became tomato plants that later on produced more tomatoes, and, of course, even more tomato seeds.

Once I planted fresh tomato seeds in a plant box under a shade. I was worried about drying the seeds because, as I mentioned earlier, dry seeds were dead seeds to me. For a few days the tomato seeds I planted remained untouched and fresh. But a few days later, something happened. The ants came and ate all my fresh tomato seeds!

Fresh tomato seeds remain fresh tomato seeds until ants come and digest them. But dry tomato seeds yield a rich harvest of tomatoes. The more we keep the seeds fresh the more we hinder the harvest. The more we preserve them the more tomatoes we lose. Unless the seed falls to the earth and dies, it remains a seed; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.

We are like tomato seeds. We need to endure trials for us to grow. We need to risk so as to gain. “No pain, no gain,” they say. We must die in order to live. St. Francis tells us, “…and in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

Everybody wants to growth, to gain and to glow with life. But no one wants to die.

If only tomato seeds could speak, perhaps they would express their preference for the sun, for the earth, for death because the only way for them to live and bear fruit is for them to dry under the sun, to fall to the earth, and to die. Thank God, we are not tomato seeds, lest someone might just keep us fresh and plant us under a shade. When that happens our end could possibly be in the digestive tract of some ants.

As we remember St. Lawrence today, let us learn from his love for the poor. When arrested and tortured by the Roman Prefect to surrender the treasures of the Church, St. Lawrence pointed to the poor, saying, “Here are the treasures of the Church. The poor are the true treasures of the Church. Let us also be inspired by his faithful love for Jesus. He was martyred for his faith in the Lord, martyred through roasting. But most of all, let us follow his example of joyful sacrifice. When being roasted to death on a gridiron, St. Lawrence even jested his executioners, saying, “Kindly turn me to the other side. I am already cooked on this side.”

May we live our love for the poor. May our love for Jesus be faithful. May our sacrificial love be joyful at all times. By doing so we are martyrs not by dying but by living, for martyrdom is not only about dying. Martyrdom is about living for Jesus, loving Jesus in the poor, and loving Jesus in good times and bad. Dying for Jesus is but a part of that living. Unless we live like Jesus, we cannot die for Him.

Martyrdom is not only the moment when the axe falls on a Christian’s neck. It is not only the moment when wild beasts feast on a Christian’s flesh. It is not only when a Christian is roasted alive. Martyrdom is living like Jesus.

Tomato seeds do not become martyrs. They become tomato fruits. But we can become like Jesus. We can become martyrs. We can die and bear fruit.