What Pope Leo XIV Sees in Van Gogh’s ‘Sower’ — and What You Might Have Missed, by John Grondelski
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Vincent van Gogh, “The Sower at Sunset,” 1888 (photo: Public Domain)
By John Grondelski, National Catholic Register, May 23, 2025
John M. Grondelski (Ph.D., Fordham) is former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. He is especially interested in moral theology and the thought of John Paul II. [Note: All views expressed in his National Catholic Register contributions are exclusively the author’s.]
Pope Leo XIV uses Van Gogh’s ‘Sower at Sunset’ to show how God’s Word is scattered freely — and how even fractured ground can yield a golden harvest.
Pope Leo XIV’s first General Audience on Wednesday was a meditation on Matthew’s Parable of the Sower (13:1-23). It’s the first of five parables or analogies that Jesus makes about the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven. They will be read in succession over several Sundays in summer 2026, when the Church will use Matthew’s Gospel for the Sunday Lectionary.
The Parable of the Sower showcases his work and the fate of the seeds. The Sower goes out to sow his field with seed. Some falls on rocks and dies for lack of roots and moisture. Some lands amid weeds and brambles that choke it off. Some never get to germinate because the birds eat them. Some falls on good soil but, even there, different seeds produce different yields, more or less bountiful. Jesus uses the parable to explain God’s action in spreading his Word and different human reactions to it. …
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