Mt 13:1-9: “A sower went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow.  But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.  Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.  Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

With the different types of soil that the seed falls on, Jesus sums up the various types of people in the world. Different hearts. This is the real meaning of the formation we receive: it is meant to be an ongoing self-cultivation, like the irrigation of a field, or arable land that will lead us out of ourselves, out of the shell of our own selfishness, like a seed that breaks out and brings forth a plant: as we grow and mature, we thus grow in a capacity for sorrow, and for joy.