Meditations for Each Day of Lent by St. Thomas Aquinas
Saturday: The Grain of Wheat
Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone.–John xii. 24.
We use the grain of wheat in two ways, for bread and for seed. Here the word is to be taken in the second sense, grain of wheat meaning seed and not the matter out of which we make bread. For in this sense it never increases so as to bear fruit. When it is said that the grain must die, this does not mean that it loses its value as seed, but that it is changed into another kind of thing. So St. Paul (i Cor. xv. 36) says, That which then thou sowest is not quickened, except it die first. Continue reading