“And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.”
But the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful — the three choking agents are: worries of this life (ordinary anxieties about provision, security, the future), the deceitfulness of wealth (the false promise that money can secure what only God can provide), and desires for other things (the pull of the general appetite for things other than the kingdom). None of these three is necessarily evil in itself; they are the ordinary contents of a life not consciously organized around the kingdom's priorities. They do not replace the word; they crowd it out, leaving a person religious but fruitless.
Church Fathers on Mark 4:19
Although the Lord appears in the transactions mentioned above to neglect His mother, nevertheless He honours her; since on her account He goes forth about the borders of the sea.
For if we look into the Gospel of Matthew, it appears that this same teaching of the Lord at the sea, was delivered on the same day as the former. For after the conclusion of the first sermon, Matthew immediately subjoins, saying, 'The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea-side.'
But He began to teach at the sea, that the place of His teaching might point out the bitter feelings and instability of His hearers.
Read all 22 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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