Mark 4:16

(ubi Sup.) There are some who both experience its usefulness and feel a desire for it, but some of them the calamities of this world frighten, and others its prosperity allures, so that they do not attain to that which they approve. Of the first of whom He says, And these are they who fell on stony ground; of the latter, And these are they which are sown among thorns. But riches are called thorns, because they tear the soul with the piercing of its own thoughts, and after bringing it to sin, they, as one may say, make it bleed by inflicting a wound. Again He says, And the toil of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches; for the man who is deceived by an empty desire of riches must soon be afflicted by the toils of continual cares. He adds, And the lusts of other things; because, whosoever despises the commandments of God, and wanders away lustfully seeking other things, is unable to attain to the joy of beatitude. And concupiscences of this sort choke the word, because they do not allow a good desire to enter into the heart, and, as it were, stifle the entrance of vital breath. There are, however, excepted from these different classes of men, the Gentiles who do not even have grace to hear the words of life.

Take care that rocky ground does not receive the seed and send forth the fruit of good work without the roots of perseverance. For many are pleased by what they hear and propose beginnings of good work; but as soon as they begin to be wearied by adversities, they abandon what they have begun. Rocky ground therefore lacked moisture, which did not bring what had sprouted to the fruit of perseverance. For many, when they hear the word against avarice, detest that same avarice and praise contempt for all things; but as soon as the mind sees what it desires, it forgets what it was praising. Many, when they hear the word against lust, not only do not desire to commit defilements of the flesh, but even blush at those committed; but as soon as the beauty of the flesh appears before their eyes, the mind is so carried away to desires as if nothing had yet been resolved by it against these same desires; and it does condemnable things, which whatever it remembers having done, it has already itself condemned. Often too we are pierced with remorse against sins, and yet after weeping we return to the same sins. So Balaam, having gazed upon the tents of the Israelite people, wept and begged to be made like them in death, saying: Let my soul die the death of the just, and let my last end be like theirs; but as soon as the hour of compunction passed, he burned with the wickedness of avarice. For on account of promised gifts he gave counsel for the death of that people whose death he had wished to resemble; and he forgot what he had lamented, since he was unwilling to extinguish what burned through avarice.