GOSPEL: Matthew 13, 24-43
Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio
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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel
GOSPEL: Matthew 13, 24-43
Jesus put a parable before the crowds, ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, the darnel appeared as well. The owner’s servants went to him and said, “Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?” “Some enemy has done this” he answered. And the servants said, “Do you want us to go and weed it out?” But he said, “No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn.”’
He told them another parable, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through’.
In all this Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables; indeed, he would never speak to them except in parables. This was to fulfil the prophecy: I will speak to you in parables and expound things hidden since the foundation of the world.
Then, leaving the crowds, he went to the house; and his disciples came to him and said, ‘Explain the parable about the darnel in the field to us’. He said in reply, ‘The sower of the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world; the good seed is the subjects of the kingdom; the darnel, the subjects of the evil one; the enemy who sowed them, the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; the reapers are the angels. Well then, just as the darnel is gathered up and burnt in the fire, so it will be at the end of time. The Son of Man will send his angels and they will gather out of his Kingdom all who do evil, and throw them into the burning furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth. Then the virtuous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Listen, anyone who has ears.’
The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ
Kieran’s summary . . . This Sunday we have the parable of the weeds among the wheat. How unfruitful our actions and our lives often are! If our focus is our own wellbeing, then we will remain “green” like the weeds in the wheat field, instead of becoming golden and laden with fruit like the wheat at harvest time. This greenness is beauty of a superficial sort. It is a “darnel” not sown by God or willed by God, but it is guaranteed to arise in our fallen world. Weeds are sown by our adversary, Satan. It is a fact that every good deed, noble intention or holy endeavour, such as marriage, will encounter difficulties and opposition. Our natural inclination is to want to remove these weeds. But this is the fallacy of perfectionism and it can give rise to a focus on purism, negativity and the avoidance of evil. The Lord, by contrast, will tolerate the bad so long as the good continues to thrive. His focus is entirely on the good. It is much later that the weeds and the wheat will be distinguished from each other. The wheat turns golden and is bent over with its rich fruitfulness. The weeds remain green and unfruitful. Let us leave it to the Lord and his angels to distinguish between what is fruitful and what is not! The Lord has sown his leaven in history and what will bear fruit will bear fruit.
Often, our words or our works give rise to unexpected and unpleasant consequences. It is difficult to sow only the seed we wish to plant!
In horticulture, the issue of seed purity is of great importance: it is practically impossible to be certain that in a quantity of seeds of the same type there is not a seed similar in shape, but from a different plant. It is very difficult to sow only the seed you want to plant. There is always something “foreign” present! The same issue arises when we are speaking. The ideas we try to express can be understood by different people in different ways. In fact, people can sometimes interpret our words to convey a sense that was not actually intended at all. How unpleasant it is when our words or our actions give rise to unexpected fruit! How irksome when we are misunderstood, or when our acts give rise to consequences that we never intended! The weeds in a field are the bitter consequence of an evil not conceived, of something foreign to our intention, yet present.
Where do these problems arise? They arise from our adversary, Satan, who tempts us. Every good action, noble work or holy activity will encounter problems, challenges, opposition. These weeds are not sown by God, but they are ever-present. Whenever we try to do something fruitful, we can be sure that opposition will arise.
So what should we do when our activity gives rise to that which is ambiguous, only partially good, and has destructive side effects? In the parable in question, the first approach is to presume that there was something wrong right from the start: "Lord, had you not sown good seed in your field?". Could it be that the evil we encounter is sown by God? The parable gives the answer: "An enemy has done this!" There is an enemy of humanity. There is a temptation. You cannot expect to do something fruitful without being subjected to the adversary's pitfalls. One thing we can be sure of is that we will encounter challenges once we start doing something good! A marriage has its pitfalls, work has its struggles, the education of children has its painful misunderstandings, the business of building up of the Christian community inevitably encounters a whole range of religious parasites. The darnel is not the will of God, it is not sown by God, but it is an ever-present opposition when an important and holy work appears.
Our natural inclination is to want to remove the weeds. But this is the fallacy of perfectionism and it gives rise to a focus on purism, negativity and the avoidance of evil. The Lord, by contrast, will tolerate the bad so long as the good continues to thrive. His focus is entirely on the good. It is much later that the weeds and the wheat will be distinguished from each other. The wheat turns golden and is bent over with its rich fruitfulness. The weeds remain green and unfruitful. Let us leave it to the Lord and his angels to distinguish between what is fruitful and what is not! The Lord has sown his leaven in history and what will bear fruit will bear fruit.
Then the classic proposal is made to the master by the workers: "Do you want us to go and eliminate it?" Remove the problem, eradicate the evil when it appears, eliminate the disturbances. This is the perfectionist hypothesis that transforms good works into anxious nightmares, where, in a very short time, the main mission ceases to be to do good and becomes to avoid evil. And then the spiritual life becomes based entirely on denial, on purism, on what should not be done. When this happens, we forget the vitality of the good. But the Master is not anxious about eliminating the bad. It does not bother him that things are undermined. For him, good is the only thing that matters. His strategy is aimed at not losing any part of the good seed - the background noise does not drown out the beauty of the melody, and that's what counts. The time will come to distinguish between weeds and wheat. At the time of harvest, the wheat turns brown and the weeds, even if they look like wheat, remain green. Good and bad are recognized in the end, when the angels arrive, because it is the messengers of God who make the selection, not people! God has hidden his leaven in history, and that which will bear fruit, will bear fruit. Judgment belongs only to God.
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