POPE FRANCIS ON THE 16TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR A. THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD GRAIN AND THE WEED.
The Enemy Sowing Tares Among the Wheat
Photo © Martin Crampin
ANGELUS
Saint Peter’s Square
Sunday, 23 July 2023
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Dear brothers and sisters, buongiorno!
Today’s Gospel offers us the parable of the wheat and the weeds (cf. Mt 13:24-43). A farmer, who has sown good seed in his field, discovers that an enemy by night has sown darnel in it, a plant that looks very similar to wheat, but is a weed.
In this way, Jesus talks about our world, which in effect is like a large field, where God sows wheat and the evil one sows darnel, and therefore good and bad grow together. Good and bad grow together. We see this from the news, in society, and even in the family and in the Church. And when, along with the good wheat, we see bad weeds, we want to tear them up immediately, to make a “clean sweep”. But today the Lord warns us that to do this is a temptation: one cannot create a perfect world, and one cannot do good by hastily destroying what is bad, because this has even worse effects: one ends up, as we say, “throwing the baby away with the bathwater”.
There is, however, a second field where we can clean up: it is the field of our heart, the only one where we can intervene directly. There, too, there is wheat and darnel; indeed, it is precisely from there that both of them expand into the great field of the world. Brothers and sisters, our heart, in fact, is the field of freedom: it is not a sterile laboratory, but rather an open and therefore vulnerable space. To cultivate it properly, it is necessary on the one hand to take constant care of the delicate shoots of goodness, and on the other, to identify and uproot the weeds, at the right moment. So let us look within and examine what happens a little, what is growing in me, what grows in me that is good and evil. There is a good method for this: it is the examination of conscience, which is seeing what happened today in my life, what struck my heart and which decisions I made. And this serves precisely to verify, in the light of God, where the bad weeds and the good seed are.
After the field of the world, and the field of the heart, there is a third field. We can call it the neighbour’s field. They are the people we associate with every day, and whom we often judge. How easy it is to recognize their weeds, how we like to “flay” others! And how difficult it is, instead, to know how to see the good grain that is growing! Let us remember, though, that if we want to cultivate the fields of life, it is important to seek first and foremost the work of God: to learn to see the beauty of what the Lord has sown, the sun-kissed wheat with its golden ears, in others, in the world and in ourselves. Brothers and sisters, let us ask for the grace to be able to see it in ourselves, but also in others, starting from those close to us. It is not a naïve perspective; it is a believing one, because God, the farmer of the great field of the world, loves to see goodness and to make it grow to make the harvest a feast!
So today too, we can ask ourselves some questions. Thinking of the field of the world: do I know how to resist the temptation to “bundle all the grass together”, to sweep others aside with my judgments? Then, thinking of the field of the heart: am I honest in seeking out the bad weeds in myself, and decisive in throwing them into the fire of God’s mercy? And, thinking of the neighbour’s field: do I have the wisdom to see what is good without being discouraged by the limitations and limits of others?
May the Virgin Mary help us to cultivate patiently what the Lord sows in the field of life, in my field, in the neighbour’s, in everyone’s field.
Source: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2023/documents/20230723-angelus.html
ANGELUS
Sunday, 20 July 2014
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning,
These Sundays the liturgy proposes several Gospel parables, that is, short stories which Jesus used to announce the Kingdom of Heaven to the crowds. Among those in today’s Gospel, there is a rather complex one which Jesus explained to the disciples: it is that of the good grain and the weed, which deals with the problem of evil in the world and calls attention to God’s patience (cf. Mt 13:24-30, 36-43). The story takes place in a field where the owner sows grain, but during the night his enemy comes and sows weed, a term which in Hebrew derives from the same root as the name “Satan” and which alludes to the concept of division. We all know that the demon is a “sower of weed”, one who always seeks to sow division between individuals, families, nations and peoples. The servants wanted to uproot the weed immediately, but the field owner stopped them, explaining that: “in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them” (Mt 13:29). Because we all know that a weed, when it grows, looks very much like good grain, and there is the risk of confusing them.
The teaching of the parable is twofold. First of all, it tells that the evil in the world comes not from God but from his enemy, the evil one. It is curious that the evil one goes at night to sow weed, in the dark, in confusion; he goes where there is no light to sow weed. This enemy is astute: he sows evil in the middle of good, thus it is impossible for us men to distinctly separate them; but God, in the end, will be able to do so.
And here we arrive at the second theme: the juxtaposition of the impatience of the servants and the patient waiting of the field owner, who represents God. At times we are in a great hurry to judge, to categorize, to put the good here, the bad there.… But remember the prayer of that self-righteous man: “God, I thank you that I am good, that I am not like other men, malicious” (cf. Lk 18:11-12). God, however, knows how to wait. With patience and mercy he gazes into the “field” of life of every person; he sees much better than we do the filth and the evil, but he also sees the seeds of good and waits with trust for them to grow. God is patient, he knows how to wait. This is so beautiful: our God is a patient father, who always waits for us and waits with his heart in hand to welcome us, to forgive us. He always forgives us if we go to him.
The field owner’s attitude is that of hope grounded in the certainty that evil does not have the first nor the last word. And it is thanks to this patient hope of God that the same weed, which is the malicious heart with so many sins, in the end can become good grain. But be careful: evangelical patience is not indifference to evil; one must not confuse good and evil! In facing weeds in the world the Lord’s disciple is called to imitate the patience of God, to nourish hope with the support of indestructible trust in the final victory of good, that is, of God.
In the end, in fact, evil will be removed and eliminated: at the time of harvest, that is, of judgment, the harvesters will follow the orders of the field owner, separating the weed to burn it (cf. Mt 13:30). On the day of the final harvest, the judge will be Jesus, He who has sown good grain in the world and who himself became the “grain of wheat”, who died and rose. In the end we will all be judged by the same measure with which we have judged: the mercy we have shown to others will also be shown to us. Let us ask Our Lady, our Mother, to help us to grow in patience, in hope and in mercy with all brothers and sisters.
SOURCE: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2014/documents/papa-francesco_angelus_20140720.html
EMPHASIS MINE.
ANGELUS
Sunday, 23 July 2017
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!
Today’s Gospel reading offers three parables through which Jesus speaks to the crowds about the Kingdom of God. I will focus on the first: that of the good wheat and the weeds, which illustrates the problem of evil in the world and highlights God’s patience (cf. Mt 13:24-30, 36-43). How much patience God has! Each one of us too can say this: “How much patience God has!”. The narrative takes place in a field with two antagonists. On one side is the master of the field, who represents God and who sows good seed; on the other is the enemy, who represents Satan and scatters weeds.
As time passes, the weeds grow among the wheat, and the master and his servants express different opinions regarding this fact. The servants would like to intervene and uproot the weeds; but the master, who is concerned above all with saving the wheat, is against this, saying: “No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them” (v. 29). With this image, Jesus tells us that in this world good and evil are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate them and eradicate all evil. God alone can do this, and he will do so at the Last Judgment. With its ambiguities and its composite character, the present situation is the field of freedom, the field of Christian freedom, in which the difficult exercise of discernment is made between good and evil.
This field then, involves reconciling, with great trust in God and in his providence, two seemingly contradictory approaches: decision and patience. Decision is that of wanting to be good wheat — we all want this — with all our might, and thus keeping away from the evil one and his seduction. Patience means preferring a Church that acts as leaven in the dough, that is unafraid to sully her hands washing her children’s clothes, rather than a Church of “purists” who presume to judge ahead of time who will be in the Kingdom of God and who will not.
Today the Lord, who is Wisdom incarnate, helps us to understand that good and evil cannot be identified with neatly defined areas or specific human groups: “These are the good, those are the bad”. He tells us that the boundary line between good and evil passes through the heart of each person; it passes through the heart of each of us, that is: We are all sinners. I would like to ask you: “Whoever is not a sinner raise your hand”. No one! Because we are all sinners, all of us are. Jesus Christ, with his death on the Cross and his Resurrection, has freed us from the slavery of sin and given us the grace to journey in a new life; but along with Baptism he also gave us Confession, because we all need to be forgiven for our sins. Looking always and only at the evil that is outside of us means not wanting to recognize the sin that is also inside us.
Then Jesus teaches us a different way of looking at the field of the world, of observing reality. We are called to learn God’s time — which is not our time — and also God’s “gaze”: thanks to the beneficial influence of uneasy anticipation, what were weeds or seemed to be weeds can become a good product. It is the reality of conversion. It is the prospect of hope!
May the Virgin Mary help us to accept, in the reality that surrounds us, not only filth and evil, but also good and beauty; to unmask the work of Satan, but above all to trust in the action of God who fertilizes history.
SOURCE: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2017/documents/papa-francesco_angelus_20170723.html
EMPHASIS MINE.
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