Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The good news is, today’s Gospel reading is a reflection on an earlier Gospel reading. That makes today’s reflection both a reflection on the Gospel, and a reflection on a reflection on the Gospel!
In today’s Gospel, Jesus clarifies who he is talking about when he told the parable of the weeds (Matthew 13:24-30). He instructs us that at the “end of the age,” those who cause others to sin will be punished, and the righteous will reside in the Kingdom with God. We’re fortunate - for once, Jesus tells us directly what he means hen he tells us a parable. The definition is cut and dry.
Whenever I read the parable of the weeds and the wheat, or this explanation of it, I am always struck by the same idea. The translation of the Gospel that we use at mass says “when the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.” (Matthew 13:26). However, other translations tell us that the crop grew with the weeds. The weeds didn’t just happen to be there, but they were a part of the growing process. As the parable goes on to say, the weeds and the wheat are deeply interconnected. So much so that one could not pull up one without pulling up the other. Instead of just nipping the weeds in the bud, they had to continue to grow until it was time to uproot everything at once. From the very beginning, the bad was so intertwined with the good that there was no way to separate them.
This should, of course, cause us to reflect on our own lives. What bad parts of ourselves have grow up along with the good? Are we able to differentiate between the people in our lives who increase our faith, and those who bring us down? How much of our faith lives been shaped by a few weeds that have grown up along with the wheat? It is never easy to discern, and even more difficult to act upon. Even the householder in the story reminds us that they are so connected that removing some of the weeds might cause us to lose some wheat, as well.
Unfortunately, unlike the householder in the story, we don’t exactly want to wait until “the harvest” to start working out what are weeds and what is wheat. We must begin that painful process in the here and now. What seeds in our lives are likely to turn out to be wheat? What seeds are likely to be weeds? It’s hard to tell those seeds apart, but to the discerning eye, it can become apparent quickly.
Today, let us examine our own lives, and ask ourselves what is wheat, and what is weed. Let us work to stifle the weeds before they grow too much, and ensure that when the harvest comes, we can “shine like the sun in the Kingdom of [the] Father” (Matthew 13:43)
-Marty Bagatti