Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The word this week is very beautiful and can help us a lot, above all to be patient with yourself because at moments in your life you need to see that you are not a Christian. If you have not reached that point, then you are still very far from having faith. When you see your sins, your weaknesses, your spiritual poverty, then you know you are not as good as you thought. When the Pharisee in you shows up, it shatters this idea that you are good, and others are bad. We always justify our sins which means we are far from God.
When you sense that you are capable of doing the evil that at times you see inside of you, now you know that the Holy Spirit is acting and consoling you and showing you the love of God. When you don’t accept your sins or are scandalized by what you do then you can easily leave the Church and even leave the Lord.
There are two ways that everyone has in life and when we see this it is because the Holy Spirit is patient and gives us patience. The Word invites us to be patient with ourselves, with others, but mostly with ourselves. I hope you have had the experience mentioned in the first reading: that because of your sins God will grant you repentance. The Lord doesn’t cause us to sin, we sin even though it is not his will, but he allows it. However, he will give you repentance because the Holy Spirit is with you. Even in your sin the Holy Spirit is there and seals you with his love. Repentance comes from the Holy Spirit and from no one else.
The gospel says that the servants of the householder sowed seeds in the field, and they were eager to tear out the weeds when they discovered them. This is the temptation we all have: to think we can quickly take away everything that enslaves us, and we can’t. It is impossible for us.
I love this word which is very beautiful. When Christ speaks in parables, he is always speaking of himself. The others, even the disciples, don’t understand, as the Scriptures foretold last week. They hardly hear with their ears nor see with their eyes. When Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, he is speaking of himself. Yes, he is that mustard seed. The tiniest of all seeds. Christ has become to smallest of all seeds, the most insignificant one, the humiliated one. With one breath you could blow away all of them. Christ became a seed for you and for me.
The kingdom of heaven is like a seed that is sowed in ‘his field’. This is so spectacular that Christ becomes this seed and where is it sown? In his field, which is you and me. His seed is sown in each of us since we are his creatures, created in his image and likeness. This is true for all men, but we have something even greater than that. We are made sons and daughters of God through our Baptism. You are created in his image and likeness like the wheat in the first parable.
The seed that is inside of us is in the middle of our selfishness, our sins, weaknesses, lust, and pride. In the midst of all those weeds is this grain of wheat—this is the good news. So be patient with yourselves. The weeds and wheat look remarkably alike in the early stages. It is very difficult to tell them apart. At the beginning they both have a green sprout and even the experts cannot tell them apart so what about us who cannot tell the difference between a cauliflower and a head of lettuce.
We cannot tell the difference between the wheat and the weeds because we think the weeds are my mother-in-law or my child or my brother or the other one. But the word speaks of what is in you, really in you! The wheat is Christ. Look at the cross. When he is crushed and ground; he is turned into flour, into bread to be eaten by you. Do you want to be this wheat, then allow yourself to be crushed and made into a good bread that can be eaten by others. Do you want to give your life to others or do you want to be weeds that cannot nourish anyone, that are good for nothing, except to be thrown into the fire? You decide; it is up to you!
The enemy has sown weeds the gospel says. Who is the enemy? The Catechism of the Catholic Church says there are three enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil. They are constantly bombarding us, and the devil is the greatest of all. If you want to let the weeds grow, so be it, maybe without your knowledge, or do you want to cultivate and protect the wheat that is planted in you.
Don’t be afraid, this gospel is not making any demands of you. The reality is that God loves us and will always be with us and he goes with us, no matter what we do. There will always be wheat and you are the Lord’s field, and he is always sowing seeds in your life.