Let them both grow

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A

Collect

Show favour, O Lord, to your servants and mercifully increase the gifts of your grace, that, made fervent in hope, faith and charity, they may be ever watchful in keeping your commands. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen. 

After sin you will grant repentance.
Wisdom 12:13, 16-19

A reading from the Book of Wisdom
There is no god, other than you, who cares for every thing,
to whom you might have to prove that you never judged unjustly;
Your justice has its source in strength,
your sovereignty over all makes you lenient to all.
You show your strength when your sovereign power is questioned
and you expose the insolence of those who know it;
but, disposing of such strength, you are mild in judgement,
you govern us with great lenience,
for you have only to will, and your power is there.
By acting thus you have taught a lesson to your people
how the virtuous man must be kindly to his fellow men,
and you have given your sons the good hope
that after sin you will grant repentance.

The Word of the Lord.
℟. Thanks be to God.

Psalm 85 (86):5-6, 9-10, 15-16

℟. (5a): O Lord, you are good and forgiving.

O Lord, you are good and forgiving,
full of love to all who call.
Give heed, O Lord, to my prayer
and attend to the sound of my voice. ℟.

All the nations shall come to adore you
and glorify your name, O Lord:
for you are great and do marvellous deeds,
you who alone are God. ℟.

But you, God of mercy and compassion,
slow to anger, O Lord,
abounding in love and truth,
turn and take pity on me. ℟.

The Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words.
Rom 8:26-27

A reading from the first letter of St Paul to the Romans
The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who knows everything in our hearts knows perfectly well what he means, and that the pleas of the saints expressed by the Spirit are according to the mind of God.

The Word of the Lord.
℟. Thanks be to God.

Gospel Acclamation
See Mt 11, 25

Alleluia. ℟. Alleluia.

Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom to mere children.

℟. Alleluia.

Let them both grow till the harvest.
Mt 13:24-43

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew

Jesus put another 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 put another parable before them: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest shrub of all and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and shelter in its branches.’  

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 things that provoke offences and all who do evil, and throw them into the blazing 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 Word of the Lord
℟. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Reflection

Last Sunday, this Sunday, and next Sunday, the Liturgy of the Word presents us with the theme of the Kingdom of Heaven through Chapter 13 of Matthew’s Gospel, which brings together a number of the parables that Jesus told about this Kingdom. This theme lies at the very heart of Christ’s preaching, much of which was conveyed through parables. As Pope Benedict XVI writes in Jesus of Nazareth: “While civilisations have come and gone, these stories continue to touch us with their freshness and humanity … Here we have a very immediate sense ... of the closeness to Jesus as he lived and taught.”

Let us therefore imagine ourselves on the seashore, where a great crowd has gathered. Jesus gets into a boat and sits down in it. Large crowds are standing on the shore, and Jesus is speaking to them about many things in parables. And, just as happened in Jesus’ own day, we too find ourselves like the disciples when they returned home: we ask him what each parable means.

Jesus gives us the meaning of the parable—in this case, that of the wheat and the weeds. He wants his disciples to understand that the children of the Kingdom will encounter opposition from those who practice evil. In the end, however, the former will be rewarded “in the kingdom of their Father,” while the latter will end up “in the fiery furnace”.

This parable reminds us that God created everything good and beautiful, as we read in the account of creation, but afterwards evil and ugliness entered the world. Our enemy, the devil, sows within us and around us every kind of evil inclination: selfishness, worldliness, the pursuit of pleasure, and an unbridled craving for wealth and power—all consequences of original sin.

It is therefore worth reflecting that within each one of us there is both wheat and weeds. No one is entirely good or entirely evil. We need to remain vigilant and watchful. We cannot afford to be passive (“asleep”), because if we fail to resist the enemy, he will rise up and tempt us into making the wrong choices. The shoots of wheat and weeds look very much alike, but they are recognised by their fruit. At times we too struggle to distinguish good from evil—“Thus you will recognize them by their fruits” (Mt 7:20).

Jesus goes on to tell other parables that further explain the implications of the Kingdom of Heaven. Like the mustard seed, we are to labour so that the Kingdom may grow, and we are to be like the leaven in the dough. We should remember that we live in the world, but we do not belong to the world, as we read in John’s Gospel, when Jesus prays to the Father: “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (Jn 17:15).

Jesus teaches us to live amid the realities of this world without becoming trapped by them and, whenever possible, to resist them. We must be careful both in the way we oppose evil and in the way we relate to others, distinguishing between the person who does evil and the evil deed itself. This is how Jesus always acted towards sinners: with love and mercy. Through the way we live, may we communicate a positive and joyful message that helps others in their own struggles.

Prayer

Lord, may your kingdom come. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

 

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