“Wheat (Good) & Weeds (Evil) Co-Exist Until Harvest (Judgment Day): Spiritual Battles & Persecutions of the Church” (Homily #182)

9am Mass

[Homily #182b]

 Video Credit: St. Catherine's Church

Homily 182

“Wheat (Good) & Weeds (Evil) Co-Exist Until Harvest (Judgment Day):

Spiritual Battles & Persecutions of the Church”

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

July 19, 2020

The Church seems to be entering into a more intensified phase of global persecution.  The world, too, is living in a time of distress.  At the beginning of 2020, we were threatened with nuclear war in the Pacific and rumors of conventional war in the Middle East in January.  Following this, a plague called COVID-19 struck humanity and hit close to home in February along with panic-shoppers in March.  Uncertainties about the economy and employment for workers, businesses and families abound, compounding poverty and home school education in April and May.  Beginning In June, more social unrest and racial injustice trouble the land.  And to top these all off throughout, human life remains disrespected affecting many elderly in nursing homes who have died lonely.

In a sense, the Church is in no better condition.  The fact that we are out here instead of inside the church building is not the norm.  Other Christians have it worse without the comfort of the Word of God & Sacraments where they are isolated and persecuted.  Churches [around] Europe are being burned.  Priests are not respected, especially on social media, through vitriol and insults.  Internally, we are still trying to reform and clean our own house and purify the Church.

But even in such a situation for both Church and state, we can’t help but wonder: What is a Christian expected to believe about God with such evils?  Evil seems to have the upper hand, and the Church seems abandoned.  One way to prepare our hearts is to take courage from Jesus in today’s Gospel.  In the Parable of the Sower [Wheat & Weeds], Jesus reminds us how the Kingdom of Heaven works in the face of overwhelming evil.

I.

In Matthew Ch. 13, Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a sower who planted wheat.  In a way, it is a follow up to last week’s Gospel on how a mustard seed bears fruit.  But the focus today is not so much on the seed that bears good fruit but rather on the bad weeds that choke the good fruit.  “An enemy has done this,” the sower says.  Here, we hear about the wheat of goodness and the weeds of evil. 

During our temporary pilgrimage here on Earth, Jesus reminds us that good and evil co-exist.  As much as we want to think well of humanity and its redemption, the reality remains that even redeemed humanity still experiences the consequences or concupiscence of the first Original Sin.  From the time of Adam to the last sin at the end of the world, evil and fallen spirits are part of our pilgrimage.  We are in an invisible spiritual war.  And note: We are not fighting against each other so much, but we are fighting against the weeds of fallen spirits in their rebellion against God.  They recruit us humans to be weeds.  They want us so badly to join them.  [They want us to hate each other.]  They hate us more than you can imagine, somewhat similar to how God loves us beyond comprehension.  St. Augustine once said, “How blessed are those Christians of the future latter days.  We fight the devil [here in the 5^th Century] while he is chained, but those Christians of the future latter days will fight the devil when he is unchained.”

II.

This point about the great spiritual battle between good and evil, between wheat and weeds, leads us to this next mind-boggling point from Jesus.  Amazingly, the sower does not pull up the weeds.  When the servants of the sower asked, “Do you want us to go and pull them up?” the sower replied, “No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.”  Well, any good gardener knows that one should pull out weeds.  It is my own first instinct when I see weeds.

One interpretation [of not pulling up weeds] is that even the weeds, those in the state of sin, need a chance to repent.  God gives us sinner time so that we are not weeds but are the good wheat instead.  This makes sense if we see why the First Reading from the Book of Wisdom is chosen for today.  The last line says, “And you taught your people, by these deeds, that those who are just must be kind; and you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins.”  And even today’s Responsorial Psalm focuses on God’s forgiveness: Lord, you are good and forgiving, slow to anger, abounding in kindness.  God is slow dealing with weeds.

III.

Now for this last of three main points, let’s summarize the two points made so far:  First, there is a great spiritual war between good and evil, where wheat and weeds co-exist.  Second, even the weeds are not plucked yet; evildoers are given time to repent through God’s mercy and forgiveness.  They are given chance after chance after chance.  And for us who have family members or close friends who are away from God, we don’t want to pluck them just yet.  Don’t we want our loved ones, too, to have chances to turn away from evil?  So here’s the last point: Good and evil may exist side by side, and evil has a chance to change, but evil eventually ends.  Evil eventually ends.  As Benedict XVI once said, “In the end, God wins!”  Or as Fr. Frank Pavone once said, “We are not fighting FOR victory; we are fighting FROM victory.”  Victory over evil has already been won.  It’s been foretold.  Evil was already defeated in the crucifixion, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  The sower said, “Let them grow together until the harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, ‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.”

May we always be the repentant wheat destined for the Barn of Heaven!  May we not be the unrepentant weeds that refused God’s mercy in this life that are tied in bundles for burning are the unrepented sinners.  The choice has been made at harvest.  The harvest is Judgment Day.  No mas!  That’s it after that.  We have defined our souls for all eternity. 

IV.

So, dear brothers and sisters, [during out time when anxiety, depression and mental health issues are on the rise], don’t get discouraged when evil has the upper hand in the world or seems to have the upper hand in the Church or even in our personal lives.  Yes, fight evil with all your might.  Yet remember, the spiritual battle cannot be won on our own.  That’s why in the Second Reading, St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought.”  Here, the Apostle reminds us that the Holy Spirit helps us.  Let us trust the graces that we received in the Sacrament of Confirmation to always be the good wheat. 

In summary, first, let the wheat and weeds grow together in this spiritual struggle; second, don’t uproot the weeds just yet and give those doing evil a chance to change; and third, goodness wins in the end.

The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.