Cycle A - Year 1:  

23 July 2017:  Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 

(Liturgical Color: Green)

Readings:

First Reading:        Wisdom 12:13, 16-19

Second Reading:   Romans 8:26-27

Gospel:Please Read  Matthew 13:24-43

God waits patiently!

What are parables?  If you read your bible regularly, you know that parables represent a key part of the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, forming approximately one third of His recorded teachings.

To go back to our opening question, Jesus's parables are seemingly simple and memorable stories, often with imagery of common and everyday events or realities, which convey deep meanings or truths that are central to the teachings of Jesus about God's kingdom.

On the sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jesus continues to preach to His disciples about the kingdom of God through parables. For this Sunday, the Gospel reading tells us three of such parables, but all with the same central theme. Let us reflect on the first Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat.

The gist of the parable:

A farm owner sows good seed of wheat into his field. At night time, his enemy comes and sows weeds all through the wheat. So that when the crop begins to grow, the weeds grow as well. The farm workers ask the owner if they should pull up the weeds. The farm owner responds: "No, if you pull up the weeds, you might uproot the wheat along with them. So let them grow together until harvest."

The meaning of the parable:

The farm owner represents God Himself who sows only good seeds; but the weeds, or the presence of evil in our world, comes from the heart of men and women who choose not to obey Him.

The Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat proclaims the patience of our heavenly Father towards us. He decides to let the good and the bad seed co-exist. And so God allows the sun and the rain to fall on both the good seed and the bad seed. But the good seed God constantly nourishes with an abundance of grace, in order to let it grow, become strong, and bear much fruits. 

What lesson then does this parable teach us? Well, the message of the Gospel is that God's patience is really directed at our salvation. God patiently waits for the harvest, bearing even with slow growth but also making room for repentance.

Our response to God's amazing patience and mercy should be a change of heart and a desire to change our lives and live completely  for Christ. We should be overwhelmed by God's merciful love and radically commit ourselves to seek His will in every aspect of our lives.

In other words, we should be willing to stand tall among the weeds in our world and produce the abundant harvest of virtue, prayer, and charitable deeds.

So in the Eucharist at Mass, let us pray for the grace of patience with one another's shortcoming and to heed God's call for a change of heart and repentance. For God in His great mercy, constantly invites us back to Him after we wander. He is remarkably, and truly, our patient God.

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!