Good seeds

Prayer for the Day

O Lord, sow your good seed within us and then grace us to cultivate this attentively, lest we become as one who sleeps, susceptible to the weeds sown by the evil one that may choke out the good life within.
Amen.

Reflection

How do you describe a sunset? You can't, really.  In Matthew 13:24-43, Jesus tried to describe heaven. He used parables: "The kingdom of heaven is like. . . ." First, He used the parable of the wheat and the weeds. "The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went away."

Who would do such a thing? Right away, we think of the devil. We know he's still alive and well! But sometimes, we ourselves are God's enemy when we sin. Sometimes it's through bad example, or through our failures to instruct our children, or when we fail to help our neighbor in need or in distress, when we fail to support Catholic teaching in our conversation or in our actions. 

We need to look into our hearts to see in what ways we are responsible. What then? We ask the Holy Spirit for the grace to repent, to make a good confession, and to change our ways.

But even the righteous need to take care in labeling others as "children of evil." Notice what advice the farmer in the parable gives to his employees? He tells them to let the weeds grow with the wheat. The harvest-time is coming (in other words, the final judgment). "Be patient," Jesus tells us. Work and pray to change hearts. Heavy-handed crusaders sometimes do more harm than good. Use charity, gentleness, good example and prayer. Let God do the weeding-out.

Jesus used other parables, like the mustard-seed and the yeast in a batch of dough. These all have to do with the actions of the Holy Spirit in our world. We must never give up hope in God's ability to bring ultimate peace, final unity, and a "new heaven and a new earth!" 

All we have to do, as Mother Teresa tells us, is to "do small things with great love, and make the Eucharist the center of your life."