5th Sunday After the Epiphany, and
24th Sunday after Pentecost – November 11, 2012
Epistle, Colossians 3: 12-17 Gospel: Matthew 13: 24-30
In
today’s Gospel Jesus gives the people another parable, a simple story used to
illustrate a moral or religious lesson. Jesus often used parables to instruct
the crowds that followed Him. If He taught them Catholic dogma they would have
lost interest and gone to sleep. But a story about things that they know and
see in their everyday lives is something interesting. We listen and pay
attention to stories. Today’s parable then is about the man who sowed good wheat
seed in his field, but while he and his men were sleeping an enemy came and
sowed tares in with the wheat. A tare is a common weed that today we call
vetch. It is one of the tricks of the devil to mix falsehoods, the vetch, in
with the truth, the wheat seeds. These tares look like wheat when both are
sprouting from the ground, and the difference between them is not noticed until
the roots of both are well established in the ground. So, if you rip the tares out
of the ground you would destroy the
young wheat plants as well. The man who planted the good seeds tells his
workers to wait until harvest time when the harvesters will gather up the
tares, then tie them into bundles and throw them in the fire. Next the wheat
will be gathered into His barn. His barn in the parable is the Kingdom of
Heaven.
The Gospel parable just
before today’s reading is about the man who sowed seed, where some fell by the
wayside, some fell on stony ground, some fell among thorns, but others fell on
good ground and yielded a good harvest. In both parables the wayside, the stony
ground, the thorns and the tares all represent weak Christians. These weak
Christians fill the church, but torment it by leading sinful lives. We are
warned not to be like those who say, “I have sinned, and what harm has come to
me?” They should remember, it is not yet harvest time. The Lord is a “patient
rewarder.” We dare not say, “The mercy of the Lord is great, he will have mercy
on the multitude of my sins.” (Ecclesiasticus
5: 4, 6) That is called presuming on the mercy of God. Rather, we ought to
strike our breast and say, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner,” like the
publican did in the synagogue. (Luke 18:
13) This is how we will escape the wickedness of the world, and how we will
find good days in our lives. The reapers that come at harvest time are God’s angels.
They will not make a mistake. They will pick out all the vetch, all the
sinners, and cast them into the fires of Hell. Then they will gather all the
good wheat into the Kingdom of Heaven.
In today’s Gospel Jesus
speaks of the way the devil works: “while men are asleep.” This is a warning to
those charged with the care of the Church, the bishops and priests. We can see
throughout history that when Truth has been sown, error follows soon after. After
St. Paul came Docetism, the heresy that said Jesus only appeared to have a body,
that He was not truly a man. While the Truth of the Ten Commandments were being
given to Moses, many Jews were preparing a golden calf to worship. The history
of heresy dates back to Satan’s prideful boast: “I will ascend into heaven, I
will exalt my throne above the stars of God . . . I will be like the most
High.” (Isaias 14: 12-15)
This
sleeping, not being watchful, has been a problem throughout Church history.
Many heretics have held positions of trust in the Church. At first concealing
their true selves, they later acquire boldness and are entrusted with teaching
positions. Then they pour forth their poison among the faithful. Our Lord tells
us that these things “must needs be.” (Matthew
18: 7) We have been given a free will; so it is for us to choose between
good and evil. Heresies will appear, but the day must come when they will be
rooted up and die. It is the same with
the sexual scandals that plague the Church today. They are a hard trial for the
faithful, but trials also must come. As
difficult as these trials are, the mixing of good and evil is to our advantage
because it teaches the faithful not to put their hopes in man, but only in God.
Then, too, the mercy of God is so great that at times the weeds, the heretics, the
sinners, will themselves be converted and become the faithful children of God.
Therefore, we must have patience. But since it is when men are sleeping that
the enemy comes and poisons the faithful, we must always pray for our priests
and bishops to be continually vigilant against error. This is such an essential
quality in a bishop that the very word “bishop” means “one who watches.” +++
We
Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass
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