Continuing to listen to Jesus’ teaching in parables, which began last week, we meditate today on the parable of the seed and the weeds. This is a very particular parable story, which has in the Gospel itself an explanation of the allegorical meaning of every detail. The whole thing aims to introduce every disciple to the three fundamental mysteries of the Kingdom of God being realized in Christ Jesus: the mystery of iniquity, divine patience, and the growth of the Kingdom to the end. To truly understand all this, we still need ears to listen not only attentively, but also wisely, with the disposition of “little ones” before God, to be amazed anew by His message for our concrete present life as disciples-missionaries of Christ.
The image of the enemy-sower of the weeds in Jesus’ parable will be something to admire. It is beautiful in its simplicity of detail (a single sentence of description) and profound in its theological and spiritual meanings: “While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.” Unlike the sower of good seed, his enemy acts, “while everyone was asleep,” that is, at night, in darkness. Moreover, this antagonist is the one who, to use a Vietnamese proverbial expression, ném đá giấu tay “throws the stone and hides his hands.” In fact, “sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.” Therefore, the workers in the field are in the dark, but the landlord knows and unmasks him with the authority of one who knows how to make informed judgments: “An enemy has done this.”
All this gives a glimpse of the reality of evil that opposes the action of the “Son of Man,” Jesus Christ, who sows the good seed of the Gospel in the field of the world. This evil reality is most often mysterious, incomprehensible from the human perspective: how did this or that situation happen? Why so much gratuitous evil that we hear more and more from everyday news? There are tragedies that cannot be explained by human weaknesses or sinful inclination alone. It is precisely “the mystery of iniquity,” the reality of the Evil One who systematically opposes, indeed wages war against, the work of God in Christ for humanity. Therefore, St. Paul exhorted the faithful with the words inspired by the Holy Spirit: “Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens” (Eph 6:11-12).
Faced with such an “in the field” situation, we are amazed by the recommendation that the “master” makes: “Let them grow together until harvest.” It is the mystery of God’s patience that sometimes appears incomprehensible and arouses such perplexity for the “good seeds” themselves, the “children of the Kingdom,” who suffer, willingly or unwillingly, from the weeds around them. Although the good seeds remain silent in the narrative, we can hear their cry in that moving cry of the early Christian martyrs in the inspired vision of the sacred author of the book of Revelation: “How long will it be, holy and true master, before you sit in judgment […]?” (Rev 6:10) This actually echoes the cry of the righteous in every time and place when faced with the mystery of God’s “silence”: “O Lord, how long will you look on? Restore my soul from their destruction, my very life from lions!” (Ps 35:17). And God’s explicit response in the book of Revelation, echoing the thought of the parable analyzed, will have to make us think: “Each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to be patient a little while longer until the number was filled of their fellow servants and brothers who were going to be killed as they had been” (Rev 6:11), that is, until the fulfillment of history, which will happen soon anyway. “They were told to be patient,” just as and together with God and Christ the Lord. This is not passive patience, however, but the active patience of an agile and wise farmer. Literally and metaphorically God continues to work with the earth, as expressed by the Psalmist: “You drench its plowed furrows, and level its ridges. With showers you keep it soft…” (Ps 65:11). All this is mainly for the healing of good seeds, but also for a miraculous transformation, peculiar only to God, from weeds into good plants! Here is the mystery of God’s patience who “so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). He reveals Himself patient, because of His very nature and because He is merciful to all mankind. He is never in a hurry to destroy, but always seeks to have “care of all things,” to make all things live and revive: “But though you are master of might, you judge with clemency, and with much lenience you govern us” (Wis 12:18; Reading 1).
And God’s servants, field workers, are all invited to learn and follow such divine patience in the life of faith and in the mission of divine evangelization in the world to which we are all called. He therefore exhorts St. James: “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You too must be patient. Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand” (Jas 5:7-8).
The reason for patience is that God sees more the silent growth of good seeds than the arrogant multiplication of weeds: it is the gaze of the Master, of the One who holds all history in His hands. And the very growth of the Kingdom, despite all the opposition that wants to stifle it, represents the greatest mystery of human history. It is no accident that Christ stated with authority, “The gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18), against His Church, which is the beginning and the seed of the Kingdom of God. It will thus be certain, at the end of time, the triumph of God’s faithful love that realizes with Christ and his disciples-collaborators his Kingdom in the field of the world.
Let us repeat, in conclusion, the inspiring prayer of Card. Ratzinger during the meditations on the ninth station (“Jesus falls for the third time”) of the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum in 2005, in which precisely the powerful image of the tares in the field is evoked, for a sincere examination of conscience of the whole Church but with a gaze full of faith and trust in Christ, the divine Sower, who always takes care of his “good seeds” in this world:
Lord, your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In your field we see more weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion. Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy on your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall. When we fall, we drag you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered. But you will rise again. You did stand up, you arose and you can also raise us up. Save and sanctify your Church. Save and sanctify us all. Amen.
Subscribe to daily quotes from Pope Leo XIV
© All Rights Reserved The Pontifical Mission Societies. Donor Privacy Policy. Terms & Conditions.
