16th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Parable of the weeds among the wheat (Mt 13: 24-43)

Good and Evil

Introduction

- Pajero issue is burning in the Philippines. Now the religious leaders are afraid of getting even a bicycle because tomorrow it will become Pajeros and attack them. In this context it is good to think the influence of evil. Is there evil and its influences in this world?

- Jesus says there is evil and its influences – weeds. There is evil in this world, in the church, and in me.

- How to deal with this ‘evil influences’? Why God allows evil influences? The answer is today’s parable.

Content

- The parable explains the cause of evil invasion – “while they were sleeping”. Sleep is a state of mind where we are not aware of what is happening around us or within us. It is a state of ignorance and lack of vigilance. The evil invades in us when we are in ‘sleep’. Sleep here can be our weakness, state of being away from God by losing the interest in the spiritual exercises, sinfulness, or laziness etc.

- Three things to be noted as a advice to deal with this situation.

1. Be alert – if I feel lazy and stay away from our prayer life and spiritual growth, it would affect badly our lives and the evil invasion would be easy. Let us be strict with our everyday spiritual exercises

2. Accept our weakness and do not be harsh on them – we sometimes get frustration and deal harshly with our weakness / problems. We may be giving over importance to the removal of evil from us. The result would be stagnation in our spiritual growth and disappointment when we discover later that the evil is still there.

3. Strengthen the good plants – Eg; when the doctors are unaware of about a particular virus that causes illness or fever they use to give vitamins and ordinary medicines to the patients. The aim is these medicines would increase the resistance capacity of the body by supporting the good cells in the body and it would eventually lead into the cure. Likewise let us strengthen our good elements in us. It can be a decision to spend more time in social word, or in some productive works, or with the family members etc. Let us remember that it is better to light a candle than cursing the darkness hundred times.

Conclusion

- Conversion is a possible way to win over the evil. Here, the conversion means decision to do more good than usual. It would eventually remove the evil in me.

- The good deed may not be so big. It can be as small as a mustard seed or yeast as it is stated in the parable. Jesus assures that there will be a greater impact even for such a small deed if the intention is good and sincere.