In the Sunday Angelus, Pope Francis prays that the Blessed Virgin Mary “helps us to understand and imitate the patience of God, who does not want any of His children to be lost, whom he loves with the love of a Father”.
By Vatican News
With the parable of the wheat and the weeds, Pope Francis said in the Sunday Angelus, Jesus “helps us understand the patience of God, opening our hearts to hope.”
In Sunday’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells the parable of the man who plants good wheat in his field. At night, an enemy sows weeds among the wheat; And when the wheat and weeds begin to grow together, the farmer’s servants want to remove the weeds. However, the teacher tells them to wait until the harvest, for fear that they can pluck the wheat with the weeds.
“Among ourselves,” he said, “we can say that even today the soil has been infested by so many herbicides, herbicides, and poisons that we harm ourselves and the earth.”
Call to patience
In this parable, explains Pope Francis, the teacher of the field is God, “who alone and always sows good seed”, and whose “objective is a good harvest.” The adversary is the devil, “the quintessential opponent of God” who, by “envy and hostility”, seeks to destroy the work of God. “The devil’s intention is to hinder the work of salvation, to obstruct the kingdom of God through evil workers, sowers in scandal,” said the Pope. Wheat and weeds are not a symbol of abstract good and evil, but a representation of human beings, “who can follow God or the devil.”
And he pointed out that many times we also hear that a family or a community that was at peace is suddenly divided by conflict, envy. “The unpleasant things are starting to happen,” he said, commenting on how we accuse someone of spreading gossip. “
“It is always the devil or our temptations if we are tempted to gossip and destroy others,” he said.
Pope Francis contrasts the desire of the servants “to eliminate evil, that is, evil people, immediately” with the plan of God, who is wiser and more distant. Jesus’ disciples, he said, are called to be patient, to focus on saving the wicked, rather than suppressing them.
Two visions
“Today’s Gospel presents two ways of acting and living history,” said the Pope: “the vision of the teacher on the one hand, that of the servants on the other.” While servants focus on ridding the weed field, the master cares about good wheat and knows how to protect it “even in the weeds.”
Pope Francis warned against “those who are always seeking the limitations and shortcomings of others.” Instead, it is “those who know how to recognize the good that grows silently in the field of the Church and history, cultivating it to maturity”, who can collaborate in the vision of God.
In the end, he said, “it will be God, and only He, who will reward the good and punish the wicked.”
.
