July 23, 2017: 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time A
July 23, 2017: 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time A
Click to hear Audio Homily
What is your strategy in keeping yourself patient when you are tested? One evening, a mother told her 6 yr-old son to pick up his clothes from the floor and place them in the laundry basket. Instead of simply doing what she asked him to do (which would have been too easy), her little boy said, “Why do you always tell me what to do?” She was a bit startled by that comeback, but she calmly replied, “Because I am your mother, this is my house, and that makes me the boss.” The boy threw his hands up in the air and then said, “Well, I thought we were friends. You need to be nicer to me.” Before the mother could respond, the boy said, “Santa is watching you, ya know.”
Children can be angels, sometimes. Yet some days, they know exactly how to push our buttons and exasperate us. The same can be said about our spouse, family, friends, coworkers, and customers. There are days when all we can see in them is only their weaknesses and faults. Jesus mentions this tendency in us in the parable of the weeds among the wheat. The servants in the parable are all too eager to pull out the weeds growing entangled with the wheat. But the wise master instructs them to wait until the harvest time when they can be separated.
The parable of the weeds among the wheat is a reminder of our tendency to rush to judge the actions and intentions of others. A well-meaning person can rush to judge others based on their apparent weakness and limitation. Yet this is spiritually harmful not only for the person being judged but also harmful to the person judging. By failing to see and nourish the good that is present, we miss the opportunity to see the person through God’s kindness, gentleness, and compassion. Only God can truly judge our hearts, for He alone can see our intentions, and only He knows the big picture. We might think we know absolutely what’s right and what’s wrong, but too often our vision is clouded by other issues.
If you step back and think about it, each one of us is a combination of wheat and weeds. In each of us there is a struggle between part of us that desires God and part of us that oppose Him. Even St. Paul asked God to be relieved of hat struggle. Yet God told Paul that it was precisely through his weaknesses that He could reveal His glory. “My power is made perfect in [your] weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). Relying on the power of God, we, too, must learn to be patient with the evil tendencies.
St. Therese of Lisieux offers us a healthy alternative to our rush to judge. She lived among religious sisters who struggled with their own weaknesses. She recognized in herself deep faults and weaknesses, yet in prayer, she realized how God loved her and her sisters with compassion, patience, and gentleness. So instead of choosing to see the imperfection in others, she resolved daily to see the goodness. This was not easy, for she could not help but notice the natural shortcomings of her Sisters. It required a great deal of self-denial as she endeavored to look only at the virtues of her sisters. “Charity,” she said, “consists in disregarding the faults of our neighbor, not being astonished at the sight of their weakness, but in being edified by the smallest acts of virtue we see them practice.” She desire to have only charitable thoughts and sought excuses for what might appear to be objectionable in her Sisters. She left to Jesus the task of passing judgment on them.
It’s good to remind ourselves that God allows both “good” and “bad” folk to live together like the wheat and the weeds because God knows that all of us are capable of changing from making bad decisions to good ones. As a sword sharpens another, the people who are already striving for compassion and patience can influence those who are struggling. God’s mercy is never exhausted, and He allows us to make mistakes and learn from them. Likewise, He wants us to practice the same leniency and mercy on others. In doing so, our charity will be like the yeast that the woman put in the dough and the small mustard seed that grew to provide shade for many. Our love has power to change those we meet.
Click to hear Audio Homily
What is your strategy in keeping yourself patient when you are tested? One evening, a mother told her 6 yr-old son to pick up his clothes from the floor and place them in the laundry basket. Instead of simply doing what she asked him to do (which would have been too easy), her little boy said, “Why do you always tell me what to do?” She was a bit startled by that comeback, but she calmly replied, “Because I am your mother, this is my house, and that makes me the boss.” The boy threw his hands up in the air and then said, “Well, I thought we were friends. You need to be nicer to me.” Before the mother could respond, the boy said, “Santa is watching you, ya know.”
Children can be angels, sometimes. Yet some days, they know exactly how to push our buttons and exasperate us. The same can be said about our spouse, family, friends, coworkers, and customers. There are days when all we can see in them is only their weaknesses and faults. Jesus mentions this tendency in us in the parable of the weeds among the wheat. The servants in the parable are all too eager to pull out the weeds growing entangled with the wheat. But the wise master instructs them to wait until the harvest time when they can be separated.
The parable of the weeds among the wheat is a reminder of our tendency to rush to judge the actions and intentions of others. A well-meaning person can rush to judge others based on their apparent weakness and limitation. Yet this is spiritually harmful not only for the person being judged but also harmful to the person judging. By failing to see and nourish the good that is present, we miss the opportunity to see the person through God’s kindness, gentleness, and compassion. Only God can truly judge our hearts, for He alone can see our intentions, and only He knows the big picture. We might think we know absolutely what’s right and what’s wrong, but too often our vision is clouded by other issues.
If you step back and think about it, each one of us is a combination of wheat and weeds. In each of us there is a struggle between part of us that desires God and part of us that oppose Him. Even St. Paul asked God to be relieved of hat struggle. Yet God told Paul that it was precisely through his weaknesses that He could reveal His glory. “My power is made perfect in [your] weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). Relying on the power of God, we, too, must learn to be patient with the evil tendencies.
St. Therese of Lisieux offers us a healthy alternative to our rush to judge. She lived among religious sisters who struggled with their own weaknesses. She recognized in herself deep faults and weaknesses, yet in prayer, she realized how God loved her and her sisters with compassion, patience, and gentleness. So instead of choosing to see the imperfection in others, she resolved daily to see the goodness. This was not easy, for she could not help but notice the natural shortcomings of her Sisters. It required a great deal of self-denial as she endeavored to look only at the virtues of her sisters. “Charity,” she said, “consists in disregarding the faults of our neighbor, not being astonished at the sight of their weakness, but in being edified by the smallest acts of virtue we see them practice.” She desire to have only charitable thoughts and sought excuses for what might appear to be objectionable in her Sisters. She left to Jesus the task of passing judgment on them.
It’s good to remind ourselves that God allows both “good” and “bad” folk to live together like the wheat and the weeds because God knows that all of us are capable of changing from making bad decisions to good ones. As a sword sharpens another, the people who are already striving for compassion and patience can influence those who are struggling. God’s mercy is never exhausted, and He allows us to make mistakes and learn from them. Likewise, He wants us to practice the same leniency and mercy on others. In doing so, our charity will be like the yeast that the woman put in the dough and the small mustard seed that grew to provide shade for many. Our love has power to change those we meet.
