July 19, 2020 - 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A
“Mary, Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow?” is how the nursery rhyme goes, not Kevin Kevin - well, I wouldn’t even know how to rhyme that! I am a terrible gardener and that’s because it takes work that I just don’t enjoy. Tilling the soil, weeding, planting, weeding, watering, and more weeding! The Gospels have been all about gardening lately and it’s something that’s a bit tougher for me to relate to.
We heard the parable of the sower last week and this week we hear about an enemy planting weeds in our garden. Now that is something I CAN get to grow - weeds! I can also get grass to grow very nicely where that doesn't belong - like in my driveway!
The weeds in this parable are what our enemy Satan plants and the specific weed that Jesus was referring to is called “darnel”, a poisonous weed that looks just like wheat when it first starts off. If the workers try to pull out the weeds then they will mistakenly get some of the wheat too. Harvest time is the proper time for judgment and we must leave that to God and not become judges ourselves. God will be the one who judges who are the weeds to be burned up and who are the wheat to be saved.
Now how do we make sure we are not weeds? We must take heed of the first reading from Wisdom that tells us:
“For neither is there any god besides you who have the care of all, that you need show you have not unjustly condemned.”
The word god in this verse is lowercase, not the one true God, the Father. We shouldn’t be following the stars and reading our horoscopes nor allowing money and jobs and other things to be our lowercase gods in our lives.
Instead, we must understand that God the Father is the only one who is in charge of everything including every human’s judgment. Let God do His thing, let Him alone be the judge. This gives us much more time to spend tending our own spiritual garden which is something we should never be lazy about. I don’t like to spend time weeding and caring for a real garden so I don’t do that, but I certainly care enough not to let my spiritual garden get choked by the weeds of sin or wither and die due to a lack of spiritual care.
One way to water our spiritual garden is to pray. If we don’t know how to pray ask the Holy Spirit for help as Paul tells the Romans in the second reading:
”The Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.”
Pray often and always. Rosaries, novenas, prayers of petition and intercession, and don’t forget prayers of praise and thanksgiving, too!
Once we have the garden watered we have to watch for the weeds of sin. Go to confession regularly. This will get the weeds of sin when they are small and can’t take over the garden of our soul too much. Remember what the first reading from Wisdom said:
“...and you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins.”
We should fertilize our garden through Mass, the Eucharist, and Scripture. For some, it’s hard to get to daily Mass but we can still do the daily Mass readings on our own. Another good source of fertilizer is reading Catholic books or the Bible. Right now I’m reading “The Sacraments We Celebrate,” by Peter J. Vaghi, a Catholic Priest. Even when it comes to things we might think we understand fully it’s ok to realize that isn’t true by picking up a good book and learning some more!
If you don’t know where to begin, just ask. Ask Fr. Rich, or any priest or any deacon or anybody you know studies the faith. The key is to water, weed, and fertilize your spiritual garden always, it is a never-ending job until we all reach eternal life with God!
As Saint Catherine of Siena once said:
“Ponder the fact that God has made you a gardener, to root out vice and plant virtue.”
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