Dear friends,

To explain what can not be seen, what is invisible namely God and the way he behaves, which we call “The Kingdom of God”, Jesus uses episodes from the everyday life which were under the eyes of everyone, that everybody knew: the parables.

These Parables were spoken by Jesus around 32 the year the year of the Christian era. They were written down by Matthew, or his community, in the year 70. They try to answer basic questions such as:
“Is it not the Church holy? Pure? Why then there are so many bad people, hypocrite among us? Or, even better:

“I’m been baptized, long ago, I was washed in Christ’s blood, why then this inner fight within me?”

Most basically we ask ourselves and question God with: “Jesus said that he was coming soon as a judge; almost a generation has past since His Ascension: why does He not come?”

With these three parables Jesus sketches the situation of the Church in the world.

The grain of mustard seed that becomes a tree indicates the growth of the Kingdom of God on earth. The tree is the church, the little mustard seed is the apostles who were so limited in so many different ways but who grow to what the church is now. The annotation that “in its branches find shelter the birds of the air” is reference to the vision of Daniel. The Church welcomes in its branches all the peoples of the earth: there is room for everybody!

The parable of the pinch of yeast in the dough signifies the growth of the Kingdom, not so much in extension as in intensity. It indicates the transforming force of the Gospel that raises the dough and prepares it to become bread. The yeast tells us that goodness is powerful, although at times might seem powerless.

The church is by its nature small, humble, limited. We have to remember that too much yeast will turn the bread into sour dough that is inedible. Were all the Christians saints there would be no place for me in the church!

In these two parables Jesus is emphasizing that there is no proportion between the seed and the tree which grow majestically, the pinch of yeast and the leaving of the dough. We have to trust the power of the seed and the yeast. They need time and silence.

While these two parables were easily understood by the disciples, the third one, the one of the seeds and the weeds, seems to be more obscure so much so that Jesus had to explain it to the apostles separately.

The sower, he said, was himself, the good seeds were the children of the Kingdom, the bad seeds were the children of the evil one, the field was the world and the harvest was the end of the world.

The field is, indeed, the world, but it is also the Church, the place in which saints and sinners live side-by-side, and in which there is room to grow and to be converted. Hence the scandals that every now and then shake the Church should sadden, but not surprise us. The Church is made up of human persons, not wholly and solely of saints.

The field is also us: there are weeds also in every one of us, not only in the world and in the Church, and this should render us less ready to point the finger."
With the passing of time we learn that the boundaries of evil and good do not pass outside us, but they pass right through our hearts. We painfully have to admit that we are not as holy as we’d like to be. We have to acknowledge that we are betrayed by our own weakness.

Perhaps the main subject of the parable, however, is neither the seeds nor the weeds, but God's patience. It is His forbearance, mercy,  His will to save.

John the Baptist had promised that the com­ing Messiah would separate wheat from straw, gathering his grain into the barn and burning everything else (Mat. 3:12). Jesus did not fulfill that promise. Instead he chastised the Pharisees who prided themselves on their careful ob­servance of God's law, while tolerating sinners, people who "cared nothing for the law" and made little effort to keep it.

The story of the wheat and the weeds in today's Gospel is Jesus' answer to that question.

The suggestion of the farmer's workers that they should pull up the weeds was entirely reasonable. The farmer rejects the suggestion nonetheless. There will be a time for separat­ing the weeds from the wheat, he tells his men. But that time will be later, at the harvest. Until then, he orders, "let them both grow together." "That is how I am acting," Jesus is saying. The time for separation and judgment, he said, was not yet now, but it would come later.

Jesus forbids us to separate the true believers from the hypocrites: the task is beyond us. The weeds resemble the wheat too closely, and their roots are too tightly entwined. Every attempt to create a "pure" Church of "true believers" has ended in failure. This is how the Protestants came about: they wanted a “Holy Church” to find themselves outside the church.  Only God can purify his Church, for only God can see people's hearts. If God chooses to delay his work of final judgment and purification it means that He has a different way of acting. God can afford to be generous and merciful because he is all powerful. The story tells us of God's patience. It warns us not to be less patient than God.
Creating a completely pure Church is God's work, not ours; God delays his judgment because he is pa­tient. One day, however, there will be an end of further chances, and judgment will be complete. That is the warning.

After all, we have to admit that if Christ's Church were really as pure as you might like it to be, are you certain there would be a place in it for us?

We learn today that to understand God’s doing and imitate Him, we have to be patient, patience in fact is distilled faith (the see is good), hope (God will do it), love (we trust God’s doing). Patience is not weakness but strong faith, unshakable Hope, and unconditional love.

The parables by Jesus sketch the situation at St. Therese where the weeds cast their roots with the wheat. Many come to church with their own agenda, may sit on the fence, happy to watch what other people are doing. Others are carrying the burden of the parish imitating God’s patience.