Daily
Thoughts:
Today’s gospel is about a farmer who sows wheat in his field and at night his
enemy sows weeds in the same field so when the plants sprout there are weeds
among the wheat. When the workers ask the farmer about removing the weeds, he
tells them pulling the weeds could pull up the wheat so wait until harvest when
they can be separated without losing the wheat.
We might
say that in this parable we are the field and God has sown the wheat within us,
but there are weeds among the wheat. God will not pull the weeds of our field
because we have free will. God will
always provide the love and support that we need, but it is up to us to choose
to nourish our relationship with God so it becomes strong and crowds out the
weeds.
Perhaps
looked at another way, the point of this parable is that the farmer allows the
wheat and the weeds to grow together to maturity, which is just what God does
for us.
In the
four Gospels Jesus tells us in many ways that we have to choose between living
joyfully with God forever and being forever separated from God, in great pain
over our loss. This aspect of this
message is not new.
The
special spin that Jesus puts on this question of our choice here is that we
have a whole lifetime to make it in. God
provides us with all that we need to make a choice and to make the choice
concrete in our life rather than just a vague wish or orientation, and we need
to make this one central choice of life in terms of the small daily choices
that inch us closer to God or away from God.
One other
aspect here is that while the "harvesters" are able to tell the
difference between the weeds and the wheat, we often remain in some uncertainly
about whether we truly have chosen God enough, whether we have loved God enough. Any certainty about whether we are
"saved" or not can be a form of self-delusion and lead to pride,
laziness, and a fatal assumption that we are "good enough." This can be deadly in my human relationships,
and it is no different in my relationship with God.
We simply
do not know whether we are weed or wheat while we are alive, and the fact is
that we are both --- but which is the dominant side of who we are? While we are responsible for the choice, it
is up to God to decide what we have actually chosen. And that is where the virtue of hope comes in.
Have a
great Saturday everyone!
Daily
Prayer:
Loving Jesus
We give you our hands to do your work
We give you our feet to go your way
We give you our eyes to see as you do
We give you our tongue to speak your words
We give you our mind that you may think in us
We give you our spirit that you may pray in us
Above all, we give you our heart
that you may love in us
your Father and all humankind
we give you our whole self that you may grow
in us
so that it is you Loving Jesus
who lives and works and prays in us.
Amen! (Adapted from the Grail Prayer)
A Runner’s
Thoughts:
“I run because long after my footprints fade away, maybe I will have inspired a
few to reject the easy path, hit the trails, put one foot in front of the
other, and come to the same conclusion I did: I run because it always takes me
where I want to go.” (Dean Karnazes)
Daily
Blessing:
Saturday greetings and blessings to all. I finally made my way to Scranton, PA
yesterday afternoon and in an hour or so I will be beginning a long day helping
out at the St. Ann Solemn Novena. My first task of the day will be to celebrate
the children’s mass. I will need your prayers! It is day seven of the novena and
I am sorry I missed the first six but I here now and glad that I am. If you
have any special intentions that you would like me to bring to the novena send
them along and I will make sure they are included in my novena prayers the next
four days!
It is
going to be a hot one here in Scranton as I guess it is going to be in most of
the country. I know there are many places in need if rain these days. If you
are out and about, please be careful during these hot and humid days. Heat and
humidity can be tough.
I would
like to remember my classmate, Fr. Melvin Shorter, C.P. who unfortunately had a
heart attack on Thursday. He seems to be fine at this time but my prayers and
thoughts are with him as he goes through this uncertain time!
My prayer
of blessing today for all of us is that God will grace us with the strength to
somehow help the world take a step closer to peace by living our life with
compassion, love and joy today! Please my friends don’t begin this day with
hate in your hearts. Don’t see the world through the eyes of the 24-hour news
stations. Don’t point your figures and blame. Don’t disrespect others not like
you. Allow God’s blessing to touch your life and be a person of peace, of
compassion, of hope, of joy and of love today. Be this person today for your
family, for your friends, for your faith community, for those you work with,
for those you meet, for the world, and for yourself.
Have a
great Saturday everyone, put a smile on your face and trust that you are loved
by God even in those moments of struggle. May God bless you today and always
and thanks for being the person that you are because you certainly make this
world a better place and life worth living! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul
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