The first weeks in Middle School were crucial in my life. In those days, I started to hang around with a boy who was repeating the sixth grade. I guess he thought I could help him since I was a good student. He was far ahead for his age regarding life experiences and morals. In private, he was already a smoker, to mention just one example.

He lived one block away from my house and I would go there after school to do homework. As you may have guessed, he introduced me to cigarettes. When my parents found out, they made me cut ties with him immediately. Looking back to that event in my childhood, I have always thought that my parents’ decision saved both my life and priestly vocation.

In my reflections today I will focus on the image of the man who sowed the good seed in his field and the enemy who came and sowed weeds in it. The Lord explained that the Sower is the Lord himself and the good seed is the children of the kingdom, while the weeds are the children of the devil. We may give this parable some more interpretations. For example, parents may be seen as those who sow the good seeds of virtues and values in their children’s hearts. However, children also learn to do the opposite to virtue, which is vice. Many parents wonder how good children become problematic children.

Today is the second consecutive Sunday that the Lord explains his parables to his disciples in the gospel. On the previous Sunday, we heard the Lord teaching the Parable of the Sower in general terms, not comparing the action of the seeds to something else. In contrast in today’s gospel, the Lord teaches several parables comparing the objects of the stories, seeds again and yeast, to the kingdom of heaven.

The Lord says that the parable of the seeds and the weeds is an image of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is the favorite and central theme of the Lord’s teaching. The kingdom of heaven is defined in the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord taught his disciples to pray to the heavenly Father for the coming of his kingdom. He told them to ask, “Thy kingdom come”.

Immediately after that petition, the Lord taught his disciples to pray for the fulfilment of the Father’s will here on earth as it is fulfilled or done in heaven. He told them to ask, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. The kingdom of heaven comes then wherever the will of God is perfectly obeyed, just as the saints and angels absolutely do in heaven. The Lord’s invitation to his disciples to joining him in the kingdom of heaven is a gentle proposition to go back to Paradise, to go back to the Garden of Eden to the time before original sin, where Adam and Eve perfectly fulfilled the will of God.

We know that God created Adam and Eve with the ability to be virtuous all the time, immediately and effortlessly. The devil came and sowed in their hearts the weeds of envy towards God and the doubts in God’s trustworthiness. Original sin came. With it came original sin for all the descendants of Adam and Eve along with the possibility of having the weeds of sin compete with the good seed God sows in us in the first place.

The Lord came to redeem us from this condition of sin. The Lord alone could fix this condition in us because he, though human in all things except sin, is the perfect good seed without evil weeds sown in him. The devil tried so hard to sow weeds in the Lord’s soul but failed terribly.

Today’s gospel is paired to a beautiful excerpt from the book of Wisdom. In it we read, “You [God] gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins”. The Sower in the parable of the seeds and the weeds allowed the weeds to grow together with the wheat. The good news for us is that our loving and just God is patient with us sinners. Almighty God gives us time, time to repent. However, time for us is not endless, and we should be aware of the day of judgement.

Let us humbly ask the Lord to grant us his grace to acknowledge the weeds of sin that we may have and be able to control them to the point they do not choke the good seed of God present in our hearts.