“The Bride of Christ prefers to use the medicine of mercy rather than arm herself with weapons of rigor”, were the opening words of Saint Pope John the XXIII at the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. We are invited this Sunday to see beyond the tranquility of a good soil and a good seed. The confusion and chaos of our world is not veiled from God. He knows! Yet God wants us to understand that we cannot be in full harmony with the world because the timelessness our hearts’ cravings. God descends and stoops to us so that we too might be patient with our neighbors. In fact patience is the advent of God’s divine mercy, permitting repentance from sin and an ever-deepening awareness of the need to move closer to the Gospel everyday. Pope Francis reminds us that God’s logic is over abundance of mercy.

Let us be on the guard not to fall into the temptation of trying to quickly distinguish friends from foes, believers from non-believers… on the basis of number and quantity lest evil should fester in our own hearts. We cannot wield from God the power to judge others and bring all the evil doers to justice because wheat and weeds at some stage look alike. No human being is completely perfect. In the economy of salvation God looks at our unique stories and struggles and responds to us as such. Despite the insignificant size of the mustard seed it grows. Is this not why ‘the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words’? We harm ourselves at the core of our being when we fast forward God’s divine judgment by throwing into the furnace the good seeds and the weeds at once so that neither of them should grow. God never sleeps nor slumbers but we sleep. Therefore, we must always discern and give time to our good deeds to grow into holiness otherwise our holiness will be superficial. Human growth can be genetically modified not spiritual growth. It takes the leaven of prayer and good works to grow in the spirit. Am I leaven or weed?

Have a blessed Sunday.

Fr. Sam MADZA, sma