Saturday - 16th Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel – Matthew 13:24-30

Pulling Weeds!

Street Market, Jerusalem

I admit it – I hate gardening!!  Turning over the soil, planting, constant watering and arranging, NO!  And weeding?  Absolutely not!  Don’t get me wrong, I love picking the crop (especially zucchini) and baking things with them.  But the prep work?  Did I mention weeding?  No No No!

And yet today’s Gospel is specifically about that – weeding!  The servants are perplexed!  Where did the weeds come from?  What should we do?  The Master says to let the weeds and the crops grow together.  Then, at the harvest, we will separate the weeds from the fruit!  An obvious reference to the Last Judgement!

But I would like to suggest another path!  As much as I hate to weed, there are plenty of things in my life that I truly need to pull up and dispose of.  There are attitudes and bad habits that I need to focus on and eliminate from my life.  We all need to do a bit of gardening with ourselves.  We all need to better prepare our soil for receiving the seeds of faith.  And there are certainly some elements in our lifestyle that we need to root up and throw away. 

So let’s reflect on that today!  What is there in our life that we need to weed out in order for us to grow closer to the Father?  And remember – weeding and gardening are not a one-shot effort.  We need to constantly nurture and cultivate our faith. And we need to regularly weed out the unnecessary, anything that distracts us from growing in our relationship with the Creator and from reaching that final harvest in the Kingdom of God.

Great Spirit, help me this day to be humble.  Let me not attack anything in deed or word or thought.  Set my eyes on the beauty you have created in all things.

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