Word for Word 7/14/21

For your meditation:

Wisdom 12:13, 16-19
Romans 8:26-27
Matthew 13:24-43

Hello Dear Friends!

In today’s readings, Jesus uses a story from agriculture - the parable of the wheat and the weeds.

Personally, I’m very fond of farming. I used to work for Oscar Sorley out on Dry Ridge and Art Bakewell above the Oak Hill Cemetery. I lived with my Uncle Ben and Aunt Rose in Freeburg, MN. I still love visiting farms. There are problems at times telling the difference between a weed and a wanted plant. I always thought a morning glory so beautiful - not true, when it’s on a corn stalk. I learned that when I was sent to cut them down with a hoe. That’s just one example.

Farmers who plant soybeans in fields where corn grew the previous year have problems with volunteer corn. I remember going out to chop them off (walk the beans). As a result, you have one farmer out chopping corn where it’s a bother right next to fields where corn is being carefully tended and cultivated.

What’s my point? One man’s weed is another farmer’s flower.

In the parable from the Gospel, the owner of the field says, “Let them grow together until the harvest. Then we’ll burn the weeds and store the grains of wheat.”

In life, there is good and there is evil; there is grace and there is sin. God has the great wisdom, a wisdom much different from ours, and has decided to let them both grow until the end of the world.

I think the point is this; in the end, only God knows for sure what is good and what is evil. Therefore, we should always be slow to condemn and quick to forgive.

One Liners

“It is no longer good enough to cry peace. We must act peace, live peace and live in peace.” - Native American Proverb

“The time is always right to do what is right.” - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A sign seen in Kalamazoo, MI: “Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.” - Professor John Geisler

Msgr. Ed Lechtenberg
Lansing