Parable of the Good Seed

Today's Gospel gives us the eternal lesson of the necessity of watchfulness against evil (Matthew 13: 24-30)

My missal likens the world to a wide field. Our Lord is the sower of good seed (the Word of Christ). Under cover of darkness, the Devil scatters cockle (sin). The servants (angels) want to separate the cockle - dividing good from evil.  However, the roots are so tangled in each other that they may only be separated at harvest time - the day of judgment. Then the cockle (the wicked) will be burned and the good will be taken to be with Christ in heaven. "The wheat gather ye into my barn."

The missal introduction continues: As we see around us the parable teaches that while hell and its agents are forever working evil, they act as stimulus to the good, whose merits increase in proportion to the persecutions which they undergo.

Our parish weekly bulletin again has a reflection from one of the Fathers of the Church, St. John Chrysostom, who died in 407 A.D.  I repeat it here.

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   Then He speaks of the manner of this guile, while men are asleep. Here lies no small danger of headlong disaster for the rulers of the Church, to whom has been confided the care of the field;  and not only to the rulers, but to the subjects as well. He shows here very clearly that wherever the seed of truth has been sown, error follows after, as events have truly confirmed. For after the Prophets have come the pseudo-prophets; after the apostles the pseudo-apostles; and after Christ anti-Christ. For the devil, except he sees what he can imitate, or against whom he may plot, knows not what to do, and neither does he attempt anything. But since he has learned that of the seed that was sown some brought fruit a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty, he tries yet another stratagem. Not being able to carry off what has taken firm root, nor choke it, or wither it, he conspires against it by oversowing it with his own evil seed.

   But what difference, you may ask, is there between those that sleep and those who are signified by the wayside? There is this. That in the latter case the devil immediately snatched away the seed, not permitting it to take root. But in this case he has need of greater cunning. And Christ tells us in order to teach us of the need for unsleeping vigilance. For though, He says, you escape these snares, you are not yet safe and secure; yet other remain. For as in the preceding parable disaster came to some by the wayside, to others because of stony ground, to others through being smothered by thorns, so here it came because of sleep. There is need therefore for continual watchfulness. Beause of this He has said: he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved (Matt. 10:22).

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  Can we not see that this is a parable from which we can glean the origins of, not only our individual weaknesses and danger of losing heaven, but of our Church and our country as well?  The good seed which Christ sowed in us at Baptism has been tangled with the cockles of sin. The servants of our Church have been asleep - for decades. Some, I fear, have actively worked for its destruction from within, while the others slept. The representatives in our government have been either willing or unwilling servants of our enemy, Satan, or asleep themselves. The result is a population that is in a virtual coma and cannot even recognize the evil. Look at the overwhelming number of Catholics who voted for the current Administration, which flaunts the worst of evils, is proud of its evil and draws more and more people into its soul-destroying objectives.  Our hierarchy, perhaps worse than being alseep, has been suffering the timidity of trying to "get along."  Finally, a few are speaking out. It's too little, too late.  Catholics for the last two (at least) generations do not even know their Faith and what they should stand for. Their religious education, like our public school education, has been dumbed down to disgraceful levels or reduced to wrong interpretations of "social justice."  The trouble is, that without a good catechesis, it isn't just a loss of  knowledge but the danger of the loss of their souls. More important than anything else to every human being is the salvation of the eternal soul.

   And what can we look forward to now?  Will there be real religious persecution? Watch and do not sleep.  The wheat may well be separated from the cockle in this lifetime. Remember: He that shall persevere until the end shall be saved.