Gospel according to Saint Matthew 13:24-43:
Jesus proposed another parable to the crowds, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘”

He proposed another parable to them. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.'”

He spoke to them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.”

All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, to fulfill what had been said through the prophet: I will open my mouth in parables, I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world.

Then, dismissing the crowds, he went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

Pilgrim sinners

Luis CASASUS President of the Idente Missionaries

Rome, July 19, 2026 | XVI Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wis 12: 13.16-19; Rom 8: 26-27; Mt 13: 24-43

One thought that might occur to us when reading the parable of the wheat and the tares is: How is it possible that the owner of the field and his people would go to sleep, knowing that the evil one is on the prowl?

It seems like carelessness, but it is the same sense of shock that many people of good will experience when they see the pain and the dominance of evil in the world. In reality, the parable itself provides an answer: The servants, who never possess the same vigilance and diligence as the owner of the field, upon witnessing evil, are shaken and driven to act, to approach their master to propose a solution… and they receive the appropriate instruction; in this case, to wait until harvest time.

Providence seeks by every means to foster our compassion, to infect us with its way of loving, because our instinctive tendency is rather to eliminate in some way those who seem to us to be mediocre, insensitive, or violent. To “eliminate” them, we distance ourselves from them, show them our anger, or speak negatively of their actions; we grumble against them.

But whoever is truly united with the divine will strives not to distance themselves from the person who has become a slave to their instincts, for they know that God can use many means to save that human being—including his own closeness—even though he would prefer to be far from him.

This is the case with Jesus in the way he treats Judas Iscariot: though he knows from the beginning who will betray him, he does not expose Judas publicly; he washes his feet, as he does for the other disciples, and gives him bread as a gesture of friendship, leaving him room to convert without humiliating him or tearing him from the “field.” In this way, he showed complete trust in the judgment of God the Father.

In this way, Christ acts exactly like the owner of the field; he allows the wheat and the tares to grow together until the time of truth, because pulling them up prematurely would have destroyed the good as well—which is God’s work in our spirit. The episode of David and Saul is one of the most profound—and dramatic—examples of what Jesus teaches in the parable of the wheat and the tares. David clearly sees the “tares” in Saul: Jealousy, violence, unjust persecution. But he does not preempt God’s judgment. He does not destroy what has always been part of the divine plan.

Saul is the anointed king; David has also been anointed, but he does not seize power by force, even though, humanly speaking, he would have the right and the opportunity to do so. Saul appears to be a weed, acting out of fear, envy, and anger.

In the cave of Ein Gedi, where David had hidden from Saul, there is a moment when he has him at his mercy. His men say to him: God has delivered him into your hands. But David responds with a clarity that embodies the parable: I will not lay a hand on my lord, for he is the Lord’s anointed.

David does not become an accomplice to Saul’s evil, nor does he eliminate him; his attitude is one of active patience and respect for God’s timing. In fact, Saul reacts by acknowledging to David: You have acted better than I have. You have repaid me good for evil. Later, when Saul dies, David does not celebrate, but weeps.

David was able to refrain from pulling up the weeds, thereby enabling God to make Saul see how wrong he was.

Can I think that I am a “special” case, that I do not need to be patient, and that my justice or my patience are superior to God’s? He, in His unconditional love, has destined us to live a life where pain does not exist and where no one can do evil.

—ooOoo—

The Church is a community of sinners on a pilgrimage toward holiness. And not only the Church, but every human being is “far from home.” That is why each of us has an inner conflict and division that cannot be healed by our own strength. It is no wonder that on many occasions we are unable to see it this way. Perhaps that is why Jesus offers us not one, but two parables—that of the mustard seed and that of the yeast—to convince us that our logic and our instincts are of no use either in eliminating evil or in contributing to God’s plans. Raskolnikov, the young protagonist of Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment (1866), is one of literature’s most intense portrayals of the coexistence of good and evil within a single human being. Dostoevsky does not present him as a pure criminal nor as a frustrated hero, but as a man torn apart by two inner forces that struggle relentlessly.

Within Raskolnikov coexist ideological arrogance—such as the conviction that he is an “extraordinary man” entitled to break the law—and deep compassion, evident in his tenderness toward the poor, children, and the downtrodden. Thus, he is neither a monster nor a saint; he is, rather, a divided soul.

When he kills the old moneylender Alyona Ivanovna, he does not do so out of pure malice, but rather out of a mixture of confused intentions: to steal her money to continue his studies and help the poor, a desire to prove himself…

But immediately afterward, the other Raskolnikov appears—the one who trembles and breaks down, who cannot bear the guilt and feels compassion for the victim’s sister.

Raskolnikov is a good example of the parable of the wheat and the tares applied to the human soul. The wheat is his capacity to love, his sensitivity to suffering, and his desire for truth. The tares are represented by his pride, his dehumanizing theory, and his inner violence.

Dostoevsky shows that uprooting one part would also destroy the other. Only time, suffering, and love can separate the true from the false. In this case, the character of Sonia, who represents the gaze that sees the wheat where others see only weeds. For Raskolnikov, she is the gaze that is not scandalized, that does not condemn, that waits; in short, the possibility of conversion.

Raskolnikov is a soul where the darkness of crime and the light of compassion coexist, and where the struggle between the two reveals the tragic and hopeful depth of the human heart.

—ooOoo—

Using the typical language of the Old Testament, so that his listeners could understand, Jesus ends today’s lesson by speaking of a burning furnace, of weeping and gnashing of teeth, which begin to be experienced by those who decide to remain weeds—that is, in today’s language, those who choose to be “man-instinct” rather than “man-spirit”; in other words, those who close themselves off to mercy instead of living the openness and freedom to which our Father invites us. Those who do so do not seek punishment, but rather gradually ruin their own lives, for we were created to live in freedom, even in the midst of all the limitations and evil of this world.

This is where the Holy Spirit comes into play in a special way, as the Second Reading tells us: our need is so great that we do not even know how to ask for help, which is why He does so on behalf of everything our heart cannot express. Indeed, the truest prayer arises when the heart has no words left, and the Spirit prays within us with a depth that only God understands.

In this way, He effectively transforms us, drawing us with His irresistible Inspiration, which is far more powerful than our understanding and our will.

Charles de Foucauld (1858–1916), canonized in 2022, lived through many years of spiritual dryness, unable to “pray well.” He was convinced that his prayer was poor, but in that poverty, the Spirit was at work. He wrote a now-famous text called Prayer of Abandonment. It begins like this:

My Father, I place myself in your hands; My Father, I entrust myself to you; My Father, I abandon myself to you; My Father, do with me as you please; whatever you do with me, I thank you; thank you for everything; I am ready for anything; I accept everything; I thank You for everything, provided that Your will be done in me, my God; provided that Your will be done in all Your creatures, in all Your children, in all those whom Your heart loves, I desire nothing more.

There is another moving, profoundly luminous case where what Romans 8:26–27 says is fulfilled. It is the prayer of Hannah, the mother of Samuel (1 Sam 1). In it, we see how weakness, the inability to pray with words, and inner pain become the place where God Himself prays within the human heart.

She arrives at the temple broken, humiliated, without strength, unable to formulate a clear prayer. She does not articulate sentences; she merely moves her lips. She weeps and trembles, so much so that the priest Eli even thinks she is drunk. But Scripture says that Hannah “prayed in her heart.” That is the language of today’s Second Reading: the prayer that cannot be expressed, but which God understands because it is born of the Spirit.

Hannah does not know how to put her thoughts into words, but God hears those groans; the Father “searches the heart” and understands what she cannot say. Then her life is transformed.

Hannah is not heard in spite of her weakness, but through it. Her inner poverty becomes the place where God acts most powerfully.

We can say with certainty that weakness is the place where the Spirit prays most deeply. That is why even silence, tears, or confusion can become true prayer.

_____________________________

In the Sacred Hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,

Luis CASASUS

President