The Catholic Calendar for Sunday, July 17, 2005
The Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Wisdom 12:13, 16-19
Psalm 86:5-6, 9-10, 15-16
Romans 8:26-27
Matthew 13:24-43

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

“Whoever has ears ought to hear” (Matthew 13:43)

The Word, Jesus Himself, speaks in parables to the yet unproven and so “undiscerned” hearers, while clarifying His Word for His devoted disciples. He distinguishes good from bad seed, wheat from weeds, and children of the kingdom from children of the evil one, by the fruits each produces. “Whoever has ears ought to hear,” Jesus advises.

The one who sleeps, closes his eyes to the Light of goodness and fails to see the evil being sown in the quiet darkness of sin. Jesus also warns, “Avoid causing others to sin and doing evil or suffer eternal separation from God in the fiery furnace of wailing and grinding of teeth.”

He generously reminds us instead to be good wheat that when leavened expands to become greater than the kernel from which it grew. We are to become a refuge and comfort through growing in goodness before God from the tiniest seeds of faith He has sown.

O Lord,
sow your good seed within us
and then grace us to cultivate this attentively,
lest we become as one who sleeps,
susceptible to the weeds sown by the evil one
that may choke out the good life within.
Amen.

- Mary Williams
(www.impactbydesign.biz)

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