In the parable of today’s gospel, the enemy sows darnel into the wheat field. As the darnel grows become evident, the neighbours around this farmer will laugh at him and say that he does not know how to prepare the soil for the sowing. The enemy wants to shame the farmer because he does not like the farmer to prosper. Good and evil will be present side-by-side. “Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good” by Thomas Aquinas

The owner has two options. The first is to find out who did it and take revenge or to leave the matter as it is and wait for harvest time. The farmer apparently knows that the wheat will be able to withstand the darnel growing amongst them. Knowing oneself and knowing what one ought to do will often lead to a better outcome than when one acts out of frustration and ignorance. In the end, not taking revenge on the enemy leads the farmer to come out better in this situation. The farmer has his wheat and he has the darnel as fuel for his fire.

In any given situation, there are always options when we are not held hostage to our emotions or to the emotions of others. Often, we are frozen and unable to take action because we do not recognise that we are trying to make a decision using our emotions. Decisions are made with the intellect.

The second reading reminds us that the SPIRIT will come to help us with our weaknesses.

Catechism of the Catholic Church:
312 In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures: “It was not you”, said Joseph to his brothers, “who sent me here, but God. . . You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive.”178 From the greatest moral evil ever committed – the rejection and murder of God’s only Son, caused by the sins of all men – God, by his grace that “abounded all the more”,179 brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil never becomes good.

By: Magele Ngau – Khoo