By Fr. Brian Wirth
Director of Rural Life
Whether growing crops on the farm, or flowers and vegetables in gardens, one of the biggest challenges of raising plants revolves around weeds. With or without moisture, weeds still find a way to make their presence known.
Even when fields and gardens are not harvestable due to crop damage or loss, weeds still stubbornly persist. If no action is taken, the ground will eventually be overrun by weeds, leaving the soil infested and unfit for harvest.
We may not realize it, but exercising good weed management is an act of charity. In this exercise, farmers not only work to prevent weeds in their own fields, but they help deter the spread of weeds into neighboring fields.
Still, no matter how hard one works to keep weeds away, there is not a single field without at least some weeds. Mistakes are made; there are unforeseen problems. Such is the reality of life.
This is evident in our spiritual lives as well. Concerning the Kingdom of God on earth, our Christian lives are a mixed bag. Constantly, wheat and weeds are present in our lives—everywhere. As disciples, we bear, in some manner, all the soil types in relation to the good seed sown by the Sower.
Using Jesus’ Parable of the Good Seed and the Weeds (Mt. 13:24-30), I would like to offer a few spiritual guidelines on how to apply this lesson to our own lives.
We need to be awakened to work.
Much like farming, cultivating our spiritual lives and sowing good seed with Christ is hard work, which requires many long and toilsome hours. Though the Enemy wickedly sows weeds into the field of good seed, Jesus states: “everyone is asleep.”
Today, there is a lack of spiritual and sacramental nourishment. Consequently, such deficiency leads to spiritual indifference. Through sin and negligence, many are overcome by some type of indifference, which causes a spiritual sleepiness concerning God’s Commandments. Like farmers who work diligently to keep weeds out of their fields and others, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we as one Church need to be awakened like Adam (Gen 2:15) to be cultivators of faith, hope, and charity.
We need to enrich ourselves daily to the refuge of prayer.
St. Paul reassures us that without prayer, the soil of our hearts will be overrun by the weeds of the Enemy. During our greatest moments of weakness and suffering, we must rely all the more on the promptings of the Holy Spirit for his fruits.
Uncertain of the future, there are constantly times when we know not how to pray; this is normal. Simply, Jesus desires our presence in view of His Eucharistic Presence to continue sowing good seed. Viewing the wheat and weeds, St. Paul calls us to be sown into the Spirit and His “inexpressible groanings” to the Father for fruitful conversion.
Note the type(s) of weeds in our field.
Ultimately, the root of sin is pride and self-reliance. In the times we fail to make a total gift of self and try to control everything through pride, we generate weeds of self-reliance, zapping grace-filled moisture and nutrients away from the soil of our hearts.
Yet in the times when we humbly seek the grace of the Holy Spirit to uproot self-reliance and labor to be Christ in our God-given vocations, enduring the presence of loved ones and enemies alike in our limitedness, by making a complete gift of self, our lives cultivate more fully good seed on rich soil, full-bodied wheat primed for an abundant harvest.
Therefore, seeking Christ the Sower daily in union with the grace-filled moisture of the Holy Spirit, what occurs is an ecclesial “Spiritual Weed Management.”
Allow me to explain.
By entrusting ourselves to the Spirit, we enable Him to shower on us His life-giving rain in every part of our lives. Following Original Sin, we eternally thirst for the moisture of God’s grace and wholly depend on it to bear the fruits intended for the Harvest of Eternal Life. More, we allow the fruits of the Spirit to have a regular growing season, allowing the good seed to form a strong root system and solid crop stand.
A good root system remains firm in the soil, able to reach moisture and nutrients more easily than surrounding weeds, thus defending itself against the Enemy. This also provides a good crop stand. Standing erect, the crop is in good position to receive proper sunlight, and more, the plant casts a greater shadow over the surrounding weeds, preventing them necessary sunlight for growth, thus limiting the weeds, making them much smaller in size and easier to manage.
Thus, brothers and sisters, using Jesus’ parable, we can readily apply these images and analogies to our spiritual lives. Remember: no field is perfect.
Provided ample good seed (faith in the Gospel), moisture and nutrients (prayer in the Holy Spirit), a good root system (Mass, sacraments, prayer, Scripture, etc.) and a good crop stand (upright virtuous Christian lives), we are, despite our biggest fears, able to “let the wheat and the weeds grow together until harvest.” (Final judgment).
Through our ongoing conversion as a Church, the weeds of sin will start to shrivel and die, representing a small bundle in comparison to the abundant harvest of wheat which we will bear through the infinite graces of God in preparation for the future glory of the Heavenly Kingdom.
