SISXTEENTH
ORDINARY SUNDAY
Wisdom
12:13,16-19, Romans 8:26-27, Matthew 13:24-43
Br. Subhash
O.C.D
First Reading: God
has shown himself to be a God of justice and mercy.
Committing sin
and mistake again and again is humanness, being merciful and forgiving is
Godhood (divineness or godliness).
The
first reading explains that, God is just and a merciful father, he treats every
one equally. He provides all of us with the opportunity to be saved. And when
some one doubts the power of God, god's power is shown to the people in
different ways. God has the power or authority to condemn, but he still bears
us patiently.
Vs. 19. we, see god
waits for his people to repent and he forgives them. So also God desires his
good people to forgive one another as he did. He desires his people live in
righteous ness. He invites us to possess the qualities of God like mercy and
forgiveness.
Those who do
good are the children of God and those who do bad are the children of Evil.
Therefore God
ask us to be his good children.
Responsorial
Psalm:
Psalm
86:5-6,9-10,15-16 : It is A prayer to
God for mercy.
Second Reading : The Spirit
intercedes for us with God.
By
nature human beings are fragile, weak,
fall towards sin easily. Because we often fall in to the trap of sin, we fail
to love our brethren, we fail to forgive others, we fail to be merciful towards
the other in their need.
But st. Paul
says that the spirit comes to aid and do the needful to all those are week .
The spirit is within us, appealing to the Father on our behalf and enables us
to call God Abba Father. Therefore Paul tells that as humans we do struggle against the
flesh, with our desires and selfish attitudes.
The spirit indeed groans within us as we pray to our Father through
Jesus. And God the Father answers us or
grants us what ever we ask in prayer through Jesus Christ.
Gospel
This
gospel reading is a continuation of the last Sunday’s Jesus’ discourse to the crowds and disciples .
In today’s
Gospel, Jesus speaks three parables to explain about the Kingdom of Heaven. He
also explains why he speaks to the crowds in parables and interprets the
parable of the sower for the disciples. In three parables the common concept
is “the Kingdom of Heaven”. The first parable speaks that the Kingdom of Heaven is
compared to the sower (God). And land is compared to the world, and the good
seeds are compared to the wheat(children of God) and the bad seeds are compared to the weeds(children
of evil). the enemy is (evil).
Here, did the
sower sow the weeds?
No. But an enemy
has done that out of jealousy.
Did God create
bad people?
No. But it is
evil who tempts the people, or attracts the people, by projecting as though it
is good.
Why do people
tend towards evil, because
-evil is tasty
-evil tempts
-evil attracts
-evil pretends
to be good.
The evil tempts
human, in the form of pleasures, power, riches or wealth, etc.
However,
the wheat and weeds grow together and they will not be realized till the time
of collecting the crops. Same way the good people (children of God) and bad
people (children of evil) live together in the world. And will not be realized what
is good and evil until the final judgment.
The sower is
patient enough till the end. To separate wheat and weeds. So also God is so
patient he waits for bad people to become good. And on the day of judgement he separates good and the bad. The good people become the children of God, and
they inherit the kingdom of heaven. And the bad people children of evil, will
inherit the eternal fire.
The
second parable explains to us that kingdom of God is like mustard seed, which
becomes a huge tree and becomes a shelter for the birds of the air. Beginning
the faith of Christianity may be small
but later it increases and many people, cultures, and nations, reflecting God’s
plan for the people will realize that god’s Kingdome is something different than
what we expect and imagine. In Gods kingdom full of mercy and compassion.
Purposely
the enemy comes to destroy while we are in asleep and sows the weeds in the
field. That means we must be awake, or be aware of the evil that is around us.
As st. Peter said in his letters “Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a
roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to
devour” (1Peter 5:8).
So this parable
teaches us to be perciver in our prayer. With out failing becaue the devil may
miss guide us.
The
third parable teaches us that we must be like yeast, in the families and in the
societies, spreading God’s love and mercy or sharing goodness to other.We also
should expand God’s kingdome on earth.