Being Wheat Among Tares

Although I returned from my vacation in San Diego more than a week ago, I decided to extend my hiatus from blogging for just a little while longer.

There was still a couple of local trips to make—my oldest son turned 14 and for a treat we returned to Schlitterbahn water park, which anyone who was reading this time last year will recall included a five-hour search for my daughter (11 at the time). This year we had a rule that we all stay together. Also, we had a family wedding to attend, so it's been an active summer as well as a fast-paced one.

Before the end of July I do plan to make one more trip—to east Texas where I grew up—and then it'll be almost time to return to work. I anticipate an exciting school year, which, I have learned over the years, always has numerous surprises and challenges. However, whatever the challenges, I consider them to be all part of an opportunity on a grand scheme to be true to myself—to let the true me be.

Isn't this what the Sunday gospel teaches us this week? I recall being familiar with the parable of the "wheat and the tares" from an early age. I also recall a time in my life when it inspired no small amount of anxiety in me. I remember asking myself, "How do I know if I am wheat or a weed among wheat?"

My confusion came from two sources: first, I was reading the parable far too literally, and as an evangelical non-Catholic, I was reading it from a Calvinist background of double predestination, according to which some people are destined to damnation while others are destined to the eternal happiness of heaven. I can see how the theological error could come about as a result of a fundamentalist or literal reading of the passage.

The fact is that God invites every human being to join him in heaven and each of us has the potential—easily—to bear good fruit in our lives, even in cases of deathbed conversions. Our free will is something that we always have: it is essential to being human.

Only God knows the depths of the heart, and it is the heart that is precisely the source of good fruit in one's life. In the world human beings, unlike the world of wheat and weeds, we all tend to look very similar. Sometimes it's difficult for us to judge who bears fruit and who is a weed among wheat. The truth is that we must question ourselves and our motives and discern the state of our souls.

Actually, the parable functions on two important levels. It tells us about humanity on the whole, for indeed God has called the whole of humanity to salvation through Jesus Christ, and it speaks to us of the Church, where we are well aware that wheat exists alongside tares.

We have our whole lives as the proving ground, and if our desire is truly to be among the good gathered in the Father's harvest, there is no need for worry or anxiety. We only must be ourselves, and be true to ourselves, in every situation and in the face of every challenge. When we reach the end, the good that we have done, along with the innermost intentions of our hearts, will be made evident.

The photo above is one I took on the beach at Coronado, California.  It doesn't really go with the post so much other than the beach has always symbolized the end for me--whether it's the end of a vacation or the end of one's days.  Finishing things up always has the potential to be a really beautiful thing.

Comments

[Gabrielle]

dd, I well remember that terrifying separation from your daughter at the water park last year...

Our priest gave a very similar interpretation of this gospel, and I had never heard this take on it before. He too stressed that, taken literally, the weeds could not turn into wheat, but that we should be aware of the underlying message here of allowing time for conversion, time for mercy to do its work.