Preached on Sunday, July 17, 2017.

 OJ Simpson was in the news this week ... there he was ... once again ...

   on the TV and the Front Page of the paper as he won parole from prison ...

after spending almost 9 years behind bars for attempted armed robbery.

OJ Simpson has been on the TV a lot during his life ...

as the Heisman Trophy winner in 1968

when inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985,

as a sports commentator, a Hollywood actor and rental car spokesman

and as the focus of the trial of the century where he was acquitted in the    

 killings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Prior to his trial for murder in the mid-1990’s, I got a call from my Mom telling me that OJ Simpson was on TV driving a White Bronco through LA and was being pursued by a whole fleet of police cars. I quickly turned on the TV and discovered that OJ had a gun and was threatening to kill himself.

I immediately began praying for him saying, “Please don’t take your life.”

It didn’t matter at that point if he indeed was the one who killed his wife or not. What mattered was that if he took his own life ...

he would be cutting short his chances to be reconciled with God.

Jesus speaks about this today in His parable of the Weeds and the Wheat where,

 the Weeds represent children doing evil and the Wheat children doing good..

And the situation that Jesus describes is meant to demonstrate the unbelievable restraint and longstanding patience that God has with those who are doing evil.

Yes, because even though the weeds are clearly identified in the field ...

the Master says to leave them alone ... and He will tend to them later.

The core message here is that:

God allows those who have gone astray every opportunity and affords them every grace to be reconciled with Him. He is extremely patient with all of us and therefore, we are never to give up in our hope for the conversion of sinners.

Today’s Gospel provides strong support to the Catholic Church’s opposition to both the Death Penalty and Euthanasia. When we humans take control of ending human life ... we are interfering with the patience of God that offers people every last opportunity to convert their hearts and be reconciled with Him.

In our Gospel, the Landowner’s servants see the weeds in the field and ask,

“Do you want us to go and pull them up?”

In today’s times, that’s like us seeing the murderer on Death Row and asking,

“Do you want us to throw the switch?” Couldn’t we just fry him in the electric chair?

Or, it’s like us seeing someone lying in the hospital suffering in pain and asking,

“Do you want us to pull the plug?” Couldn’t we just remove the vent or feeding

tube and take him out of his pain?

God says, “No … leave them alone.

I will call for them to make an accounting of themselves in my time.”

God wants our salvation, not our condemnation! And the message we need to hear today is that He has ... extensive patience ... and extreme restraint.

In our First reading from the Book of Wisdom, the author says of God:

“Though you are the master of might, you judge with clemency, and with much lenience you govern us. You gave your children good ground for hope,

that you would permit repentance for their sins.”

What a God we have … one who is lenient … who permits us to repent for our sins.

We hear of God’s patience and tolerance again in our Responsorial Psalm.

Incidentally, have your ever wondered why we pray a Psalm between the first two readings? I sure did. For many years, I never understood the meaning until one day it dawned on me that this is the point where we get to respond to God’s word that we’re hearing from the Scriptures. This makes the Liturgy of the Word … Prayer

… because now we’re in dialog with God.

We hear God’s word in the First Reading and then we respond to Him with a Psalm, using His own words! The Psalms are God’s own words, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They’re the very words that Jesus Himself prayed when He prayed them in the Temple! Jesus prayed the Psalms.

And we get to pray them in response to the Word of God that we hear in Scripture. That’s why we call it … a Responsorial Psalm!

Well, in today’s Responsorial Psalm, we said,

O Lord, You are good and forgiving, abounding in kindness to all who call upon you. These are not our words of wishful thinking; no, they are God’s very own words. And He’s telling us that He is indeed forgiving and abounding in all kindness whenever we turn to Him.

You know, just as the slave in the parable identified the weeds in the field,  

we’re pretty good at identifying, those who do evil in the world.

Perhaps someone you know has stopped going to Church or has fallen into a sinful lifestyle such as: Fornication, Adultery, Pornography, Drugs, Alcohol, or Abuse.

What do you do? You may reach out to them and ask them to change their ways. And you may even continue to do this for a while.

But then, after a period of time, you may be tempted to give up on them. You may feel justified in saying, “Ok, I’ve had it with you. I’ve tried and tried and tried!

I’ve told you several times what you need to do and you haven’t listened, so forget it; I want nothing else to do with you!”

You may be tempted to do that, but we simply can’t do that! Even if we’ve prayed for them and poured out our heart to them and begged them to do the right thing, we can never get to the point where we give up on them.

That’s because God never gives up on us.

Who are we to give up on others … when God never gives up on us?

The Lord desires that all people be reconciled with Him

and we can play a part in this process by praying for the conversion of sinners.

There’s an untold number of conversions that have taken place …

in homes, and hospitals and prisons all over the world.

These all give credence to the fact that conversion is always possible.

In our Gospel, the master refuses to allow his slaves to separate the weeds from the wheat while they were still growing. That should be a warning to all of us not to pre-judge who’s going to heaven and who’s not.

Both the Good and the Bad are here among us; but judgment is for God alone.

What’s important to realize is that weeds do not destroy the wheat ...

they only make it more difficult for the wheat to grow to maturity.

It’s the same with human beings. .No one takes our faith from us.

If we lose our faith it’s because we gave it away, not because someone took it away. It’s because we’ve chosen to give up on God and ourselves.

The patience of the landowner in allowing the weeds to grow until harvest time demonstrates the infinite mercy of God toward sinners!

Now a weed by nature cannot change and become wheat ...

but by the grace of God, a sinner, can change and become a Saint!

And God gives them every chance and every help to do so.

No one will be excluded from Heaven for sins committed, only for sins unrepented!

The key is conversion … repenting and coming back to God.

And that’s why God patiently allows weeds to grow among the wheat ...

He’s giving them the time and the opportunity to change their hearts.

Jesus calls us to be like Him and be patient with the weeds who are present in the world. While we can never approve of their evil ways, we still must look on them as God does, with compassion and love, and we must do all in our power to guide them back on the road to Heaven. This involves keeping them in our prayers.

If we need a model for persistence in prayer, we will find a good one in St. Monica. St. Monica, who lived in the mid-300’s, led an exemplary life but was challenged by two major weeds. Her husband was a pagan who harshly criticized her Catholic faith and entered into fits of rage when she practiced her faith. Plus her son, Augustine, embraced heretical teachings and lustful living, even fathering a son out of wedlock. But St. Monica never ceased praying for their conversion.

She stormed heaven with her prayers and begged for the grace for these two to walk in the light of the Church.

The result was that both her husband and her son were converted …

her husband was baptized on his deathbed and became a Catholic, and

her son at the age of 33, reclaimed his Catholic faith.  

Incidentally, we know her son today by the name St. Augustine, because he went on to become a Bishop of the Church in North Africa and a great defender of the Catholic faith against the errors of the Pelagian heresy.

And because of his voluminous writings on Catholic theology, St. Augustine is revered today as one of the 4 original Doctors of the Catholic Church.

Imagine that … a Weed turning into a Doctor of the Church!

When we’re tempted to give up on wayward souls, we need to think of St. Monica

who patiently prayed for 33 years before her son turned from living in darkness to living in the light.

Let’s strive to emulate the patience of God in the way we relate to others.

Let’s pray that we remain strong even though we’re surrounded by many weeds. And let’s never stop praying that the many Weeds in the world … turn into Saints!