Weeds and Wheat

                Abby Johnson is a very powerful voice for the Pro-Life movement.  It was not always that way.  She was once a director of a Planned Parenthood.  She help to facilitate many abortions, which ended the lives of many precious children.  Abby was very vocal in the Pro-choice argument and from the bottom of her heart she thought she was doing the right thing for women.  But then something happened.  She experienced a complete change of heart.  She saw the error of her ways and changed her life around.  She is now such a powerful witness to the horrors and evil of abortion and the victimization of the women who fall to the lies of that industry.  God never gave up on her.  She could have been considered as one of the weeds of this world, but she has chosen to be wheat.  If God had decided to just move on, to tear up the entire harvest Abby would not have had the chance to change.

                We hear Jesus say in the Gospels we can see the Father through Him.  The Gospel from last week gives us a glimpse of how the Father thinks through the parable Jesus uses. It may even answer the age old question, “Why does he allow evil in the world?”  The Parable of the Wheat and Weeds may reveal the answer.  I believe He does it because he is holding out on hope that anyone can change.  He is not going to give up on all for the failures of others.  He has sent His Son to tell us He wants us with him.  Through his Son, the failures that bring us closer to being weeds than wheat can be eliminated.  Washed away.  Gone forever.  Our baptism begins this transformation where we die to sin and rise as the very wheat that makes up the Bread of Life.  Through the Sacrament of Penance, we can renew our strength to stay as the creation God made us to be and, through Confirmation, we can tap into the strength to tell others the Good News. It is by spreading this Good News that others may have the opportunity for transformation.  The wheat helping in the transformation of the weeds.

                The transformation of Abby Johnson is not a new phenomenon to God.  His hope in us has shown through the lives of many.  Paul would be a great example.  A persecutor of Christians changed to the Apostle of the Gentiles.  St. Augustine, a virtual playboy, became one of the early Fathers and theologians of the Church.  Many other saints follow this very story.  We can also be a transformation story if we just listen to the words of the origin of all hope, Jesus Christ. 

Deacon Chris Mars