Holy Spirit is Always Present
Wisdom 12:13, 16-19; Romans 8:26-27; Matthew 13:24-43 or 13:24-30
One question is capital this Sunday: Where is the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ parables? There seems to be a fierce competition between God and the Devil, and the Holy Spirit alone can help us weather the storm. For example, God sows good seeds, and the Devil sows the weeds among God’s good seeds. When asked that the weeds be uprooted, God decided it is better for both to grow up side by side.
Our first reading comes through in God’s decision that the good seeds and the weeds be allowed to grow side by side up until the harvest. That decision confirms that God is slow to punish, and his love extends even to evil doers. Our first reading says: “your mastery over all things makes you lenient to all . . . and with much lenience you govern us”.
Perhaps freedom has its foundation in God. Otherwise, why should evil co-exist and co-mingle with the good? If we speak our language of justice, evil apparently has the right to live and exist, and God defends the right of evil to exist in today’s gospel—leave the two up until the harvest, says Jesus!
Our first and second readings explain the right of evil to exist and to enjoy fundamental freedom! As proof, Jesus emphatically rejected the request of his disciples for the extermination of evil persons/weeds. This statement implies that it is wrong and sinful to pray for the elimination of evil people. The lesson becomes, in the absence of a physical Jesus, if we do not know how to pray or make requests of God as we ought, our second reading says, then the Holy Spirit helps us to offer the right kind of prayer that pleases God. As regards the weeds, we are not allowed to pray for the extermination of evil, but as the Lord’s prayer puts it, we should ask to be “delivered from evil”.
The deliverance from evil is the role of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God gives God’s children the stamina to weather the storm of evil. The Holy Spirit works in us the way he works in martyrs. Like the lives of martyrs, for whom the more they are persecuted and tantalized with reasons to abandon their faith, the more earnestly they seek death. The stronger the temptation, the more indefatigable God’s Holy Spirit becomes in them, shielding them from the Devil!
Indeed, God will be an unjust God if the devil’s right to freedom is impinged. In fact, every sinner has a fundamental right, like the Devil does, to reject God. According to our first reading, all God does is to offer everyone equal opportunity for salvation and leave us to decide for ourselves, whether we want to be on the side of God or the Devil.
Here is the place to appreciate the Holy Spirit’s role in God’s parables and in everyone’s life—the tenacity with which conscience keeps reminding us of the difference between right and wrong, sin and holiness. Just think about it, even the Devil is not devoid of the help of the Holy Spirit, which is why he sowed the weeds at night or when everyone was asleep—he knew that sowing weeds was wrong, so he sowed them clandestinely. The Holy Spirit makes it evident to the Devil that evil is wrong. Consequently, the Devil chooses the night or when people are asleep to sow weeds.
The Holy Spirit is present in all of us! The fact that no one hates everybody and everything is a sign that the light of the Holy Spirit is in all that God has created. To be able to love anything at all shows that some goodness and God’s resemblance persists in us, no matter how small. It follows that the period from creation to judgment day serves as grace-moment for the perfection of love and conversion to God. No one is totally qualified for Hell without categorically rejecting the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Every day, like the good seeds and weeds, we keep making choices between sin and holiness, opting for either God or the Devil through our deeds. At the harvest or on judgment day, God alone will be able to decide where our choices have led us—to God or the Devil.
Before the D-day arrives, let us listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice in our consciences encouraging us to widen the borders of our love to include everybody so that we may become like God loving everyone and rejecting no one!
Assignment for the Week:
Seek to winner over or be reconciled with an enemy of yours, whom you know.