Saturday July 26, 2025

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“Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?” He answered, “An enemy has done this.” (From today’s Gospel reading)

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Good News Reflection for:

Saturday of the 16th Week of Ordinary Time
July 26, 2025

Today’s Readings:

Exodus 24:3-8
Psalm 50:1-2, 5-6, 14-15
Matthew 13:24-30
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072625.cfm
Podcast:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/daily-mass-reading-podcast-july-26-2025

What to do about the weeds growing in our Church

I have the incredibly important responsibility of teaching the truth. To do this, I’ve studied Church documents and the Catechism — the orthodoxy provided to us by the traditional Church Magisterium. I want to make sure I understand the truth as accurately as possible.

And I have the responsibility of standing firm, unwilling to compromise the truth. For this reason, Good News Ministries has been rejected, including by some significant donors. And I personally have been rejected by friends and family. It’s the nature of this time that we’re living through.

We all have this responsibility. And when we’re rejected, our consolation is that we’re living through a very interesting time, a period of purification in the Church and in the world. God is exposing evil in his holy light. It’s difficult to watch, but it’s good! The followers of Christ who have been sitting on the proverbial fence, with one foot in the Church and one foot in the world, are finding the fence to be more and more painful. They’re getting an important opportunity to see what they’ve been ignoring and to repent and wholeheartedly jump fully into God’s kingdom.

In Matthew 13:24-30, Jesus talks about the weeds sown by the enemy. His picture of a field of wheat infected with weeds is what our Church has been looking like for a long time. The weeds are the people who’ve been choosing moral relativism instead of the commandments of God. They’ve chosen “political correctness” instead of the counter-cultural ways of Christ. They’ve been protecting their image instead of humbly laying down their lives for sake of protecting the sheep of Christ. They’ve closed their minds to the uncomfortable truths that challenge the worldview they’ve adopted.

Notice how Jesus handles the problem. In loving compassion, he holds off the uprooting of the weeds, lest good people get pulled away with them. But this can’t last forever because the weeds are spreading.

Jesus is teaching us an important lesson in this parable. How are you and I handling the weeds? Do we care enough to speak the truth in the hope that weedy bishops, priests and laity will listen and repent? Do we lovingly pray for public figures who claim to be Catholic yet promote abortion or encourage other immoral activities? Do we care about the eternal souls of “Christians” who are in mortal sin — enough to speak up before it’s too late?

Jesus warned that the time of merciful waiting for repentance will come to an end: “At harvest time I will say to the harvesters, ‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.'”

What weedy people do you know personally? Pray that God will not let them die before they are ready and willing to spend eternity with Jesus. I’ve found this prayer to be very effective. This is God’s desire for them, and your prayer will unite with God’s power as he holds off their weed-pulling time.

For more, read my WordByte entitled, “A frank analysis of what’s running amuck in our world” @ wordbytes.org/faqs/moral-relativism.

© 2025 by Terry A. Modica

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