Tuesday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 28, 2020

Matthew 13:36-43

Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the Kingdom. The weeds are the children of the Evil One, and the enemy who sows them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his Kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

This reading from the Gospel of Matthew occurred on a recent Sunday.  Its recurrence in the daily Mass cycle provides us with an opportunity to look more closely at the last few verses, which speak of the future of the soul.

To begin with, Jesus speaks of “the end of the age” as a “harvest”.  The harvest is a very active time on a farm when the mature crop is brought into the barns as quickly as possible before it over-ripens or before it rains, making the field a muddy mess that is harder to work in.  For the modern farmer, a big rain just before or in the middle of the harvest means he cannot use his machinery because of the condition of the soil.  The end of the age, then, will involve great urgency and speed.  The world has ended.  No deeds remain to be done.  The destiny of each person has been decided.  At this point, too, we are speaking of resurrected bodies, which move with incredible swiftness.  The angels will reintegrate the bodies of the deceased so that they may live again, and the souls of those bodies rejoin them so that soul and body may together share in the joys of the blessed or the torments of the damned.

The wicked will be placed away from the just at the last judgment so that each group may hear its sentence with the members together.  The just will rejoice at seeing the great saints in their company, saints to whom they prayed during their lives and whose virtues they imitated.  On the other hand, the wicked will look upon the faces of their fellows with alarm and growing horror.  They will recognize the most evil men in history who thought nothing of the slaughter and massacre of innocent humans.  The instant the judgment on each group is pronounced, the just are brought into heaven, where “they will shine like the sun”,  and the wicked will be thrown by the angels into “the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”  Here is how St. John the Apostle saw the final judgment in a vision he himself recorded: “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing in the presence of the throne. And the books were opened: and another book was opened, which was the book of life. And the dead were judged by those things which were written in the books, according to their works” (Revelation 20, 12).

The just will enter “the Kingdom of their Father”.  These are very sweet words.  We can think of how the father of the prodigal son watched for the coming of his son day after day, night after night, and when he finally saw him afar off, ran out to meet him, tears of relief and joy streaming from his eyes.  We can think of how tightly the father held him, and then led him home to a great feast.  Our Father watches for us, waits for us, and will finally embrace us on our entrance into heaven.  We might think of the words of the Song of Songs: “For, behold, the winter is now past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land, the time of pruning is come: the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land: The fig tree has put forth her green figs: the vines in flower yield their sweet smell. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come” (Song of Songs 2, 11-13).

Terrible and unrelenting punishment awaits those “who cause others to sin and all evildoers”.  These shall “suffer eternal punishment in destruction, from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his power” (2 Thessalonians 1, 9).  That is, their punishment shall be both external and internal.  External in “destruction”.  Jesus gives us a hint of this in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man.  In hell, the rich man cried out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my tongue: for I am tormented in this flame” (Luke 16, 24).  The internal punishment is indicated by the words “wailing and grinding of teeth”.  This punishment is the awareness by the damned that they are away “from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his power”.  They will suffer from the knowledge that they are permanently cut off from the face of God by their own choice, by their own works.  The words of the afflicted Job allow us some insight into their hearts: “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said: A man child is conceived. Let that day be turned into darkness, let not God regard it from above, and let not the light shine upon it. Let darkness, and the shadow of death, cover it, let a mist overspread it, and let it be wrapped up in bitterness” (Job 3, 3-5).

“Whoever has ears ought to hear.”  This is an idiom that means the same as, “a word to the wise”.  Let us pray for wisdom so that every day we might know how to firm up our place with the just by an unshakable faith and a bounty of good works.