Every year in the late spring my morning glories start to sprout up. Last year for some reason they just didn't seem to come up. Then one day while I was outside, I noticed my husband weeding. I asked him to stop pulling out my morning glories to which he replies, “those aren’t flowers they are weeds.” I then asked him to wait a week before he weeded again, and he would see that they were my flowers. Sure enough, a week later the shape of the flowers started to form, and he knew they were my morning glories. Let’s just say maybe, in my most loving way, I said I told you so!

There is much to learn from the parable of the wheat and the weeds. While Jesus explains this on a global scale to the disciples, we can also make this more personal. At the end of time Jesus is the ultimate gardener and he will decide who the good seeds and bad seeds are. God alone will be the judge of good and evil. Our goal is to be good productive seeds. How do we do this? We become the gardeners of our own field, our soul. It is up to each of us to feed and nourish our soul. While we can run out and buy Miracle Grow for our gardens it cannot be used on our soul. Our miracle grow comes from the greatest miracle worker, Jesus. Jesus gives us himself, in the Eucharist, to nourish and strengthen us. We have the gospel, and beatitudes to help us grow in faith. We have prayer, both formal and personal, to draw us closer to him. We have each other. Just as Jesus is our miracle grow, we are miracle grow to others. Our words and actions can help nourish other souls. It is when we forget to fertilize that the weeds develop. Those weeds can come in many forms, such as a lack of empathy towards others, or cause impatience. The weeds can cause us to be judgmental. It is during these times that we really need miracle grow in the form of prayer to nourish our souls. 

Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, who was given the title “Doctor of Prayer” by the catholic church. During his long life, Alphonsus authored more than 100 books, including his most beloved: Visits to the Blessed Sacrament, The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, and The Glories of Mary. His book, Prayer, the Great Means of Salvation, sets out his teaching on the subject. On winter evenings in his time, the people in the villages would gathered around a fire in someone’s home. They would read stories about the Gospels or the saints, things that nourished their faith and helped them to pray. Alphonsus’ works were frequent choices. You could say prayer was St. Alphonsus’ miracle grow and he used it to nourish the souls of all he met. 

 Let us nourish and strengthen each other because sometimes what we perceive as a weed is really a beautiful soul in the making.  Just like my husband mistook a beautiful flower for a weed, I can easily mistake a beautiful soul for a bad seed. That is why I will leave the weeding to Jesus, because I don’t want to have Jesus say, in his most loving way, I told you so!