by Rev. Herbert Nichols

Those beautiful blue blossoms indicate the cornflower is strangling off the wheat, much like the weeds in today's gospel. Doesn't it seem ironic that those weeds should be so beautiful? In fact the Dutch people often refer to it as God's mistake.

But God doesn't make mistakes. Everything that He created, God saw was very good and He allowed it to be. That is why Jesus says to the disciples: Do not destroy the wheat now. The weeds or the cornflower represent the people who obstruct the word of God They make no effort at least to try to live good or be service to others. From all appearances they may be prosperous, comfortable and lead attractive life styles like the cornflower.

That is why there is a very real difference between the weeds and the wicked. The weeds cannot change. They have no will to change. They will always be weeds. The cornflower however beautiful for a time will perish for it has no lasting use. But the soul of the wicked can be changed because everyone has a potential for good. That is the way God made us; and that is why we pray that humans weeds may be made into human wheat..

The central mystery of our faith is that God so loved humanity that he sent his son to take our human nature, our flesh and blood and in the mystery of the Eucharist, bread becomes His Body, his flesh for us to eat.

When Jesus first preached this sermon many deserted Him; throughout the centuries many have ridiculed this central mystery of our faith as magic and superstition.

Attacks against the Real Presence led the Church in the Middle Ages to react by drawing large dark drapes behind the host, so it would stand out in contrast; enveloping it with large clouds of incense and the ringing of huge and loud bells both outside and inside the Church.

Although the appearances of bread and wine remain, the reality beneath those appearances is completely changed. As the bread and wine change; so too people change.

We all know people whom at one time we probably considered to be very good; only to have a wickedness exposed later on. Jesus is telling us that it is also possible for those who might be considered wicked to have within them the potential to choose grace and have their goodness revealed.