Homily for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

July 19, 2026

Author James Allen, in As a Man Thinketh, writes, “A man’s mind [woman’s, too] may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their own kind.”

We find the same idea in today’s gospel story about wheat and weeds. The farmer has planed good seed, but then, weeds start to appear. When questioned about it, he notes, “An enemy has done this.” So, you have wheat and weeds, good and evil, growing in that field.

And so it is with seeds that get planted in our mind, ideas that have a powerful impact on our identity. For example, if a person, especially an impressionable young child, is told: You are wonderful, I’m proud of you, keep up the good work—that’s a lot of good wheat going in. But if a person is told: you’re no good, you’re always making mistakes, you’ll never amount to anything, I’m ashamed of you—that’s a whole lot of weeds!

In his story, Jesus identifies the Sower of the weeds as the devil, or evil one. We find that there always seem to be forces for good and forces for evil that can affect us individually, as families, as communities, and as whole societies. And it seems that with modern technology, the forces can be multiplied. For example, if you share yourself on Facebook, and you have a hundred “friends,” that’s a lot of people to please, and a lot of opinions, good or bad, true or false, that can influence how we think, what we believe, what we consider to be true, and how we feel about ourselves. In social media, just as in the rest of the world, there are wholesome producers of wheat, and not so wholesome planters of evil weeds.

Let’s take an example of how we can be influenced at a societal level. We have in our society people who tend to blame all the problems in our society on certain immigrants, usually from the south of our country. All the thefts, fights, shootings, and even murders, are blamed on a whole people as a group. Like many of you, I started working on the tobacco farm at the age of fourteen. At that time, there were many workers from Puerto Rico. Since I was studying Spanish, I became friendly with some of them. I found that many were sending most of the money they earned to support their families back in their native land. They worked hard for their money; they earned what they got. As a group, they were pretty much like the group to which I belonged, trying to survive, making life better for their families. Were they perfect? No…but neither am I! Neither are any of us! We all have wheat and weeds growing within us. Thank God, Jesus is patient, understanding and forgiving. I’m trying to grow like him. I’m trying to fertilize the wheat and work on the weeds. And, ultimately, I try to leave the judgment about others to Jesus. He’s the Lord of the harvest. He knows what’s in each human heart.