Another parable he put before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away."We have seen that in the field of the Lord there are always the weeds as well. We have seen that in the net of Peter there are also the bad fish."
So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the householder came and said to him, `Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then has it weeds?'
He said to them, `An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, `Then do you want us to go and gather them?'
But he said, `No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"
-- Matthew 13:24-30
Pope Benedict XVI offered these comments about the post Vatican II period in the life of the Church on October 11 as he recalled his own participation in that council:
We were happy -- I would say -- and full of enthusiasm. The great ecumenical council was inaugurated, we were sure it would be a new springtime of the Church, a new Pentecost, with a strong presence of the new liberating grace of the Gospel.The "weeds" and the "bad fish" to which Pope Benedict refers can only be the dissenters within the Church who have chosen to use Vatican II as an excuse to implement "reforms" that go against Church teaching.
Today as well we are happy, we carry joy in our hearts, but I would say it is perhaps a more sober joy, a humble joy. In these fifty years, we have learned and understood that original sin exists and is translated ever anew into personal sins that can even become structures of sin. We have seen that in the field of the Lord there are always the weeds as well. We have seen that in the net of Peter there are also the bad fish. We have seen that human frailty is also present in the Church, that the ship of the Church is sailing with the wind against it, with storms that threaten the ship. And at times we have thought: where is the Lord? He has forgotten us! This is a part of the experiences undergone over these fifty years.
Earlier on that same day in his homily Pope Benedict said, "In the years following, however, many embraced uncritically the dominant mentality, placing in doubt the very foundations of the deposit of faith, which they sadly no longer felt able to accept as truths."
I can only assume that the Pope is again referring to the "bad fish" and here he points out in an even more direct way that they have chosen to reject the truths of the Church and have substituted for them their own ideas which they have borrowed from the modern atheistic world.
In this same homily the Pope speaks of this God-less world as a desert, making the comparison with the desert that the ancient Israelites had to cross in order to reach the Promised Land.
Thank you Holy Father for letting us know that you have not forgotten us and that you hear the prayers of the faithful.In this same homily the Pope speaks of this God-less world as a desert, making the comparison with the desert that the ancient Israelites had to cross in order to reach the Promised Land.
Recent decades have seen the advance of a spiritual “desertification”. In the Council’s time it was already possible from a few tragic pages of history to know what a life or a world without God looked like, but now we see it every day around us. This void has spread. But it is in starting from the experience of this desert, from this void, that we can again discover the joy of believing, its vital importance for us, men and women. In the desert we rediscover the value of what is essential for living; thus in today’s world there are innumerable signs, often expressed implicitly or negatively, of the thirst for God, for the ultimate meaning of life. And in the desert people of faith are needed who, with their own lives, point out the way to the Promised Land and keep hope alive. Living faith opens the heart to the grace of God which frees us from pessimism. Today, more than ever, evangelizing means witnessing to the new life, transformed by God, and thus showing the path.
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"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net which was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind; when it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into vessels but threw away the bad.
So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth."
-- Matthew 13:47-50
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