In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus calls on his followers to be good seed, as children of the Kingdom. The weeds are the children of the Evil One, who will be cut down at the end of the world.

Francis was a son of the Word, of the good Seed, committed to living according to God’s will and bearing fruit.

Born and raised within a humble religious order, the Little One of God often instructed his friars not to be servants of the tares sown in the world by the Evil One, nor to follow his perverse and anti-Gospel ways.

He urged them to live out the Word sown by Christ.

Indeed, we find in his writings:

“All those men and women who […] follow evil desires […] and do not keep the promises they have made to the Lord, but serve […] the cares of the world and the concerns of this life: these are captives of the devil, of whom they are children and whose works they do; they are blind, for they do not see the true light, our Lord Jesus Christ. They lack spiritual wisdom, for they do not possess the Son of God, who is the true wisdom of the Father” (FF 178/4).

Furthermore, as he explained to the Supreme Pontiff, whom he visited to seek approval of the Rule, the children of God have nothing to fear:

«There is no need to fear that the children and heirs of the Eternal King will die of hunger; for they, in the likeness of Christ, were born of a poor mother by the power of the Holy Spirit and were brought forth, by the spirit of poverty, into a poor religious order.

For if the King of Heaven promises his followers the Eternal Kingdom, how much more will he provide for them those things which he bestows without distinction upon the good and the wicked» (FF 1064).

«The good field is the world; the good seed—these are the children of the Kingdom. The weeds, however, are the children of the evil one» (Mt 13:38).

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year A  (Mt 13:24–43)