MARY, OUR MOTHER

SCRIPTURE COMMENTARY #250

The Parable of the Seed and the Cockle.

Another parable he proposed to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seed in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and oversowed cockle among the wheat and went his way. And when the blade was sprung up, and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. And the servants of the good man of the house coming said to him. 'Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? Whence then hath it cockle?' And he said to them: 'An enemy hath done this.' And the servants said to him: 'Wilt thou that we go and gather it up?' And he said: 'No, lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it. Suffer both to grow until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye into my barn.' " (Matt. 13:24-30)

EVIL IN THE CHURCH OF GOD: In order that the apostles and other preachers of the Gospel might not lose heart, when, in spite of all their efforts, men would not be converted, our Lord teaches in this parable that it must needs be that evil shall grow up in the Church alongside of the good, and that the complete separation of the evil from the good will only take place at the end of the world.

[From 'A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture' by Bishop Knecht, D.D.]
(1899 Douay-Rheims Bible)