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There is a story of a father whose son ran away after stealing the family's money. The neighbors urged the father to use his power to hunt the boy down and put him in jail, but instead, for five long years, the father paid for a weekly newspaper message that read: "No matter what you have done, I love you. The door is open. Come home." We look at our world today and ask why God similarly allows bad things and suffering to continue instead of stopping them right away. In our daily lives, good and bad choices seem completely tangled together in our families, schools, workplaces, and even in our own hearts, leaving us frustrated and wondering if justice will ever be served. However, today’s readings show us a different view: God is all-powerful, but He uses His power to be patient, holding back His judgment to give every one of us that same chance to repent and change.
This beautiful patience is exactly how God shows His love, as the Book of Wisdom (Wisdom 12:13, 16-19) tells us that He judges people "little by little" precisely so they have time to turn away from sin. Jesus explains this same divine strategy in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 13:24-43) with the story of the weeds and the wheat, where the master tells his servants to let both grow together until the harvest so the good wheat isn't ruined by pulling the weeds too early. Just like the father in our opening story, God restrains His hand because He values the recovery of the good wheat too much to risk it, showing us that His mercy and power work hand in hand. Yet, we must remember that this patient waiting is not indifference; the scriptures promise that a final day of separation is definitely coming at the end of time when the harvest arrives and everyone will be held fully accountable.
Because we live in this temporary, mixed reality where God is patiently waiting for hearts to change, our response in the present must be one of personal transformation rather than judging others. When we feel too weak or tired to navigate the complexities of this broken world, Saint Paul promises us in Romans (Romans 8:26-27) that the Holy Spirit steps in to sustain us, praying for us when we don't even have the words. Therefore, instead of wasting this precious time of mercy trying to violently root out the "weeds" around us, we can trust the Psalmist’s words in Psalm 86 (Psalm 85/86:5-6) that "You alone are God" and let the Holy Spirit work on our own conversion. The ultimate message for us today is to go back to our daily lives without fear or anger, allowing God's patience to change us from the inside out, and living with the happy peace that a loving God will make everything right in the end.
