Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Exodus 33:7-11.34:5b-9.28; Matthew
13:36-43)
Years ago a movie entitled “The Bad Seed” showed an eight
year-old girl twice committing murder. It
turned out that the child was the natural daughter of a serial killer. The movie along with today’s gospel, which
could be given the same title, begs the questions: Is the doing of evil predetermined
by factors such as nature or, to take the contrary position, environment? Or does each human person have a free will to
choose right from wrong?
In the gospel Jesus uses a parable to illustrate why God
allows evil to exist in the world. He is
not giving a philosophical discourse on its origins. As the world knows, good and bad populate the
earth simultaneously. Jesus is saying
that God allows the coexistence in order that the good may not be harmed in an
attempt to eradicate evil. But, he assures,
in the end the good will remain and the wicked will be consumed.
