A reflection for Sunday, 8 November: Dominica V quæ superfuit post Epiphaniam, II classis
The vestments are green, and the Introit speaks of peace to a people in exile: Dicit Dominus: Ego cogito cogitationes pacis, et non afflictionis: invocabitis me, et ego exaudiam vos: et reducam captivitatem vestram de cunctis locis. “The Lord saith: I think thoughts of peace, and not of affliction: you shall call upon me, and I will hear you: and I will bring back your captivity from all places” (Jer. 29:11, 12, 14). Its verse is from the eighty-fourth Psalm: Benedixisti, Domine, terram tuam: avertisti captivitatem Iacob, “Lord, thou hast blessed thy land: thou hast turned away the captivity of Jacob.”
Those words are familiar. They were sung last Sunday under the commemoration, and they will be sung again before Advent. This is one of the quiet curiosities of the traditional calendar. When Easter comes early, as it did this year, the season after Epiphany is cut short by Septuagesima, and some of its Sundays are never kept. They are not lost. The Church holds them in reserve and brings them back at the end of the year, between the Twenty-Third and the last Sunday after Pentecost. This year two of them return: today, the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, and next Sunday, the Sixth. Their prayers and readings are their own, but the chants stay those of the Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost, so that the Mass keeps the voice of the closing year while it speaks with the words of Epiphany.
The meeting suits today’s Gospel well. In January the parable of the wheat and the cockle would have sounded like a word about growth. In November, with the fields bare, the dead remembered all week, and the Last Judgment waiting in the Gospel of the final Sunday, it sounds like a word about the harvest. The Church has kept it for the season when we are most ready to hear it.
I. Induite vos: the Epistle
“Brethren: Put ye on therefore, as the elect of God, holy, and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience: bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another: even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so do you also. But above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection: and let the peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts, wherein also you are called in one body: and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly, in all wisdom: teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your hearts to God. All whatsoever you do in word or in work, all things do ye in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Col. 3:12-17)
Put ye on. Induite vos ergo, sicut electi Dei. St. Paul has just told the Colossians to put off the old man with his deeds (Col. 3:9). Now he tells them what to put on. St. John Chrysostom dwells on the image of clothing. A garment is not something we take up for a moment and lay down again. It goes with us everywhere and is seen by everyone. So the virtues are not to be practised now and then, but worn, so that they become the visible form of our life (Hom. in Col. 8). The image recalls Baptism, in which we “have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). The Christian virtues are not ornaments sewn onto a natural life. They are Christ Himself, worn by His members.
As the elect of God, holy, and beloved. The order matters. St. Paul does not say, “Put on mercy, so that you may become chosen and beloved.” He says, “Put on mercy, because you are chosen and beloved.” Chrysostom notes that the Apostle reminds them of the honour they have received before he asks anything of them, so that they will act from gratitude and not from fear (Hom. in Col. 8). Grace comes first, and the moral life is the response to it.
The bowels of mercy. Viscera misericordiæ. St. Paul could have said simply “mercy.” Instead he names the inward parts, the place where the ancients felt pity most deeply. Chrysostom observes that the Apostle asks for more than an act of kindness. He asks for the kind of feeling a father has for his children, a compassion that comes from the depths and not from duty alone (Hom. in Col. 8). The list that follows grows out of that root: benignity, humility, modesty, patience.
Bearing with one another. Supportantes invicem, et donantes vobismetipsis. The Apostle is realistic. He takes for granted that there will be complaints, querela, among the elect. A parish is not a community of the already perfect. The measure of forgiveness he gives is not our own sense of what is fair: sicut et Dominus donavit vobis, ita et vos. We forgive as we have been forgiven, which means without limit and without keeping accounts. This sentence is the Epistle’s bridge to the Gospel. The Church on earth must bear with the faults of her members, because her Lord bears with them first.
The bond of perfection. Super omnia autem hæc caritatem habete, quod est vinculum perfectionis. Chrysostom compares charity to the band that holds a bundle together. Take it away, and every other virtue falls apart and comes to nothing, however fine each one may look on its own (Hom. in Col. 8). St. Thomas Aquinas cites this verse when he teaches that the perfection of the Christian life consists chiefly in charity, because charity unites the soul to God, our last end (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 184). He also teaches that charity is the form of all the virtues, because it directs their acts to God (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 23). Mercy without charity becomes mere softness. Patience without charity becomes mere endurance. Charity makes them all one garment.
The peace of Christ. Et pax Christi exsultet in cordibus vestris. The Latin verb is strong: let it exult, let it leap for joy, in your hearts. The Introit has just promised “thoughts of peace, and not of affliction.” St. Paul tells us where that peace is to be found. It does not rest on everyone around us being good. It rests on Christ, who has called us in uno corpore, into one body.
Psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles. In his next homily on this Epistle, Chrysostom turns to his own congregation at Constantinople. He tells them that this command is not only for monks. Fathers and mothers, workers and householders, should have the word of God in their homes and on their lips. He urges them to obtain the Scriptures and to teach their children the psalms, so that singing God’s praise takes the place of the idle songs of the street (Hom. in Col. 9). St. Paul’s words show that the prayer of the Church, the Psalter sung in grace, was never meant to stay in the sanctuary. It is meant to dwell in us abundanter, richly, and to shape the whole house.
In the name of the Lord. Omne quodcumque facitis in verbo aut in opere, omnia in nomine Domini Iesu Christi. The Epistle ends by gathering every word and every work into one intention. Chrysostom says that if we do all things in His name, then all will go well, and whatever we do will be holy, as if Christ were present and working with us (Hom. in Col. 9). And it ends, twice over, in thanksgiving: grati estote, be thankful; gratias agentes Deo et Patri per ipsum, giving thanks to the Father through Him. The Christian life, as St. Paul sees it, begins in grace and ends in Eucharist.
II. Inimicus homo hoc fecit: the Gospel
“At that time: Jesus spoke this parable to the multitudes, 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 goodman 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)
Good seed in his field. A few verses later Our Lord explains the parable Himself. The sower is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom, the cockle are the children of the wicked one, the enemy is the devil, the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels (Matt. 13:37-39). The first thing the parable tells us is that what God sowed was good. Evil is not part of His planting. The servants ask the question every honest soul has asked: Domine, nonne bonum semen seminasti in agro tuo? Unde ergo habet zizania? “Sir, didst thou not sow good seed? Whence then hath it cockle?” The answer is short: Inimicus homo hoc fecit. “An enemy hath done this.” God is not the author of sin. Evil is a work of malice set against His work, and it comes afterward.
While men were asleep. Chrysostom notices that the devil does his sowing after the good seed has been sown. He does not attack an empty field. He waits for something good to spoil. St. Jerome and Chrysostom both read the sleeping men as those charged with keeping the field, the rulers and pastors of the Church, and also every soul that grows careless. Sleep here is not the rest God gives. It is negligence. While the watchmen slept, the enemy came, sowed, and went his way. Chrysostom stresses this last detail: the devil hides his work and slips away, so that the damage is not seen until it has taken root (Chrysostom, Hom. in Matt. 46; Jerome, Commentarius in Matthaeum II, on 13:24-30).
Then appeared also the cockle. The word in the Latin is zizania. It names not a weed of any kind but a particular one, the darnel, which grows in the wheatfields of the East and looks almost exactly like wheat while it is young. Only when the ears form can the farmer tell them apart. St. Jerome remarks that between wheat and cockle there is very little difference while the blade alone is showing. The Fathers saw in this the special danger of the enemy’s work. Chrysostom says that the devil’s way is to mingle error with truth and to dress it in the colours of truth, so that it may deceive the simple (Hom. in Matt. 46). The cockle does not look like an enemy. It looks like wheat.
Wilt thou that we go and gather it up? The servants are zealous, and their zeal is not condemned. They hate the cockle because they love the field. But their master restrains them. Chrysostom gives two reasons drawn from the text. The first is the one the master names: in pulling up the cockle they would tear up the wheat with it, for the roots are tangled together. The second, Chrysostom says, is that what is now cockle may yet become wheat. Many who were once enemies of the truth have later repented and become its defenders (Hom. in Matt. 46). St. Augustine makes the same point in a sermon on this Gospel: those who are cockle today may be wheat tomorrow, and those who are wheat must be careful not to become cockle (Sermo 73). In a real field this never happens. In the field of souls, by grace, it happens every day. Saul became Paul.
Suffer both to grow. Sinite utraque crescere usque ad messem. This is not indifference. The master knows exactly which is which. He does not say that the cockle is wheat, or that the difference does not matter. He says that the separation belongs to Him, to His time, and to His reapers. Chrysostom draws a careful conclusion. The Lord, he says, does not forbid the Church to check those who spread error, to silence them and to break up their assemblies; what He forbids is putting them to death (Hom. in Matt. 46). The Church must teach, warn, correct and, where necessary, exclude. She may not pretend to be the final harvest. Later theologians, including St. Thomas, read the parable more narrowly and allowed the civil power a greater part, and the history that followed is not always easy to read. But the Gospel’s own command is clear: final judgment belongs to the Lord of the harvest.
Gather the wheat into my barn. The parable does not end in a stalemate. It ends in a harvest. The cockle is bound and burned; the wheat is gathered into the barn. Our Lord’s explanation leaves no doubt about the seriousness of this: the angels will gather out of His kingdom all scandals and them that work iniquity, and cast them into the furnace of fire, while “the just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:41-43). The patience of God is real, but it has an end. The present mixture is not permanent. It is the time of mercy before the time of judgment.
III. A field with cockle: the Church in this world
The Fathers used this parable most of all to describe the Church herself. In the middle of the third century St. Cyprian wrote to confessors who had been drawn into the schism at Rome. He admitted that there seemed to be cockle in the Church. But that, he said, was no reason for anyone’s faith or charity to fail, or for anyone to leave the Church because he saw cockle in it. Our task is to labour to be wheat. To root out the cockle belongs to the Lord alone, to whom the Father has given all judgment (Cyprian, Ep. 54).
A century and a half later St. Augustine faced the Donatists of North Africa, who taught that the Church must consist only of the pure, and that the sins of unworthy bishops had made the Catholic Church a church of traitors. Augustine answered again and again from this parable. The field is the world, and the Church in the world is a mixed body. Good and bad grow together in her until the harvest. Those who leave her to found a church of the pure do not escape the cockle. They only leave the wheat (see Augustine, Breviculus collationis cum Donatistis III; Sermo 73). His answer did not excuse sin in the Church. He preached against it constantly. But he refused to let the presence of sinners become a reason to abandon the unity of the Body.
That teaching speaks to every age, and to ours not least. Catholics who love the traditional faith often see clearly the cockle that has grown up in the field: errors taught as truth, holy things treated carelessly, watchmen who slept. The servants in the parable saw clearly too, and they were right to be grieved. But the parable gives the zealous a double instruction. It tells them not to call the cockle wheat. And it tells them not to tear up the field. Cyprian’s counsel remains the safest one: labour to be wheat, stay in the field, and leave the harvest to the Lord.
IV. The Mass as a whole: sown in peace, gathered home
St. Thomas teaches that all things go forth from God and return to Him. Today’s Mass shows both movements in the image of a field.
The going forth. The Gospel begins with a sowing. The Son of Man goes out and scatters good seed in His field, which is the world. The Epistle shows what that seed becomes when it takes root in a human soul: mercy from the depths, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and over all of them the bond of charity. The Epistle and the Gospel are describing the same wheat. St. Paul tells us what it looks like from within; Our Lord tells us how it grows among enemies. The Gradual sings of the same struggle: Liberasti nos, Domine, ex affligentibus nos: et eos, qui nos oderunt, confudisti. “Thou hast delivered us, O Lord, from them that afflict us: and hast put them to shame that hate us” (Ps. 43:8). The wheat grows, but it does not grow unopposed.
The hinge is patience. In the Epistle we are told to bear with one another and forgive as the Lord forgave us. In the Gospel we see the Lord Himself bearing with the cockle for the sake of the wheat, and leaving room for the cockle to change. The patience St. Paul asks of us is a share in the patience of God. We are asked to be, toward our neighbour, what the master of the field is toward all of us. None of us is wheat by nature. All of us were once in need of the mercy that waited for us to change.
The return. The Introit promises a homecoming: reducam captivitatem vestram de cunctis locis, “I will bring back your captivity from all places.” The Gospel ends in the same movement: triticum autem congregate in horreum meum, “the wheat gather ye into my barn.” The scattered seed is gathered; the exiles are brought home. The Alleluia and the Offertory give the voice of those still waiting: De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine: Domine, exaudi orationem meam. “Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my prayer” (Ps. 129:1-2). In this week of the Holy Souls, the Church cannot sing that psalm without thinking of the faithful departed, the wheat already cut but not yet brought into the barn. The Communion antiphon then promises that the prayer will be heard: Amen dico vobis, quidquid orantes petitis, credite quia accipietis, et fiet vobis. “Amen I say to you, whatsoever you ask when you pray, believe that you shall receive, and it shall be done unto you” (Mark 11:24). It is sung as we receive the Bread made from the true Wheat, the grain that fell into the ground and died so that it might bring forth much fruit (John 12:24).
V. The Collects
Familiam tuam, quæsumus, Domine, continua pietate custodi: ut quæ in sola spe gratiæ cælestis innititur, tua semper protectione muniatur.
“Keep, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy family in Thy continual goodness: that, leaning solely on the hope of heavenly grace, it may ever be defended by Thy protection.”
The Church calls herself familia tua, Thy household. The word fits the Gospel exactly. The master of the parable is a paterfamilias, the goodman of the house, and his servants belong to his household. The Collect asks that the household be guarded continua pietate, by a goodness that never sleeps, the very thing the servants of the parable lacked when the enemy came. And it admits where the household’s strength lies: in sola spe gratiæ cælestis, in the hope of heavenly grace alone. The wheat does not defend itself against the cockle. It is kept by the Lord of the field.
Hostias tibi, Domine, placationis offerimus: ut et delicta nostra miseratus absolvas, et nutantia corda tu dirigas.
“We offer Thee, O Lord, sacrifices of propitiation: that Thou mayest in mercy absolve our sins, and Thyself direct our wavering hearts.”
The Secret is honest about the field within each of us. Our hearts are nutantia, wavering, swaying like stalks in the wind. Wheat and cockle grow side by side not only in the Church but in the soul. The remedy is the Sacrifice itself: the propitiation of Christ absolves what is sinful in us and steadies what is weak.
Quæsumus, omnipotens Deus: ut illius salutaris capiamus effectum, cuius per hæc mysteria pignus accepimus.
“We beseech Thee, almighty God, that we may obtain the effect of that salvation, whose pledge we have received through these mysteries.”
The Postcommunion looks to the harvest. In Holy Communion we have received a pignus, a pledge, a first instalment of what is promised. The full effectus is still to come, when the wheat is gathered into the barn.
VI. A word for practice
Examine. Whom do I find it hardest to bear with? Is there a complaint, a querela, I have been keeping alive instead of forgiving as the Lord forgave me? Have I been asleep in the field of my own soul, letting small faults take root unnoticed? When I see the cockle in the Church, does it make me pray and labour to be better wheat, or does it make me bitter, contemptuous, or tempted to walk away?
Do. Put on one of the virtues of the Epistle deliberately this week, as one puts on a garment in the morning. Choose a person who tries your patience and do one kind thing for them without mentioning it. If you have an old grievance, let it go, and if possible say so to the person. Bring the Psalter into your home: learn one psalm by heart, perhaps the De profundis, and pray it with your family.
Pray. Today is the last day of the week in which the Church grants a plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls in Purgatory, to the faithful who devoutly visit a cemetery and pray for the dead, under the usual conditions. If you can, go today. Pray the De profundis at the graves, for the wheat already cut and waiting to be gathered in.
Aspiration. Omnia in nomine Domini Iesu Christi. “All things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Devote. November is the month of the Holy Souls. Offer the Rosary this week for the faithful departed, especially for any soul who was once cockle and became wheat, and for any who died in that struggle. Make tomorrow’s feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, the mother church of Rome and the world, an occasion to pray for the unity of the Church: for her pastors, that they may watch, and for all her children, that they may stay in the field.
If you wish to go deeper: the Sacred Liturgy path explains the resumed Sundays after Epiphany and why their chants are borrowed from the Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost. The Theology and Doctrine path takes up charity as the form of the virtues and the bond of perfection in St. Thomas, and the Church as a mixed body in St. Augustine. The Church History path follows the Donatist controversy and St. Cyprian’s letters on unity, and treats honestly the later history of the parable in questions of heresy and coercion. The Spiritual Practices path continues with the De profundis and the November devotions for the faithful departed.
Sources. Scripture is cited from the Douay-Rheims with the Vulgate. The Fathers and Doctors are given in paraphrase with their loci: St. Cyprian, Epistula 54; St. John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Matthaeum 46 and Homiliae in Epistulam ad Colossenses 8–9; St. Jerome, Commentarius in Matthaeum II; St. Augustine, Sermo 73 and Breviculus collationis cum Donatistis III; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, qq. 23 and 184. Liturgical texts follow the 1962 Missale Romanum.
Familiam tuam, Domine, continua pietate custodi.