Gather first the weeds: the wheat and tares, and Mary in the Lord’s patience.

**Quote:**> “The enemy who sowed it is the devil. The harvest, however, is the end of the age; the reapers are the angels. Just as weeds and wheat are gathered together and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age.” (Matthew 13:39-40)**Explanation:**In Matthew 13:36-43, Jesus explains to his disciples, privately, the parable of the wheat and the tares (or weeds). The original parable depicted a farmer who, upon finding tares (likely *Lolium temulentum*, a weed resembling wheat in its early growth stage) sown among the wheat by an enemy, decides to wait until the harvest before separating them. The allegorical explanation identifies each element: the sower of the wheat is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the wheat are the children of the Kingdom, the tares are the children of the Evil One, the enemy is Satan, the harvest is the consummation of the age, and the reapers are the angels.The decision to wait, not to pull out the tares immediately to avoid damaging the wheat, holds a key theological message: God’s patience, waiting for complete maturation before judgment. This patience is not indifference to evil but recognition that spiritual growth takes time, and premature separation might destroy what is still immature. The theology of divine patience in Matthew 13:36-43 answers the perennial question: “Why does God allow evil?” The response is pastoral: because He hopes the tares will become wheat, the sinner will convert, and the prodigal son will return.**I. «The enemy who sowed it is the devil»: Satan and the tares in the field**“The enemy who sowed it is the devil” (Matthew 13:39) directly identifies the sower of the tares as Satan. This affirmation is a clear statement from the Gospel tradition about Satan’s activity in the world. Satan does not create the field (the field belongs to God), nor does he create humans (the wheat is the seed of the Son of Man), but he acts upon what already exists, sowing confusion, error, and division among the good. The image of tares resembling wheat illustrates evil masquerading as good, falsehood imitating truth, vice mimicking virtue.Satan’s mode of action, revealed in this parable, is clandestine, happening “at night” (Matthew 13:25: “while men were sleeping”). This reveals the danger of spiritual complacency for Christians; tares are sown when the believer “sleeps,” when he neglects prayer, discernment, and sacramental life.In the patristic tradition, Mary is considered the chief adversary of Satan, the woman of Genesis 3:15 whose offspring will crush the serpent’s head. In this context, the image of tares sown by the enemy contrasts with Mary who “sowed” God’s own Son in the world. Where Satan sows death disguised as life (tares that seem like wheat), Mary brought Life that seemed insignificant (a child in Bethlehem). The contrast between Eve and Mary, developed in patristic tradition (Eve disobeying, Mary obeying), has here an agricultural dimension: Eve welcomed the tares sown by Satan. Mary welcomed the grain of the Son of Man.**II. «Nor strong together gathering zizania»: God’s patience that awaits**“‘No, let the wheat and the weeds grow together until the harvest’ (Mt 13:29-30), the Lord’s patience in waiting for the harvest is one of the deepest themes in Matthew’s theology. The God of Mt 13 does not intervene immediately to destroy evil because premature intervention would destroy good along with evil. This is the patience of love that respects organic growth, not passivity but active waiting, knowing that maturity takes time.”“The theology of divine patience has implications for ecclesiology: the Church (the Lord’s field) is, in this life, a mixture of wheat and weeds. The temptation towards radical purity, to immediately expel sinners, heretics, unworthy individuals, is always present in the history of the Church. The parable of the wheat and the weeds is the evangelical response: wait, discern, let God be the judge at the time of harvest. Not through moral relativism (weeds remain weeds), but through epistemic humility: who are we to know with certainty what is wheat and what is weed in others’ hearts?”“Mary as a figure of eschatological patience: she who lived decades in the obscurity of Nazareth, who witnessed the slow and imperceptible growth of the Son until the moment of public manifestation, who endured the ‘sword’ of the Cross without losing faith, is the model of patience that waits for the harvest. The ‘Holy Saturday’ of Mary, between death and Resurrection, is the extreme form of this patience: waiting for the harvest when everything seems destroyed, expecting the separation between weed and wheat when it appears that the wheat has been destroyed along with the weeds.”“III. ‘They will shine like the sun’: The Judgment and Transfiguration of the Just”“‘Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father’ (Mt 13:43), the eschatological promise that concludes the explanation of the parable is one of the most luminous in Matthew’s Gospel. ‘Shining like the sun’ evokes the Transfiguration (Mt 17:2: ‘His face shone like the sun’), the final state of the just will be participation in the glory Jesus revealed at the Transfiguration. What was transitory visible on Mount Tabor will become permanently visible at the eschatological consummation.”“The expression ‘in their Father’s Kingdom’ is significant: the Son of Man hands over the Kingdom to the Father (cf. 1 Cor 15:24), and it is in the Father’s Kingdom that the just shine. Matthew’s eschatology is Trinitarian: the Son sowed the wheat, angels do the harvesting, and the final fruit is the Father’s Kingdom. Mary who prayed ‘Come your Kingdom’ while praying the Our Father prayed precisely for this moment: the moment when ‘the righteous will shine like the sun’ in their Father’s Kingdom.”“Mary already participates in this glory; the Dogmatic Definition of the Assumption in 1950 affirms that Mary was assumed in body and soul to heavenly glory. Mary ‘shines like the sun’ in the Father’s Kingdom, what the just await in hope; Mary already lives in reality. Marian devotion that looks at Mary as an ‘anticipation’ (prototype) of the resurrection of the dead has its foundation here: Mary is the ‘wheat’ already harvested and shining, a sign and promise of what all who persevered await.”## IV. Mary at Judgment: Queen of Mercy Before Justice«*The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather from his Kingdom all scandals and those who practice wickedness*» (Mt 13,41). The final judgment in Matthew is stern: the «*children of the Evil One*» are separated from the «*children of the Kingdom*». Yet devotional tradition has not overlooked Mary’s intercession before and during judgment. Medieval iconography of *The Last Judgment* often depicted Mary (and John the Baptist) alongside Christ as intercessors, in the *Deesis* («prayer», «petition») that represents Mary and John interceding with the glorified Christ.Mary’s intercession at judgment does not contradict God’s justice but anticipates it: Mary pleads for those, like weeds, who still have the possibility of conversion before the final harvest. The title *Mother of Mercy* (from *Salve Regina*, «*Mater misericordiae*») has this eschatological context: Mary is invoked as a merciful mother precisely because judgment is near. Not to escape judgment but to convert hearts before the harvest, for the weeds to become wheat before the reapers separate them.The parable of the weeds and wheat is ultimately a parable of hope: while the harvest draws near, there is time to grow, to mature, to convert. Mary’s intercession extends this time of mercy: she who obtained the miracle at Cana before its time (Jn 2,4: «*My hour has not yet come*») intercedes for an extension of the time of mercy over every soul that hasn’t yet matured. Mary, as *Regina misericordiae*, is the guardian of the conversion period that precedes the harvest.