Vigils Reading – 16th Sunday

A reading from

ST GREGORY PALAMAS

◊◊◊

Now as the Lord himself explains, the darnel is the offering of the evil one.

They bear his mark because they behave the way he does; they are seeds of his

sowing, and his children by adoption. Harvest time will be the end of the world,

for although it began long since and continues now through death, only then

will all things come to an end.

The reapers are the angels, for they are, and will be especially at that time,

the servants of the King of heaven. As Scripture says: Just as the darnel is

collected and burnt in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world. The Son of

Man, who is the son of the Father Most High, will send his angels, and they will

gather out of his kingdom all evil doers and every cause of sin.

And so the Lord’s servants, the angels of God, seeing the darnel in the

field, that is, the wicked and impious folk living among the good people, and

that even within the Church, said to the Lord: Do you wish us to go and gather

it up? In other words: “Shall we kill them, to remove them from the earth?” But

the Lord’s reply was: No, for fear that in collecting the darnel you may also

uproot the wheat.

How then would the wheat, the good people, be uprooted as well if the

angels gathered up the darnel, cutting off the wicked by death to separate them

from the just? The fact is that many godless sinners who live among people who

are upright and devout repent in time and are converted, and learning new

habits of piety and virtue they cease to be darnel and become wheat. And so

some wheat would be uprooted in the gathering of the darnel if the angels

snatched the wicked away before they repented.

Moreover, many while living evil lives produce children of good

disposition, or they may have other rightly disposed descendants. This is why he

who sees everything before it comes into being would not permit the darnel to

be uprooted until the appointed time. But he says: At harvest time I will say to

the reapers: “First collect the darnel and bind it into bundles to be burnt, but

gather the wheat into my barn.”

Those therefore who wish to be saved from eternal punishment and to

inherit the everlasting kingdom of God must be not darnel but wheat. They

must avoid saying or doing anything evil or useless, and practice the opposite

virtues, thus bringing forth the fruits of repentance. In this way they will

become worthy of the heavenly granary; they will be called children of the

Father Most High, and as heirs will enter his kingdom rejoicing, resplendent

with divine glory. To this may we all attain through the grace and loving

kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ. To whom with his eternal Father and the

most holy, good and life-giving Spirit belongs glory now and always and for

endless ages.