Thriving in God's garden (Rev. Shirley Ruedy)

     I was flipping through a garden magazine last week when I came across this advertisement for a weed whacker. The ad read, “Effortlessly tackle tough weeds with braided carbon steel blades. The trimmer tackles tough weeds effortlessly. Save time with easy set-up. Keep every space looking its best. It can handle anything outside, giving you a beautifully maintained garden you can be proud of.” 

     Makes it sound easy, doesn’t it? A perfectly manicured and weedless garden. Well, not perfect and certainly not weedless. That will not happen. Until the harvest time according to Jesus’ eschatological vision, when the darnel and the wheat will be separated—at the end of the age. 

     But what about now? How are we to live? Jesus teaches that the kingdom is not yet fulfilled. That is yet to come. In the meantime, the world is complicated, with many questions unanswered or unanswerable. We live among the good and the evil and the somewhere in between. There are the redeemed, the believers, and the committed. There are also the unredeemed and the uncommitted. 

     But who are we to judge the human heart? To separate the wheat from the weeds? That will be up to the Sower, the Son of Man. Jesus teaches that the kingdom of God is a gift of divine grace offered to all of those willing to receive it and commit to it. Thriving in God’s garden among the weeds, our own included, with unexpected visits from the unidentified enemy, requires our patience, forbearance, acceptance of God’s grace, and above all, our love—all that he modeled when our Lord lived among us. 

     So let us truly see in order to perceive, truly listen in order to hear, truly keep our hearts alive and able to understand the eternal message of the Lord: 

     “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” 

—The Rev. Shirley Ruedy,
Deacon, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton

Image source: https://thegoodheart.blogspot.com/2011/07/priorities-wheat-or-weeds.html
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Thirsting for God's justice (Fr. Greg Boyle / St. Hildegard of Bingen)

Real justice restores
by loving people
into their wholeness.

--Fr. Greg Boyle

    Thirsting for God’s justice, believers should now suckle the holy element from God’s breast and never have enough of it, so that they will be forever refreshed by the vision of God…. When we grasp justice in this way, we shall surrender to it, taste virtue and drink. We shall be strengthened by it. 

--St. Hildegard of Bingen 

Image source: Galya Stambolieva, https://galyastambolieva.com/artworks/breastfeeding-art/woman-nursing-child-i/
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 19, 2026: Your might is the source of justice...

Your might is the source of justice…
Just how open is God’s kingdom? 

    Jesus spends a lot of time in Matthew’s Gospel teaching the crowds about the kingdom of heaven, particularly through the use of parables. We are pretty familiar with the image of the mustard seed, which grows into a large bush where the birds of the sky come and dwell (ordinary mustard seeds do nothing of the sort!) and the image of the yeast, which suggests that God’s kingdom expands in ways we cannot imagine. More complex is the parable of the weeds among the wheat, in which good seed grows and bears fruit, but darnel, a pernicious weed, grows as well. When asked, Do you want us to go and pull the bad weeds?, the master gardener instructs his workers, No, if you pull up the weeds, you might uproot the wheat with them. God is patient, not judgmental; like the farmer, God is willing to wait until all have a chance to show themselves. And, as Psalm 86 reminds us, the Lord is good and forgiving, open to all who seek to live in right relationship with him. 

    This notion of God’s expansive compassionate justice is announced in the Book of Wisdom as well. Though you are master of might, you judge with clemency, the author of Wisdom states, and with much lenience you govern us. Rather than simply annihilate the enemies of God’s people, God gives all good ground for hope because God permits repentance for sins, not only to the people of Israel, but to all. God has the care of all. Moreover, should we ever be tempted to impose our own judgment, we should remember what Paul tells the Romans: the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness. The Spirit joins us in our groanings, enabling us to pray for our world and its sinful brokenness. God is the one who searches hearts, and only God is called to judge them. 

    Jesus’ parables reveal a secret: the reign of God is here and the reign of God works more profoundly than we could possibly imagine! We are called to do whatever reveals his love – to let him rule our lives, direct our hearts, rule our hearts. In so doing, we will see that reign dawn and division decrease. But if we give into fear, we lose the very thing we put our faith in. It’s God’s way we follow, God’s justice we enact… not our own. And God’s kingdom is large enough to hold all! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Mary unties our knots (Pope Francis)

Today is the Feast of
Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
the Patroness of our parish!

       Marian devotion has a privileged place. Mary is an advocate, but these days the word advocate is too functional. It is better to say that she is a “facilitator.” Mary is a facilitator when conflicts and problems arise, such as the lack of wine at the wedding. She helps us to “untie the knots” that can be created in us and between us. In other words, Mary also paves the way for friendship between peoples, inviting us to turn our gaze to the origin and goal of our existence, which is Jesus Christ, and encourages us to follow His example, walking the paths of peace, kindness, listening and patient and trusting dialogue. 

--Pope Francis 

Image source 1: Our Lady of Mount Carmel banner, sewn by Gail Angiulo, OLMC-Mill Valley (2023), https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=673482714817146&set=a.673491021482982
Image source 2: Johann Georg Schmidtner, Our Lady, Untier of Knots (1700), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_Untier_of_Knots#/media/File:MaryUntier.jpg
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We must tend the soil of our hearts (Fr. Patrick van der Vorst)

    We must tend the soil of our hearts. Faith is God’s gift, but we have a part to play in nurturing it. Prayer is one of the richest nutrients for this soil: our personal prayer, spoken in the quiet of the heart, and the shared prayer of the believing community. In today’s Gospel, the “good soil” is described as those who hear the word with a noble and generous heart. Prayer disposes us to receive the Word in this way, creating the environment where the fragile seed of faith can take root, deepen, and bear fruit in abundance. 

   We can think of faith as a garden entrusted to us. The seed has already been sown by God, but it is prayer that waters it, Scripture that gives it light, and love that keeps the weeds away. If we tend this garden faithfully, the seed of faith will not just survive, it will flourish, bearing fruit beyond our expectations. 

--Fr. Patrick van der Vorst,
Christian Art,
September 20, 2025

Image and quotation source: Claude Monet, The Artist's Garden at Giverny (1900),  https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/luke-8-4-15-2025/

It would explode our minds (Dwight L. Moody / Robert Cording)

Give your life to God;
he can do more with it
than you can.

--Dwight L. Moody

      We live in a goodness that we can’t explain – that is excessive, that’s mysterious, and that, if we paid attention to it, it would explode our minds. 

--Robert Cording 

Image source: https://heathercking.org/2019/01/28/bible-verses-about-the-abundance-of-god-2/
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God's hand (Paula Nelsen)

    A few days ago, I saw to my horror that I had let my little houseplant garden dry up. Most of the plants in the pots were sadly wilted and looking dead. I had been so preoccupied by projects that they had slipped my mind. So, I watered them, soaked them, and hoped for the best. The very next day, they had transformed, almost like magic – the Christmas cactus, the shamrock, the orchid and the begonia all suddenly bloomed with bright little flowers. I was suddenly relieved. 

    Finally, when I sat down to read [Isaiah 55], it all seemed so simple and clear. Outside, the rain was pouring down. Inside, I was reading: Just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down, and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful… so we can plant seeds, make bread, and eat! The rainstorm no longer looked dreary. I could see its incredible beauty and its incredible, beautiful power, and God’s hand behind it. 

--Paula Nelsen,
Communion Service Reflection,
February 20, 2024

Image source: https://www.reddit.com/r/houseplants/comments/14p5lgt/are_these_plants_dead_housesitting_concerned/