Rest a while

The Gospel this Sunday is from Matthew 14:13–21, and all the Bibles I have read preface the passage with the heading ‘The Feeding of the Five Thousand’. Commentaries and homilies almost invariably focus on this event, which is understandable.

However, our passage describing this ‘feeding’ of many is prefaced by another ‘feeding’ — the feeding of one.

Our passage begins: ‘When Jesus received the news of John the Baptist’s death, he withdrew by boat to a lonely place where he could be by himself.’ (The Bible text I use most often uses the word ‘deserted’ rather than ‘lonely’.)

It invites us to reflect on how we process grief.

The text is accommodating: ‘When Jesus received the news of John the Baptist’s death’ — for goodness’s sake, his cousin had just had his head chopped off!

For all we know, Jesus and John may have played together as children. They may have gone to the same school and been in the same class. Knowing Judaic traditions, they most certainly would have shared meals together.

News of death is received individually, and so is grief.

Even within a family, members attend to their grief in individual ways — ‘our dad’ in life becomes ‘my dad’ in death.

News of another’s death closes a relationship. As each relationship is particular to the two people involved, so too is how its closure is managed.

Grief is as individual as a fingerprint.

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung called grief a natural, sacred inner journey.

Jesus’ own journey took him across water: ‘He withdrew by boat to a deserted place where he could be by himself.’

And what happens? He is met by a crowd.

How often this happens in life, around grief. Wanting to be alone, I am met by a crowd — well-meaning, to be sure, but at times intrusive with their presence, their advice, their suggestions, and their counsel.

Grief is as individual as a fingerprint.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:45–46)

An oyster spends almost its entire life fixed to a single spot. It opens its shell only to filter food from the water.

For some, oysters are a gourmet delicacy.

But their most extraordinary claim to fame is their ability to produce an exquisite gem. Yet that gem has an unlikely origin.

A pearl begins its life as a parasite, an irritant. It starts when a microscopic parasite drills through the oyster’s shell and settles inside.

To protect itself, the oyster covers the parasite with its mantle. It then secretes layer upon layer of calcium carbonate, known as “nacre”, around the intruder.

Over time, this layering forms a pearl.

That which irritates you most, if you protect it, may become for you the pearl of great price.

Manihiki is a remote coral atoll in the northern Cook Islands, famously known as the “Island of Pearls”. Here, the oysters produce black pearls, formed the same way as any other, through the same irritation.

So, if the irritant in your life turns you black, have no concern, have no fear. You are just as precious, and just as sought after.

Reflecting on the years spent in Stalin’s labour camps, Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote:

“I learnt one great lesson from my years in the prison camps. I learnt how a person becomes evil and how he becomes good.

“Gradually, I came to realise that the line that separates good from evil passes not between states, or between classes, or between political parties, but right through every human heart. Even in hearts that are overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And in the best of all hearts, there remains an unuprooted small corner of evil.” (Gulag Archipelago)

A bridgehead of good, and a small corner of evil.

Many of today’s translations of the Bible ‘distort’ the text to make it easier to read. An example of this is in today’s Gospel (Matt. 13:14–30).

Most translations head this parable ‘Weeds among the Wheat’. That is very polite.

Earlier translations use the word ‘darnel’ rather than weeds.

Darnel is a ‘mimic weed’, neither entirely tame nor quite wild, that looks and behaves so much like wheat that it can’t survive without human help.

Its seeds are stowaways: the plant’s survival strategy requires its seeds to be harvested along with those of domesticated grasses, then stored and replanted the following season.

Darnel occupies a grey area in human agricultural history. It’s definitely not good for us.

When people eat its seeds, they become dizzy, off-balance and nauseous. Its scientific name, L. temulentum, comes from the Latin temulentus, meaning drunken, intoxicated or tipsy.

Bearded darnel grass is pernicious and poisonous to both other plants and humans. It’s also difficult to distinguish from wheat, which was a vital food crop for the Galileans.

Notice the activity of both the farmer and his enemy. The farmer sows the good seed; the enemy doesn’t try to dig it up.

The enemy doesn’t try to burn the field. He doesn’t poison the wheat or steal it.

Instead, the enemy plants darnel — what today is known as ‘false wheat’.

This false wheat looks just like real wheat until it bears seed. By then, though, its roots have surrounded the wheat’s roots and begun sucking up all its nutrients.

Because the roots are so intertwined, pulling out the weed would uproot the wheat as well.

Even though the farmer’s servants want to go and get rid of the weeds, the farmer wisely tells them no. At this point, the two plants can’t be told apart, and even if they could, pulling one up would pull the other with it.

Instead, the farmer suggests they let both grow together until harvest. Then, at harvest time, the weeds can be collected and burned before the wheat is gathered into the barn.

The same soil that nourishes the wheat equally nourishes the weed.

Maybe the story invites me to be courageous — courageous enough to allow the weeds and the wheat to grow together.

In his first general audience in Rome on 25 May 2025, Pope Leo XIV referred to Vincent van Gogh’s painting The Sower at Sunset and called it a symbol of hope.

A brilliant setting sun illuminates a field as a farmer walks toward the right, sowing seeds.

Van Gogh (1853–1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter, among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art.

Van Gogh had a special interest in sowers throughout his artistic career. In total, he made more than 30 drawings and paintings on this theme.

It is worth noting that the letter Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo, explaining his “Sower” painting, refers to an autumn 1888 version that includes a tree. The painting Pope Leo and we are reflecting on was painted in June.

When observing the painting, my eye is immediately drawn to the large yellow disk dominating the horizon.

Then there is the determined stride of the person sowing.

When did you last see blue and purple soil?

There is another detail that may be the most thought-provoking of all. The sower is striding through fallow ground, dispersing seed, while behind him lies a field of fully ripened cereal.

I see no fence. On most occasions, an entire field is harvested at once.

What might that be saying about Van Gogh? More importantly, does the image say anything about me?

Fully ripened grain sits alongside fallow ground.

How many occasions have I heard the Word of God, and how many times have I truly listened to it? I would suggest there is a difference.

Hearing is somewhat like the seed on thin soil. Listening is more like the seed settling — going down and waiting as the warm, dark earth does its nurturing.

The seed grows in darkness. The seed grows unseen. The seed grows with the assistance of others — soil and water. A seed cannot grow on its own.

Part of the field has grown wheat; another part of the same field is being planted. Is that true of me? Of us?