The world, at its best, offers us but a very mixed picture of confusion in which both good and evil some how seem to co-exist. There have been times when people have been ready to give up on the world entirely, labelling it a total loss, but then they discover some evidence of beauty or love, charm or human kindness that remind them that, in spite of all its wickedness, the Lord created this world and saw that it was good.

We also sometimes hesitate to look within our own hearts for fear of what we might find there - and indeed, we know the human heart to be a very complicated universe of desires and motives, memories and imaginings that have led people down the road to ruin or along the path to salvation.

The lesson of today's gospel would seem to urge us to trust in the strength and power of the good. The wheat will be strong enough to compete against the weeds and survive, and all that is good in the world too has a power in it to resist what is evil. No matter how dark the darkness may be, it will never be able to quench the flame of a candle. We need to recognize the power of the good, both within the world and ourselves, to withstand the power of darkness and in fact overcome it, for the Lord has already overcome the darkness. In the Lord's resurrection the power of life has already overcome the power of death.