Weeds Of The Soul

It started when I was a young boy. Even then, I found it interesting to observe the difference between homeowners who maintained their lawns and those who did not. I was arrogant enough in my youth to think that I could judge a homeowner by the amount of weed growth in their lawn. As I became a man and owned a home of my own I discovered that keeping my lawn free of weeds was not as easy of a prospect as I once thought. I also learned that if my lawn was chock-full of weeds, it did not necessarily mean that I was completely negligent in maintaining my lawn. After all, as a young homeowner I was consistent in applying weed killer. On many occasions, and as a last resort, I would spend an afternoon or evening on my knees pulling the ever present weeds by their roots one by one. I was determined to eradicate my weeds through sheer personal will and determination. It wasn’t until I heard the groundskeeper for one of the PGA golf courses reveal his secret to maintaining a healthy and weed-free fairway that I understood. He explained that the average homeowner focuses too much on eliminating weeds, when the real secret to eradicating weeds is to focus on maintaining a strong and healthy lawn in which weeds cannot flourish. “The healthier the lawn, the fewer the weeds. Weeds simply cannot and will not thrive in a healthy lawn,” he said. I wondered later if I could apply the same principle to my soul.

It became clear to me that the Holy Sacraments that Christ gave His Church are gifts of grace that help us maintain a healthy strong soul and God-centered life. Relying on the grace of God to nourish my soul meant I did not have to eradicate sin from my life in the same way I was trying to eliminate weeds from my lawn. His Grace would help me maintain a healthy soul where there was less room for sin to flourish. Trying to live free of sin without the nourishing benefits of grace received through the sacraments was like trying to eradicate weed growth in an unhealthy lawn by plucking out one weed at a time. If I only knew when I was young that I could maintain a relatively weed-free lawn simply by making it healthier - by cutting, feeding, watering, and fertilizing it properly - I would have prevented a lot of unnecessary weed growth and work. Similarly, if I had known the unbelievable grace-filled benefits of nourishing my soul through the Holy Sacraments of the Church, daily prayer, frequent Mass attendance and reading the Bible, I would have lived a more God-centered life where the weeds of sin would have had little chance to take root.

Living a God-centered life also means I have a responsibility to be proactive and not to contaminate my mind by absorbing negative stimuli that result in unwittingly fertilizing the weeds of my soul.

I recall Bishop Sheen once saying that all the actions of man first come from a thought, and what and how we think is first absorbed by the mind through our senses. That is why, he said, it is so important to take care of what we allow our minds to absorb through our senses.

The lesson I have learned late in life is that the groundskeeper’s sound advice on lawn care and weed control really can apply to my life. A God-centered life with a soul nourished by His awesome and powerful life-giving sacramental graces leave little opportunity for weeds to thrive in a healthy soul.