Today is Oct. 3, Thursday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”
What is the harvest in this instance? It is souls! “The Lord of all things loves souls above all,” says Blessed Humbert of Romans. But “How,” says St. Paul, “are they to believe him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear if no one preaches?” (Rom 10:14).
It’s easy for Catholics to hear Jesus’ command to “ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers” and immediately think of how we must pray for more young people to answer the call to become priests and religious sisters. We must pray for that grace, and we should pray for it daily.
But we should pray for ourselves, too. By interpreting the passage in a second way, each one of us — every Catholic — is called to be a laborer for God’s harvest. “(The faithful) must devote themselves with all their being to the glory of God and the service of their neighbor,” the Second Vatican Council teaches. “In this way, the holiness of the People of God will grow into an abundant harvest of good, as is admirably shown by the life of so many saints in Church history.”
And here, the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council have suggested a third interpretation: We are the harvest. But to be harvested for the kingdom, we must grow into a “harvest of good” by growing in virtue, thus leading to holiness.
Today, let’s pray for each harvest. First, that the Master might raise up an abundance of young men and women to serve him as priests and religious. Second, that we might ourselves become better equipped to serve as laborers for the harvest in our state of life. And finally, that we might grow in holiness to be a part of God’s abundant “harvest of good” — saints in his eternal kingdom.
Pray for an outpouring of God’s grace:
O God, who manifest your almighty power above all by pardoning and showing mercy, bestow, we pray, your grace abundantly upon us and make those hastening to attain your promises heirs to the treasures of heaven. Through our lord Jesus Christ, your son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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