Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
A visitor once approached the abbot of a contemplative monastery that had a strict cloister, where the monks were not allowed any outside activities. The visitor was concerned that there were so many priests there who had withdrawn from the world, occupying themselves with prayer and penance in solitude. Didn’t the abbot understand that the rest of the world was in crisis? That the priest shortage was acute? That souls outside the monastery walls were being lost while contemplative priests were focused inward? The visitor asked the abbot to consider sending some of his priests out into nearby churches, schools, hospitals, and jails. To emphasize his point, he cited the Lord’s words in today’s Gospel: “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few” (Matthew 9:37). The abbot, having heard his guest’s challenge, reminded him of the conclusion that scripture passage: “so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest” (Matthew 9:38). It turns out that is exactly what his monks had been doing the whole time from inside their cloister: asking the master of the harvest.
What should those of us who live outside the cloister do about the need for vocations? The solution Christ gives is for us to beseech the master to send out laborers. The harvest of souls is an application of salvation that Christ won for us, and that depends ultimately on divine grace, not on self-initiative, not on human industry or enterprise, not on worldly efficiency. We are talking about God’s work here, not our own. Only if we cooperate with God and under his direction can we succeed. As the Psalmist says, “Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build. Unless the Lord guard the city, in vain does the guard keep watch. It is vain for you to rise early and put off your rest at night, to eat bread earned by hard toil — all this God gives to his beloved in sleep” (Psalm 127).
To get more vocations to the priesthood and religious life, let us turn to God and ask Him to summon them. May we all have the grace to follow His call, wherever it leads us.