Word to the Wise
Tuesday, July 8, 2014 - Tuesday in the 14th Week in Ordinary Time
[Hos 8:4-7, 11-13 and Matt 9:32-38]Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. [Matt.]
This passage from the gospel has often been quoted to urge us to pray for vocations to the priesthood and religious life. It has served in the past as a motivating scripture for people to consider a "missionary" vocation - to go where there is a great shortage of church personnel. The words of Jesus, however, are not meant quite so narrowly even if the need for greater numbers of priests and religious is real. What is needed are dedicated disciples who respond as Jesus does to the sight of so much misery in our world! The pictures of the most recent humanitarian disaster are hard to bear and, indeed, can lead to a kind of "compassion fatigue" as we become "hardened" to one disaster after another!
The enormity of the crises, such as the conflict in Syria or the latest conflict in Africa, can overwhelm us. So much of it is political or ideological and concerned with power and material gain for one group against another instead of an attempt to provide a decent life for all! We, in our own country, are not immune to this kind of thinking, either! No matter what political opinions one may have, some of the talk I hear about the immigration issue, for example, seems completely incompatible with what I know of the gospel!
Our baptismal identity with Jesus seems to me to call for responses like his, rather than "us against them" attitudes that seem to characterize what the media calls "culture wars." There is much to be done and so praying to the "master of the harvest" is a good idea! AMEN