RBWords

     Those who teach and minister in areas that are heavily agricultural but not yet cultivated by enormous GPS-guided machines know that when harvest time comes, the students and worshipers will be in the fields and not in the classrooms or churches!  Every available hand is needed to bring in the crops.  Survival depends not only on having the right weather and freedom from pestilence, but on being able to harvest a good crop when there is one!  Farmers in our time and in Jesus' time faced the same challenges.  In Jesus' use of the image, both a good crop and sufficient laborers to harvest it are a matter of divine initiative.  In the case of sufficient laborers to harvest, we are looking at the question of "vocations" to do the work.

     On one level, we have the baptismal call that we share that commissions all of us to be missionaries, as Pope Francis has continually pointed out.  Nowadays, most campus ministry programs will feature "mission trips" to give students an experience of the hard work of preaching the gospel both by word and deed in areas that are underserved - mostly in third-world countries.  But, this does not always translate into a long term commitment because the demands of our own culture in regard to education, career, marriage, etc. can overwhelm the missionary impulse. 

     On a second level, there is the challenge to inspire people of all ages to recognize a full time possibility of ministry that is the work of the Holy Spirit working in individual lives.  Yes, we pray for vocations to full time ministry, but are we willing to encourage our children or peers to consider it?   The presence of "international priests" in many dioceses of this country and the consolidation of parishes in many dioceses is an indication that sufficient vocations to serve the harvest are lacking.  I am not sure that doing away with the celibacy requirement will be the answer as some suggest.  The issue is one of recognizing that the "Master of the harvest" does call for laborers, but laborers are having a tough time hearing the call.  We all have responsibility for this, whether we are laypersons or clergy or religious order members.  It's not just the job of "vocation directors."  AMEN