Word to the Wise
Tuesday, July 6, 2021 - Tuesday in the 14th Week in Ordinary Time
[Gen 32:23-33 and Matt 9:32-38]Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, andcuring 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." [Matthew]
Shortly after I arrived in Lubbock, TX, to be a part of our university ministry to Texas Tech University, I met a parishioner who is a professor at the law school. He has invited me to come every semester to his classes to talk about the difference between a career and a vocation. I guess I could be considered "Exhibit A" since I hold a law degree and was a "non-practicing" member of the legal profession for 40 years until officially "retiring"from the Bar in 2013. Clearly I did not choose a "career" in the legal profession, even if my vocation to religious life and priesthood have been shaped by my upbringing in a family of many lawyers. My father was an attorney and then a judge. I went to undergraduate school with the idea of completing a law degree and practicing law. What changed my thinking?
One of the major things that influenced me (probably because the Holy Spirit made me notice it) was that many of my fellow students who had far greater resources, especially economic ones, were clearly unhappy people. Little in life seemed to give them joy. They complained about everything. My conclusion slowly evolved into the phrase expressed in a song from the musical, SWEET CHARITY, "There's got to be something better than this." I had the notion that I wanted to help my fellow students and others to realize that there is, indeed, "something better than this." My vocation decision seems, in retrospect, to have been shaped like the account in today's gospel, a crowd that seemed "troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd."
Not everyone is called to the particular expression of a Christian vocation that I eventually chose with God's help - i.e. becoming an ordained Dominican friar. But we are all called by our baptism to look around us and see where we can bring "the joy of the gospel" (as Pope Francis puts it). The sad comment by Jesus about the fewness of the laborers seems to me to touch on the lack of awareness of prospective laborers that they can make a big difference in the lives of others. The "master of the harvest" has issued the call to a Christian vocation to every baptized person. Our "career" could be anything from law to assembly line worker. Our vocation is to proclaim the Kingdom of God. AMEN