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“Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers”. This means
that the harvest is ready, but God
 wishes
to enlist helpers to bring it into the storehouse. God needs them.
He needs people to say: yes, I am ready
to
become your harvest labourer; I am ready to offer help so that this
harvest which is ripening in
people’s hearts may truly
be
brought into the storehouses of eternity and become an enduring,
divine communion of joy and love. “Pray
the
Lord of the harvest” also means that we cannot simply “produce”
vocations; they must come from God. This
is not like other professions, we cannot simply recruit people by
using the right kind of publicity or the correct type of
strategy. The call which comes from the heart of God must always
finds its way into the heart of man. And yet, precisely so that it
may reach into hearts, our cooperation is needed. To pray the Lord
of the harvest means above all to ask him for this, to stir his
heart and
say: “Please do this! Rouse labourers!
Enkindle in them enthusiasm and joy for the Gospel! Make them
understand that this is a treasure greater than any other, and that
whoever has discovered it, must hand it on!”
We stir the heart of God. But our prayer to God does not consist of
words alone; the words must lead to action so that from our praying
heart a spark of our joy in God and in the Gospel may arise,
enkindling in the hearts of others a readiness to say “yes”. As
people of prayer, filled with his light, we reach out to others and
bring them into our prayer and into the presence of God, who will
not fail to do his part. In this sense we must continue to pray the
Lord of the harvest, to stir his heart, and together with God touch
the hearts of others through our prayer. And he, according to his
purpose, will
bring to maturity their “yes”, their readiness to respond; the
constancy, in other words, through all this world’s perplexity,
through the heat of the day and the darkness of the night, to
persevere faithfully in his service. Hence they will know that their
efforts, however arduous, are noble and worthwhile because they lead
to what is essential, they ensure that people receive what they hope
for: God’s light and God’s love.
(Benedict
XVI,
Meeting with Priests and Deacons – Freising 14 September 2006) |
