Be Workers for the Harvest by Seeking Holiness

Magicians, people tell us, use a form of distraction to create their illusions. While they have you focused over there, they are busy creating their illusion over here. Not being a magician, I am not sure how true that is, but it seems to be a technique that may work.

Let us take today’s parable. Where is our focus? It is on the landowner paying everyone the same pay regardless of how many hours they worked. It is on the labor dispute by those who worked all day getting the same pay as those who only worked an hour. However, is there more to see?

Let’s look at where others are not looking.

What don’t we know? Well, we do not know what is being harvested. We do not know the state of the crops nor the urgency of the harvest.

When crops are not harvested, they die on the vine and so the work is essential to make sure they are fully gathered so that they can be brought to market or used at the farmer’s table.

What we see here is the farmer needs more workers. Everyone, after all, does not start at the same time, but they end at the same time. It can be assumed that the harvest is complete and if he did not hire more workers some crops would remain and be lost. Possibly, he urgently needed workers. Certainly, he made it worth their while of the last hired to work his fields. Would you work for an hour knowing that the pay was only for that one hour?

There is a lot that can be said for this harvest. However, if we focus on the payroll, we may miss the urgency of the landowner’s needs.

Who are the workers of the harvest today? You are. God called you at your baptism have to work in the harvest.

What is your reward for the working in the Harvest? Eternal life in Christ.

If you bring someone to Christ who lived their whole life in sin and converts at the last moment, what is their reward in comparison to yours? Roughly the same.

What happens if you choose not to do the work? You get the same pay as those who chose not to be hired—Nothing.

We need to understand that our mission is urgent and if we do not live our mission then the harvest dies on the vine.

What are the signs of what I am talking about?

For years, I taught and still do that we need to understand the first chapter of Romans and there you can see a road map for trouble. Many focus it on a small part of the road map and teach that this chapter is about immorality. Actually, look at the bigger part, it is an explanation what happens when people who know better turn from Christ and embrace any form of idolatry. Then you have moral breakdown and then civil breakdown.

What do we see now? Exactly what St. Paul teaches.

What is the solution,? Well first we need to see the problem. Many are dying on the vine because we have to be strong in our work as the laborers for the harvest.

We need to take our faith so seriously that we become signs to them of the truths that is Christ.

We need to be faithful to prayer as I often say, in our homes and in our lives. Then we must live the fruit of our prayer in our work and in our society. We need to make the choice to be disciples of Christ in the harvest. We need to understand that what we see outside is partially due to our silence. One reason for our silence is that people want us silenced. They want the Catholic Church out of the way so that they can be free to do what they want without us in the way. What they don’t understand is what they think they want will not bring them life but death.

You heard about the Sacred Heart Statue in Texas that was beheaded? That is another symptom of St. Paul’s warning. Jesus said to read the signs of the times and to know when to act. However, our mission is not saving political structures or philosophies, it is saving souls from the clutches of the devil.

Let us give everything we have to be strong as people of faith and holiness to live our faith and be faithful to it through prayer and to deepening our relationship every day with God. Let us be strengthen our commitment to be devoted through the rosary and to serve Christ fully.

Why? Because the harvest is over ready, it is beginning to become overripe and because there are not enough laborers ready to accept the job. There are laborers but they are busy doing other things. We need to step up not for our sake as much as for theirs for those who have embraced the idea that the right thing to do is to decapitate a statue of Jesus and to create confusion because they want their world their way. They do not understand that they cannot have it their way for it is God’s world and only he can lead us to joyful life and a healthy harvest.

Let us pray this week that we God may send his work our way that we may be his laborers. Doing His work in seeking holiness of life and being signs to others of the life that He promises His people.

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