Have you tried asking?
- Fr Raphael Ma, CR
- Matthew 9: 36 - 10: 8
A Resurrectionist Vocation Minute for June 18th, 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Have you tried asking?
I remember attending a prayer breakfast at my home parish where the vocations director for the Diocese gave a talk. And he said something I will never forget. He said that we are all concerned about vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and we all wish we could “figure out” the secret to getting many young people to say yes to the call to priesthood or religious life.
But Jesus only ever directly said one thing about vocations in the Gospel, and it was not a secret, it was not a plan, it was not an impressive media campaign, it was this:
“The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”
We’ve all heard it before, we’ve all prayed for vocations to the priesthood and religious life before. But do you personally pray on a regular basis for them? Or have you given up because you didn’t “see” any immediate answers to your prayers, and so resigned yourself to praying the few times a year it gets mentioned at Church or by others?
Even Jesus thought during his public ministry that there were not enough labourers for the harvest! This is not a problem unique to our time. Jesus tells us what to do about it – but do we believe what he tells us is actually worth doing? Jesus, teach us how you want us to pray for vocations.
“The Scriptures reveal Christ to us as a man of prayer who frequently offered praise and thanks to his Father. He interceded on our behalf. Christ taught his disciples how they were to pray and to call God their Father… … we too strive to become men of prayer. In this way we will be like Christ's first apostles, who devoted themselves to “prayer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6: 4).”