Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ 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.”

Then he summoned his twelve disciples
and gave them authority over unclean spirits
to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.
The names of the twelve apostles are these:
first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew;
James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John;
Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;
James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus;
Simon from Cana, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.

Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus,
“Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.
Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.
Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”

— Matthew 9:36-10:8

Vocation: A Call

Each one of us has a vocation, a call we perceive as coming from God our Creator, giving us the purpose and mission for which He made us. As Christians we understand that this call is first and foremost, a universal call to holiness: “Therefore in the Church, everyone whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness, according to the saying of the Apostle: ‘For this is the will of God, your sanctification’ (1 Thes 4:3; cf. Eph 1:4)” (Lumen Gentium, 39). God wants each one of us to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven, not because any of this will somehow add to His greatness (see Common Preface IV), but because being the One who made us, He knows that this is the only way by which we can find true happiness, freedom, peace and fulfilment.

The way we live out this call to holiness varies depending on our different gifts, abilities and other factors, and as we grow we start to think of discerning a vocation. This leads to some stable states of life: the clerical state, marriage, consecrated life, and single (unmarried) life. The clerical state consists of men ordained to the ministerial priesthood who serve as shepherds of the Church. Marriage is a vocation of intimate union between a man and woman who come together in faithful love to “sustain one another in grace throughout the entire length of their lives” (Lumen Gentium, 41), bring up offspring in the practice and love of the faith, and model the fruitful love that Christ the Bridegroom has for His Bride, the Church (see CCC 789, 808).

Consecrated life as a path to holiness involves men and women who embrace a stable form of living by profession of the evangelical counsels (chastity, obedience, poverty) “whereby they may devote themselves to God alone the more easily, due to an undivided heart” (Lumen Gentium, 42). Catholics who are called to consecrated life often join religious orders or congregations such as the Benedictines, the Dominicans (Order of Preachers), the Jesuits (Society of Jesus), the Missionaries of Africa, the Franciscans, and many more. Other people are called to remain single or unmarried. Of course, this is not a rigid list, and we often see priests who are also members of religious congregations, for example.

Regardless of the state of life one chooses to follow, it leads one to become for God, a “laborer in the harvest” who goes out to tend to God’s people, the sheep of His flock. In this Sunday’s Gospel (Mt 9:36-10:8), Jesus instructs His disciples to “pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest”. When God calls us to follow Him by some specific path to holiness, it is not a call to some private experience that is for ourselves alone. Nowhere in the Bible do we find God granting an encounter of Himself to someone without afterward sending that person out on mission. Yes, He calls the Twelve Apostles by name, He chooses them, they live with Him, walk with Him, listen to Him—they have this marvelous experience of Him. But then He sends them out as laborers into the plentiful harvest. After the resurrection, He appears to them for forty days, and then He ascends to heaven, instructing the disciples to go tell the whole creation (cf. Mt 28:19) of what they have seen and heard (cf. 1 Jn 1:1-4). Their vocation is to mediate the experience, the knowledge and the power of Christ to everyone else. Christianity is not a private religion. It is a light that must be set up on a hill to shine on everyone (cf. Mt 5:14-16).

Jesus needs more laborers. He needs us to be His hands and feet, His voice that speaks His words to the rest of the world. We do this by living out that path to holiness He has chosen for us, by becoming, as St Catherine of Siena put it, what God meant us to be. This requires discernment which involves prayer, spiritual direction, participating in the sacramental life of the Church, and patience. God will not always come out and tell us outright that He wants us to be a priest or a nun, because holiness is not a destination we must reach, anyway. It is grace with which we must cooperate, it is a journey we must walk all through life.

Indeed, we must not wait until we get married or ordained or take vows before we start loving and serving God. Even now, in this moment, there is some way God wants us to love Him, because ultimately, our vocation is to love God (see St Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul). While we are still students, while we are still dating, or whichever our current state, we must love and serve God in that state, we must be holy now and not postpone it to later.

Looking for more Gospel reflections?

Start with these great books!

Breaking the Bread: A Biblical Devotional for Catholics Year A by Scott Hahn and Ken Ogorek

Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings (Cycle A) (Food for the Soul Series) by Peter Kreeft

The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A by John Bergsma 

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Image: Photo by Paz Arando on Unsplash