The Harvest if Plentiful but the Laborers are Few Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Exodus 19:2-6a; Psalm 100; Romans 5:6-11; Matthew 9:36—10:8

            A few days ago, on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we as a Church also celebrated the Day for the Sanctification of Priests. In encouraging priests to holiness, our Holy Father, Pope Leo, teaches that holiness is “not an inaccessibly distant or detached perfection” but rather entails being near to others with compassion, and an open heart willing to listen. This kind of fraternal holiness “cannot”, asserts Pope Leo, “be lived in isolation”. He adds, “The priest who isolates himself slowly fades away; the priest who walks alongside his brothers grows.”

         The Holy Father concluded his remarks with a prayer that entrusted “each and every one” priest “to the Virgin Mary, Mother of Priests.” In his prayer, Pope Leo included himself, “May she, who cherished the mystery of her Son in her heart, also teach us to keep alive and make the Heart of Christ, Savior of the world, beat within us.”^[1]

         In union with our Holy Father, may we pray as well for priests, especially during times when we feel like withdrawing from others. Resisting this temptation, may we choose true holiness that does not withdraw but rather remains close to others as compassionate listeners with understanding hearts that beat with the heart of Christ.

         In the Gospel passage, Jesus prays for more priests by saying, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:37-38) 

         Commenting on the significance that it is the Lord who chooses who to send as “laborers in his vineyard”,^[2] Benedict XVI wrote: “We cannot simply pick the laborers in God’s harvest in the same way that an employer seeks his employees. God must always be asked for them, and he himself must choose them for this service.”^[3]

         God may have chosen some of us as priests because, as Paul writes in his First Letter to the Corinthians, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” (1 Corinthians 1:27)

         We have heard that there is a shortage of vocations, which literally meaning calling, to the priesthood. Countering this claim, Fr. Menard, my founder, argued:

For a Missionary of the Holy Apostles, priestly vocations are in plain view, in sufficient quantity, according to the needs of the Church. Therefore, there is no actual crisis of vocations, but crises of vocational promoters, a crisis in the adequate presentation of the true sense of priestly life, introduced by a well-balanced person who loves, prays, and works. The youth of today, and those less young, are generous, maybe more so than in the past. But they are terrified of sacrifice in vain, useless courage, unemployed charism, joyless effort, a framework without life, a testimony without authenticity.

They want to be happy, and are realistic enough to know that to be happy is to love, is to serve …, and to serve to the end, that is, up to giving their lives for those they love (Mt. 20:28), which is the very peak of love, and the full meaning of life. To see a Missionary priest of the Holy Apostles in action is, above all, to see him when he gives out the Word of God and when he celebrates the Eucharist: one is soon convinced that he is a happy priest. He then becomes a ‘vocational promoter’: living near him, many will think, ‘Why should I not be a priest like him?’ or, ‘Why could I not, with him and like him, practice my own priesthood, received at Baptism?’^[4]

– May God bless you all – Fr Peter

---

^[1] Pope Leo XIV, “Message of Pope Leo XIV to Priests on the Occasion of the Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests, Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, 12 June 2026,” vatican.va, https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/messages/pont-messages/2026/documents/20260612-messaggio-santificazione-sacerdotale.html.

^[2] Matthew 20:1

^[3] Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian J. Walker (New York: Double Day, 2007), Kindle location 2515 of 5265.

^[4] Menard, The Charism, 12.