We are laborers of God’s harvest

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

“THE harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so, ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” (Mt 9,37-38) These words of Christ should remind us that we actually all called to be laborers of God’s harvest.

In whatever state of life we are, whether we are married or single, clerics or lay, etc., the mere fact that we are human persons and are baptized in Christ, we have to realize that we have the duty to take care and love one another. And the ultimate form of love is when we help one another to be with Christ. In other words, we are all called to do apostolate.

This duty to do apostolate is inherent to a human person, let alone, to a faithful Christian. We need to realize this as early as possible. We should echo the way St. Paul, for example, identified himself, as he articulated in his Letter to the Romans: “I, Paul, am a devoted slave of Jesus Christ on assignment, authorized as an apostle to proclaim God’s words and acts.” (1,1)

Reiterating this truth of our faith, we can recall Christ’s words when he said: “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.” (Jn 15,16)

We therefore have to realize that this duty to do apostolate is a mandate clearly given to us by Christ. It is not our own idea or initiative. And it has to be followed or carried out always with Christ, and not just by ourselves.

May it be that whatever we do, even in our most mundane activities, we somehow can manage to preach and show Christ to others. Christ should be the perennial object of our thoughts, words and deeds. We should feel the urge for the name of Christ to resonate well in the mind and heart of others.

This apostolic duty should arouse in us the strong desire for fidelity, reminding us always of the ultimate purpose of our life here on earth. We should therefore be apostolic all the time, whether we are with others or are alone.

We should at least be thinking of others always. Whatever we do should always be oriented toward this apostolic duty. Let’s remember that our love for God is concretized by our love for others.

We should try to give our all in this duty. And when we feel that we have reached our limits, let’s never give up or say enough, since it will always be God who will finish and perfect everything with his grace. He will make everything we do fruitful. Ours is simply to do whatever we can.

The upshot here is that our apostolate can only be an overflow of our love for God that is translated to our love for others. It’s this overflow of love that would lead us to make ourselves totally free and available to God’s will, whatever it requires us and wherever it will lead us.

It is this sense of freedom, the freedom of the children of God, that would help us to be freed from anything that would tie us down. It frees us from anything that would restrain us in our apostolic work. It enables us to be ever creative and adaptive to the varying conditions of our life. It’s a freedom that would lead us to make constant renewals and reaffirmations of our commitments.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com