Entry from July 19th - Part 2

I don’t know exactly how this came to me, It was during morning prayer as I let my mind go where the Lord would take it. This is the word I received:

"We need to get out of the safety of our Churches. The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few."

I suppose this is true if the only laborers are the priests, deacons and lay religious. But is that the right model? In our parish there are to assigned priests, one retired priest, a sister who serves as a pastoral associate and a deacon (me). That’s only 5 people to serve many thousands in our neighborhood of the city. The laborers are few? Or are they?

There must be at least 1000 people who worship every week within the walls of our parish church. The laborers are not few! They are plentiful! They just haven’t been given their assignment yet. They haven’t been trained. They don’t know who they are!

When we, the clergy and the lay leaders of our parishes empower our people, teach them, and send them forth into the “fields” where they already go each day, when we give them the tools they need and send them as ministers of Christ (which they are from their own baptism) the harvest will be great and our world we be more like God’s kingdom.

As for my part, several times while praying I have the sense that God wants me to act in a public way, to be on the streets as his witness. I feel called to go down to the breach where hundreds of people walk and sit all day long. What do I do when I get there? Do I stand and preach? Do I pray with people? Do I wait to see who God brings to me?

This is something to bring to spiritual direction and look at more closely.