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Jesus sees the crowds with compassion and calls His followers to become laborers in His harvest. In this Sunday Snippet, discover how spending time with Christ prepares ordinary people to share the Gospel and transform the world through His grace.

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Sunday Snippet: Called to Be Laborers in the Harvest

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In the Gospel, Jesus’ heart is moved. He’s moved with pity, with compassion for the people gathered before Him because they’re like sheep without a shepherd. They’re lost. They’re abandoned.

And Jesus’ heart is moved by those who want God, by those who long for more, by those who are searching, even though they may not know where to go.

All those other times when Jesus’ heart is moved, He acts Himself. He heals. He multiplies the food. But this time He does something different.

No, He summons His twelve disciples, and He gives them that iconic line:

“The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few. So ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for His harvest.”

It’s one of the great truths of our faith that Jesus Christ needs men and women. God likes to work through His people, work through His creation, laboring, of course, not by our own power and authority, but through the Holy Spirit—the same Spirit through which Jesus did all that He did.

And so Jesus takes the Twelve and picks them out.

“All right, you guys are going to be the ones to go out and do this now.”

Why these ones?

There’s nothing seemingly outstanding about them. The number one reason Jesus picked them is that He called and they actually responded.

He called them because of who they could become when they spent time with Him, because of who He could make them by His grace, how He could transform them and work in them.

He saw what they could be—the great Apostles that we know.

And in their lives we see this natural flow of discipleship. It moves from spending time with Jesus to coming to know Him.

And from there, when we know the Lord and we know who He is, we begin to have His heart.

Then we go out.

At the end of every Mass, we are sent forth. The final words are always some version of:

“Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.”

“Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.”

The disciples went out and began to do exactly that.

They proclaimed the Kingdom, and they proved their words. They demonstrated that the Kingdom of God was present by doing the things Jesus had done.

They served others. They healed the sick. They raised the dead. They set people free from their sins.

It’s always both.

We must proclaim the Gospel, and we must live it.

Both are necessary.

That means Jesus has chosen you to go out and bear fruit, to be a laborer in His Kingdom.

Not because of how great you are, but because of what He can do in you.

Because of how He can change you.

Because of how He can transform you.

Be with Him.

Live with Him.

Come to Mass.

Pray.

Develop your prayer life.

Go to Confession.

The Lord has chosen you. He has called you. And He will prepare you.

So what do we do? How do we get there?

Three things.

First, be with Jesus.

Live with Him. Come to Mass. Develop your prayer life. Grow to the point of praying every day. Come to Confession regularly.

Second, pray for a heart like His—a heart that is moved by the people around us.

And third, practice.

Learn from one another. Look for opportunities to share what Christ has done in your life. Tell others how He has transformed you.

Love the people around you enough to share with them the truth and hope that you have found in Jesus Christ.

And so I pray that the Lord prepares you to be those laborers, to be generous in giving your hearts and giving yourselves to this community, and loving them enough to act.