Septuagesima 27.1.13 Work for the Lord
What does it mean to work for the Lord? People in the vineyard are helping to make wine. What is the wine we make for God?
Work takes many forms; unpaid or paid, some of it more noticeable, some less. To make a table, for example, is work that is easy to see; but to be a good host, putting someone at his ease, for example, is less obvious, yet still a form of work.
The work we do for God is more of the second type, largely invisible, unmeasurable. So much so that we often wonder if we are doing any good at all.
In another Gospel passage (Jn 15) Our Lord says: I am the vine you are the branches. If you bear fruit I will take it and I will prune you to get even more. In other words He will work us as hard as possible. Is this a bit mean of Him?
When we consider what the work is and also consider that a lot of people are not working at all - we realise the urgency. Overtime is required here. We do not begrudge being pushed hard into this kind of work because the good it can do is enormous.
When there is a crisis on (eg fire or flood) people rise to the occasion and happily work around the clock. Well, we have a crisis all the time in the spiritual world. Always souls are in danger, and (unlike in a natural disaster) usually they do not know it.
The ‘work’ we do in this case takes in things like prayer for conversion, suffering for souls, generally taking up our crosses - humble, obscure work that often no one else knows about; and we ourselves may not grasp its full significance. But if it is offered to God for His purposes it can be immediately effective in terms of doing good.
The good that we do may not be immediately visible but we can see the fruits in more general terms: the fact that sinners convert, that lives are saved, that miracles happen; that we achieve unexpected victories in legal battles over pro-life matters, etc.
A thousand inputs, a thousand outputs. If I say a rosary it will probably do good to someone, somehow: maybe help a sinner to repent, an atheist to believe, a sin to be avoided, an accident prevented.
We trust that we are doing good and this gives us more energy for the cause. We cannot restrict to just certain hours and days; this is a lifetime.
Our Lord is asking us to be on the alert, ready for anything. The harvest is rich but the labourers are few.
The harvest is rich because it contains all souls: souls to be saved, sinners to be converted, addictions to be overcome; the kingdom to be established.
The labourers are few because relatively so few people understand this spiritual view of things. Many would have no idea that their lives here on earth are meant to be ‘working’ for God.
All are called, firstly to be harvested, then to be labourers. Once saved, we immediately go to work to help save others.
The harder we work the more Our Lord will take from us. In fact we will probably have to suffer more. But then the more we understand the whole idea the more willingly we enter into it.
Recently we had the feast of the Conversion of St Paul. He is a good example of a very zealous labourer, who took no account of his own suffering. He was fixed totally on the goal of harvesting souls, of building up the kingdom of God.
He saw fully what we see partially - the joy of working for God, as well as its urgency.
Whatever age we are now, however much time we have left, this is where we need to be. Whatever other work we have, this is the most important.
So to work, until the job is done!
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