Laborers

Reflection for June 14, 2026 – The Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

In today’s Gospel, Jesus sends his twelve disciples out to cure diseases and illness among who He calls the “lost sheep of Israel.” He tells them to proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand.  Find Today’s Reading Here

“The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few.”

This excerpt from Matthew’s Gospel has become a catchphrase in the modern Church. We give ourselves vertigo with the amount of head-shaking we do over the much-lamented “decline in numbers.”

Which numbers, you ask? Well, take your pick — numbers of baptized Catholic children who continue to profess their faith in adulthood, numbers of registered parishioners, numbers of priests ordained each year. All are a fraction of what they were generations ago.

That last one — the priests — that’s a particular worry for us, isn’t it? So we pray, “Send us laborers, Lord! Make them holy. Make them earnest.”

And then we add, in the silence of our hearts: “Make them perfect.”

It’s no secret that part of the reason the pews are empty is because we often find it hard to love the Church if we find it hard to love a particular priest, a particular bishop, or a particular human representative of the Church.

Because that’s the thing about priests and bishops and all the laborers in the field: they are human. They are sinners. Just like you and me.

We must consider this: today’s Gospel lists the Apostles whom Jesus sent out in ministry to heal, console, and evangelize, and right at the end — like a record scratch — comes the name of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer. If ever a laborer failed in his work, it was Judas.

And surely, when he did, his fellow laborers were so demoralized and so disenchanted that they considered laying down their tools and leaving the harvest to wither and die.

But they did not, and we must not.

Without cost we have received, and without cost we are called to give.

So we labor on, for the day is drawing to a close, and the threshing time is near.

©LPi