The compassion of the heart of our God

 A recording of today's gospel and blog can be accessed here.

*****

Today’s gospel (Matthew 9:35-10:1) sees Jesus going about Israel and proclaiming the good news. He heals those who are sick and reconciles those lost in their sins. Having given this example, His heart is filled with compassion for those He ministers to, and He says to his disciples: The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. And then having called His disciples and given them authority, He sends them out to do as He has done.  

Last Friday, the gospel inspired us to reflect on the anti-vocation culture of Nazareth where the paths people were expected to take were those built by social pressure and wayward hearts. In today's gospel, we find instead a kind of antidote to this poisonous perception. On one level, this gospel is especially about the priestly vocation, the vocation to be a labourer in the vineyard of the Lord, and to gather in the harvest in due season. These duties of the priesthood are paralleled by a wider collective duty imposed on all of us, and that we reflect on all too little, to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. If we lament our lack of priests or the sadly ageing priesthood, we should also lament our failure to hear and obey this command of the Lord to beg for this extraordinary blessing of priestly vocations.

In one sense, of course, all vocations are extraordinary. What a thing it is, what a beautiful thing it is, for the Lord to call our name and to say to us: Follow me.

If a man serves me, he must follow me, wherever I am, my servant must be there too.

At the root of our personal vocations and the paths we take in our lives is this wider command, the universal call to holiness, to be conformed to the image of Christ, as adopted children of the Father so that He finds in us the image of His son.

And yet the priestly vocation, epitomised entirely by the saint whose memorial we honour today, Saint John Vianney, includes that conformity to Christ which encompasses His own relationship with the Mystical Body.  For only Christ as priest, as head of the Mystical Body, ministers to that body, gives to it the spousal gifts of the seven Sacraments, and so helps it become day by day His worthy spouse. This is why the priesthood cannot be reduced to a mere social function, to be seized on and instrumentalised by any individual, whether because they are socially privileged, or because of some ambient gender equality that is blind to the mystery that it represents. Every individual can reflect Christ in some way; this is the universal call to holiness. But just as in the Sacrament of the Eucharist only the foodstuffs of bread and wine can be turned into the body and blood of Christ for our spiritual nourishment, so in the Sacrament of Holy Orders, only a man can be made the icon of Christ's relationship with His spouse, the Church.

And in some mysterious way, the relationship is reciprocal. The priest who has left home and family and brothers and sisters and wealth can, if he lives the mystery of his priesthood in the spirit of Christ, discover that he is repaid a hundredfold in this life. For just as we have a duty to pray for more labourers to be sent into the harvest, we have a duty to care for the labourers who are already there, men who are both privileged and afflicted by a calling which, according to my late parish priest Fr Tony – for whose soul I ask you to pray – requires of them all to be crucified before the end.

In answer to the many betrayals by priests who have become abusers, we have often heard tell of the serious difficulties of the priesthood. These should not be underestimated, of course. But no vocation can be understood and grasped only by its difficulties. Every vocation has its difficulties. The spirit of a culture of vocation is found rather in the beauty and the truth of every vocation. Perhaps, if we were to understand the beauty of our own vocations, we would live them with greater fidelity. For we love our grumbles and groans. But how much more have we cause to find in the blessed calling, which each and every one of us has been given, a glimpse – just a small glimpse – of the beauty of our loving God who pours out His heart for every one of us, even to the ultimate sacrifice of laying down His earthly life.

Every vocation then includes a calling to understand His compassion, His willingness to look upon the crowds who are harassed and helpless, fixing upon them the gaze of a Shepherd who wishes to gather the sheep to Himself.