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Saturday of the First Week of Advent
Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26
Psalm 147:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
Matthew 9:35-10:1, 5A, 6-8
Summary
Ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers
.
Reflection
Pope Francis has said to the priests of the world,“You must be shepherds who
smell like your sheep.” In this Gospel Jesus is referring to the crowds who were
following Him that they were like sheep without a shepherd and later in He in-
structed his Apostles to “Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
“The harvest is abundant, but the laborers few…” is another quote from this
Gospel.
Jesus instructs the Apostles and sends them out to do the work of the Father.
The first shepherds of the Church.The first laborers in God’s field taking care of
abundant harvest.We all have the opportunity to labor and go into God’s har-
vest, reaching out to those who are the margins, being the hands of Jesus. We
must be willing to do all that God calls us to do, to labor with great joy and
grace.
We have seen recently, parishes either closed or combined. Priests are now travel-
ing to many parishes to say Mass on any given Sunday.We have also seen where
new parishes are being formed and some existing parishes are bursting at their
seams. In 1965, according to CARA (Center for Applied Research in the Aposto-
late), there were about 40,000 diocesan priests compared to about 26,000 now.
While there use to be an average of two priests per parish in 1965, now there is
only one.The number of practicing Catholics in the US has increased from 48
million in 1965 to over 68 million now.The faithful increase, the number of
priests increase, the number of those who are searching for faith has also in-
crease and we, as baptized followers, must be willing to labor, to evangelize the
good news, share the fruits of our labors with
those who are in the most need to faithfully
serve the words of Jesus and answer the call of
God to be a good shepherd.
Prayer
The words spoken by Jesus about the abundant