“And Jesus went about all the cities, and towns, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease, and every infirmity. And seeing the multitudes, he had compassion on them: because they were distressed, and lying like sheep that have no shepherd. Then he saith to his disciples, ‘The harvest indeed is great, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth labourers into his harvest.’”
Jesus then does not return harshness or punishment for being blasphemed, but returns good for evil, love for hatred, and goes back to His mission of love: “I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away m y face from them that rebuked me, and spit upon me” (Isaias 50:6). See the return of the Lord for a few words of injustice: A tidal wave of mercy, incessant love, kindness and goodness without measure! “Thy justice is as the mountains of God, thy judgements are a great deep. Men and beasts thou wilt preserve, O Lord: O how hast thou multiplied thy mercy, O God!” (Psalm 35:7-8). He taught in the large cities and the small towns, reaching out with love to the great and small alike: “There shall be no difference of persons, you shall hear the little as well as the great: neither shall you respect any man’s person, because it is the judgement of God” (Deuteronomy 1:17), because all people are precious gems that need love, and you are called to provide it to them. Jesus then went principally with words, but then by good works drew those who did not believe the words, that all may come to know and believe in His love, by any means that it can be seen: “For by thee I shall be delivered from temptation; and through my God I shall go over a wall” (Psalm 17:30). The goodness of God is not in temporal goodness, however, and through all of His miracles and wisdom, He sees His people in their poverty, so unable to love according to God’s love, and has great compassion upon them, for to love as the world loves is a greater ailment than the diseases that had been brought to Him. Thus, it is only by His love and grace that such things can be overcome: “Neither shall that is near, say: ‘I am feeble.’ The people that dwell therein, shall have their iniquity taken away from them” (Isaias 33:24). This then is a look into the Sacred Heart, to look upon those that flounder in bad love: “All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way” (Isaias 53:6); “O our God, wilt thou not then judge them? As for us we have not strengthen enough, to be able to resist this multitude, which cometh violently upon us. But as we know not what to do, we can only turn our eyes to thee” (2 Paralipomenon 20:12) with endless mercy and compassion, wanting them to know His love rather than the depravity and falsehoods in which they are wrapped: “The Lord will take away from thee all sickness: and the grievous infirmities of Egypt, which thou knowest, he will not bring upon thee, but upon thy enemies” (Deuteronomy 7:15). How, Theophila, can those that do not love well come to know good love if someone does not love them and draw them with love into the way of true love? “How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14). Ah, how many people have heard the name of Jesus and hate Him for the lack of love that has come with it! Who will go to the people that don’t know love and love them into the arms of Jesus? “The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen” (Isaias 9:2); “And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send? And who shall go for us?’ And I said: ‘Lo, here am I, send me’” (Isaias 6:8). This is the ripe harvest into which the Lord wishes to send you; it is not necessarily by lofty vocation but by an overflowing of love in all that you do that will draw all you meet and in your heart to Him: “Arise, O north wind, and come, O south wind, blow through my garden, and let the aromatical spices thereof flow” (Canticle 4:16). Think, Theophila, how little divine love is in the world, and how much all people cry out for it: “For we know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now” (Romans 8:22); “He that loveth not, abideth in death” (1 John 3:14). Pray for priests, religious, and deacons, those that proclaim His message, but likewise preach the Gospel by your love: “My little children, let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth” (1 John 3:18); “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another” (John 13:35), giving the wisdom of love to those who seek it: “For wisdom came forth from God: for praise shall be we with the wisdom of God, and shall abound in a faithful mouth, and the sovereign Lord will give praise unto it” (Ecclesiasticus 15:10); “See that I have not laboured for myself only, but for all that seek discipline” (Ecclesiasticus 33:18), and compassion to those who need it: “Therefore, whilst we have time, let us work good to all men, but especially to those who are of the household of the faith” (Galatians 6:10). The whole world is a ripe harvest, and it is your calling to be the Lord’s presence of love in the Church, fighting day and night for the sake of Love: “These are the chief of the valiant man of David, who helped him to be made king over all Israel, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke to Israel” (1 Paralipomenon 11:10). Be it by teaching, hospitality, prayer, evangelization, serving the poor, or the amalgamation thereof, let your every action be clothed with love: “But above all these things have love, which is the bond of perfection” (Colossians 3:14), that love may guide those you meet to the source of your love: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4).