An Abundant Harvest: The Deeper Meaning of Christian Freedom

“Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.”

St. John Paul II spoke these words in a homily while visiting the United States in 1995, and they always come to mind every July 4th for me. We live in a world that tells us to do whatever you want: “You do you!” But that is not what we truly celebrate every year on July 4th; that is not what the Founding Fathers did when they signed the Declaration of Independence. They signed it out of a sense doing what they ought to do for the sake of the people of the 13 colonies.

But we can take these words of JPII to a deeper level if we desire to be disciples of Jesus. We all struggle to do what we ought to instead of just doing what we want, but I would argue that despite how difficult that can be at times, it is the bare minimum of what we are called to do as disciples. And if we only remain at that base level, we are missing out on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and a Catholic. 

Today’s Gospel shows us what it truly means to be a disciple. Jesus sends out the 72 others: These are not the ones who are with him constantly or are closest to him. They aren’t even the ones who know him and his teaching the best. But he still sends them out to prepare the way for the places that he himself wants to go. 

Where does the Lord want to go today? He wants to go to the place of the hearts of all eight billion people on our planet. What a great and abundant harvest indeed there is before us. And despite the well-connected digital age that we live in and the apparent knowledge of the name of Jesus throughout the entire world, it is a world similar to the early years of the Church. There are many who still need to hear not just the name of Jesus and the truths of the faith, but who need to be accompanied on a journey to come to know who Jesus is in their life. There may even be some of us who come and sit in the pews who are in great need of the Lord's visit to our heart. Our world, including our fellow pew mates, are ripe for the harvest. And we are the disciples who must go ahead of Jesus to prepare their hearts for him.

Today is not too different from the time of the early Church. There are very few laborers. We have an abundance of new people entering through our doors each week, but there are also people sitting next to us every week who are in need of a true encounter with Jesus. WE NEED LABORERS. Many people will tell me that they don’t feel they have the knowledge to be able to go out to these people, but I would argue that we don’t need laborers to tell people the facts and catechetical things if our faith, but instead people to walk with people side by side on their journey to the heart of Christ. We need Accompaniers.

If we think of all these hearts that Jesus desires as the harvest that is abundant, then an accompanier is one who walks along the crops throughout the growing season, tending to them to make sure they grow and are properly tended to so that they might make it to the harvest time by the Master. I ask you to join us as a laborer/accompanier, not as one to just teach catechesis, but as one who walks along the side of the crop as it grows towards the time to be harvested. We need people to walk alongside others, to build genuine relationships of love and trust so that their hearts may continue to grow in curiosity and openness to the Master of the field–and so that, one day, those hearts may truly seek to be harvested and united with that of the heart of the Master, Jesus. 

It is not just the 12 apostles who are called to go out to the field, but the others as well. Similarly today, it is not just the clergy, religious, and the few that work for the Church that are called to go into the field, but all of us “others.” It's not easy; the world will be against us, no matter who is in charge or leading us. And many of us will come up with the excuse that we aren't prepared enough to go out to the harvest. But the Lord doesn’t say you have to go out to the harvest fully prepared, but rather to trust in what will be given to you. You don’t have the greatest knowledge or be the holiest saint to go out; the Master of the harvest will give you all that you need to prepare his crop. BE NOT AFRAID!

In the Gospel, when the 72 came back, they returned  celebrating all the Lord had done through them. If we trust in the Lord and all that he can do through us, despite feeling inadequate and ill-prepared, we too will come back “rejoicing” for all the Lord is doing through us as his hands and feet. 

This is what it means to live in the true freedom of doing what we ought, breaking out of our comfort of cultural/familial/comfortable Catholicism. We must move out of a mode where we just teach people the truths about the faith and move into a mode of truly going out as the laborers. We must accompany people by walking with them as they grow closer to Jesus in their own life so that he the Master of the crop may come and, in the harvest, unite their own hearts to his most Sacred Heart.