The harvest is great but the workers are few, PRAY, therefore, to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into His harvest”. (Mt. 9:38;Lk. 10:2).
This is the divine command of Jesus when he saw the crowd and He felt compassion for them because they were harassed and dejected like sheep without a shepherd. This is the immediate response of Jesus to that situation to PRAY… His heart was move into action to PRAY- not only for the quantity of workers but for good quality, holy workers for the Church.
St Annibale Maria di Francia in his time, felt the same as what Jesus felt about the lack of holy workers. The prayer of Jesus became his own prayer, praying for holy workers or holy vocations, particularly holy priests or holy ministers for the Church. That is why he committed his entire life to PRAY for holy vocations as the identity, the charism and the spirituality of the two congregations that he founded: the Daughters of Divine Zeal and the Rogationist of the Heart of Jesus. The secret of saving and the sanctification of souls is through PRAYER.
We imagine a single holy person can make a world of difference – how much more of a difference can be made, then, when we pray for a holy priest or a holy consecrated person because it is in them to guide and lead us to God. If a priest, consecrated or lay person is holy, everything follows that all workers in God’s vineyard become holy and, therefore, there will be a holy nation. Even one holy person can affect a nation and the whole world – look at the lives of the saints. They are holy because their life is a life of prayer and that their prayer was transformed into loving service for others. The challenge is now handed to us to be one of the holy workers in the Church.
The secret of holiness is revealed. Let us be faithful to our prayer. A prayer without action is useless so let us also commit ourselves to pray and our prayer can be transformed to doing any charitable acts, especially for those who are most in need of our help.
I invite you to pray every day this short prayer for holy vocations:
Send O Lord, Holy Apostles into your Church!
Daughters of Divine Zeal Vocations 