Meditation for July 24, My Task

One of the most instructive accounts of the Gospel is the parable of the Sower. Jesus had often noticed the Palestinian countrymen going to their work with the plow on their back, or on the back of a donkey, driving before them, their oxen; or if it was the season when the fields had been plowed, He saw them sowing their seeds.

At sowing time, when the fruitful seed was confided to the earth, more than one farmer realizing that he could little afford to lose a harvest, because of voracious birds, or thistles sometimes more than three feet high, or torrential rains which might sweep over the planted fields, prayed to the Most High. And his prayer contained among other thoughts this queer petition: "Lord, our busi­ness is the red; Yours is the green," meaning, the toil which over­ turns clods of bright red earth is all our concern, but it is for You to make the wheat grow transforming this plot of ocher and brown­ish violet colored soil into green fields.

Here is a perfect description of my part in the tasks assigned to me, as well as God's part. It is up to me to exercise effort in pushing the plowshare, to cut the ground into furrows, narrow and straight and sometimes bloody; it is for God to make the grain grow, to crown my efforts with success, thirty, sixty, or even a hundred fold.

Therefore, I must not grow proud when I have succeeded. When the grain does not grow, I must not pity myself nor grow discour­aged. I have done what I could, accomplished my task; fulfilled my role. Let God fulfill His as He understands it. He knows best what is good for me.
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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)