“The harvest is plenty but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” Matthew 9:38
I hear you, Jesus! I hear your message. I know, you need help out there in the fields and of course I want to help you in your cause.
The harvest is plenty, but I need laborers in this work. Come with me into the fields.
Yes, I want to. I really long to follow you and when I pray, I know that’s the right direction. Into the fields with you, laboring at your side with the people you love. Call me; take me with you, Jesus. I want to answer your invitation because I know you mean it for me.
But where should I go to serve? My heart is moved by your call and I think of working with the villagers in our university’s Latin American clinical programs, living among the families in the villages and spending my summer helping with their medical needs. I would be compassionate, brave and loving and so open to you if only I were there.
Or, it would be easy to feel like I was laboring in the fields if maybe I was teaching in a big inner city program for disadvantaged kids or if I joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps or the Peace Corps. But I’m 48, I’ve got two teenagers, a husband and a house. Where is the service in that?
I stand before you and feel your incredibly loving gaze on me, your supporting hand on my shoulder. “What else can I do for you?” I ask weakly. I feel lost, vulnerable and suddenly empty. What about the people you have put in my life? Can’t I be more patient with those I see as lazy? More loving to those I judge so harshly as incompetent? Why can’t I love as you do, without limits and without my own bias?
At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.
Dear Lord, help me. I am troubled and abandoned. I think I’m the one who needs help and caring – I’m certainly not good enough to be the one doing the caring. But you are so full of love. You see me for my many faults, my impatience, my tendency to judge so harshly, to be so afraid of so much.
Come with me into the fields.
Yet you call me. You know me so well, and love me so intensely. And you call me. I hear you and I will come. I will rely on you for the courage to not be afraid, for the patience and kindness to not judge. Help me to serve. Help me to love. Help me to work alongside you in the harvest.
Maureen McCann Waldron
The most important part of my life is my family – Jim my husband of 47 years and our two children. Our daughter Katy, a banker here in Omaha, and her husband John, have three wonderful children: Charlotte, Daniel and Elizabeth Grace. Our son Jack and his wife, Ellie, have added to our joy with their sons, Peter and Joseph.
I think family life is an incredible way to find God, even in (or maybe I should say, especially in) the most frustrating or mundane moments.
I am a native of the East Coast after graduating in 1971 from Archbishop John Carroll High School in suburban Philadelphia. I graduated from Creighton University in 1975 with a degree in Journalism and spent most of the next 20 years in corporate public relations in Omaha. I returned to Creighton in the 1990s and completed a master’s degree in Christian Spirituality in 1998.
As our children were growing up, my favorite times were always family dinners at home when the four of us would talk about our days. But now that our kids are gone from home, my husband and I have rediscovered how nice it is to have a quiet dinner together. I also have a special place in my heart for family vacations when the kids were little and four of us were away from home together. It’s a joy to be with my growing family.
Writing a Daily Reflection is always a graced moment, because only with God’s help could I ever write one. I know my own life is hectic, disjointed and imperfect and I know most of us have lives like that. I usually write from that point of view and I always seem to find some sentence, some word in the readings that speaks right to me, in all of my imperfection. I hope that whatever I write is in some way supportive of others.
It’s an incredibly humbling experience to hear from someone who was touched by something I wrote. Whether the note is from someone across campus or across the world, it makes me realize how connected we are all in our longing to grow closer to God.
