Understood in a certain light, Jesus’ call to pray to the Master of the Harvest to send out laborers seems to imply that, if we fail to pray, no laborers will be sent. Yet if God would send laborers regardless of our prayer, then Jesus’ insistence on praying to the Master of the Harvest appears unnecessary. A similar question arises with all intercessory prayer: if, as Saint Augustine asks, the Lord already knows what is needful for us before we ask, why does He command us to pray?
The key lies in that phrase: “what is needful.” Much of our prayer—especially in the early immature stages of the spiritual life—is filled with petitions that are not needful at all. Some are merely self‑serving; others, if granted, would be spiritually harmful to ourselves or to others. Yet even these imperfect prayers have a place. By continuing to pray, and by God not giving us what we ask for, we are gradually trained to discern His will and to discover and desire what He desires for our welfare. Prayer thus becomes the school in which our hearts are formed and our wills aligned with God’s will.
This growth in discerning God’s will is not always easy. Often it is accompanied by reluctance, unease, or even dread. We think of what God’s will meant for Saint Paul when he explained to the elders at Ephesus: I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions await me. Even more poignant is Jesus’ own prayer in Gethsemane, where in anguish He utters a twofold petition: first, that the cup of suffering might pass Him by, and yet, at the same time, not my will but yours be done. In both cases, prayer does not remove the cost of obedience; it strengthens the heart to embrace it.
Returning to the question of laborers for the harvest, the difficulty often arises when we equate “laborers” primarily with priestly or religious vocations. One of the central teachings of the Second Vatican Council was the universal call to holiness—the insistence that every baptized believer is called to be a laborer in the harvest and a herald of the Gospel. Understood in this way, Jesus’ instruction to pray for laborers includes praying that we ourselves may be among those whom the Father sends.
And so, as we hear Jesus’ command to pray for laborers, let us not imagine that we are praying for someone else, somewhere else, at some later time. Let us dare to pray that the Father make us ready—ready to be shaped by His compassion, ready to be drawn into His will, ready to be sent wherever the harvest is ripe. May our prayer not only ask for laborers but awaken in us the courage to become them, trusting that the One who calls also equips, strengthens, and sustains those He sends into His harvest.