In Due Time We Shall Reap
MASS Inclína, Dómine
LESSON Galatians 5:25–26; 6:1–10
GOSPEL St Luke 7:11–16
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
“If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” With these words St Paul gives us one of the simplest and most demanding summaries of the Christian life. It is not enough merely to have received grace; grace must become the principle by which we live. It is not enough to have been baptised, confirmed, absolved, or nourished by Holy Communion. These divine gifts are meant to bear fruit in us. The supernatural life received from God must increasingly shape our thoughts, our choices, our habits, our relationships, and the manner in which we carry the duties and burdens of each day.
That is why St Paul moves immediately from the lofty reality of life in the Spirit to very ordinary things: vainglory, envy, correction of the fallen, bearing one another’s burdens, perseverance in good. Sanctity is not ordinarily proved by extraordinary experiences. It is proved when grace governs the ordinary. It is shown when we continue praying after enthusiasm has passed, when we fulfil our duties when nobody notices, when we help another person carry a burden, when we resist discouragement, when we keep doing good although the result remains invisible.
“Bear ye one another’s burdens,” says the Apostle, “and so you shall fulfil the law of Christ.” Christianity is not an isolated relationship between the individual soul and God. We belong to the Mystical Body of Christ. One member suffers and another helps him. One becomes discouraged and another strengthens him. One falls and another assists him to rise. One carries sorrow and another shares some part of the weight. This is not sentimentality. Charity becomes real precisely when it costs something.
Every family knows what this means. There are illnesses, financial anxieties, bereavements, difficult relationships, disappointments and worries about children. There are parents who become elderly, children who wander from the Faith, marriages which pass through periods of strain, and people who carry griefs which others barely understand. St Paul does not tell Christians to expect a life without burdens. He tells us how those burdens are to be carried: together, in Christ.
Sometimes bearing another’s burden means practical assistance. Sometimes it means patience. Sometimes it means forgiving what we would rather remember. Sometimes it means continuing to pray for someone who appears unchanged. Sometimes it means remaining beside a person whose suffering we cannot remove. And sometimes it means making sacrifices which will never be acknowledged. These things are not interruptions to the spiritual life. Very often they are the spiritual life.
Then St Paul warns us against self-sufficiency: “If any man think himself to be some thing, whereas he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.” He is not denying human dignity. We are made in the image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Christ. But in the supernatural order we possess nothing independently of God. Every good act, every victory over temptation, every worthy confession, every perseverance in prayer, every increase of charity depends upon grace.
That truth should not discourage us. It should relieve us of the illusion that everything depends upon our own strength. We do not have to carry the whole future of our families, the Church, or the world upon our shoulders. We have duties, certainly. We must act, pray, sacrifice, teach and persevere. But the increase belongs to God. Our task is fidelity.
And that brings us to the great image at the heart of today’s Epistle: sowing and reaping. “What things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap.” St Paul asks us to understand the spiritual life as a field. Every day seed is being planted. Every repeated choice prepares a harvest. Character is not formed suddenly. It is formed by the accumulation of acts.
A man who repeatedly feeds anger is sowing something. A man who excuses dishonesty is sowing something. A man who habitually neglects prayer is sowing something. The harvest may not appear immediately, but the seed is not inactive. Repeated choices gradually incline the soul in a particular direction.
But the reverse is equally true, and this is where the Apostle gives us enormous encouragement. Every Rosary prayed when tired is a seed. Every temptation resisted is a seed. Every act of forgiveness is a seed. Every Mass attended faithfully is a seed. Every sacrifice offered quietly is a seed. Every catechism lesson taught to a child is a seed. Every prayer for someone who has abandoned the Faith is a seed. Every act of patience performed for the love of God is seed placed into the field of eternity.
And very often we do not see the harvest at once.
This is where discouragement becomes dangerous. We pray for somebody for years and nothing appears to change. Parents teach the Faith and wonder whether their children are listening. A priest labours in a small apostolate and sees little visible growth. Families try to maintain Catholic customs in a culture which constantly pulls in another direction. We preserve things which seem fragile and wonder whether anyone after us will value them.
Then comes the temptation to say: what difference does any of this make?
St Paul answers directly: “In doing good, let us not fail: for in due time we shall reap, not failing.”
In due time.
Those words matter.
Not necessarily quickly. Not necessarily visibly. Not necessarily according to the timetable we would choose. But in due time.
A farmer does not sow seed and then abandon the field because nothing appears the following morning. Much of the most important work is happening beneath the surface. So too with grace. God can be working where we see nothing. A prayer remembered from childhood, the example of a parent, a forgotten catechism lesson, the memory of incense at Mass, the image of a crucifix in the home, the habit of making the Sign of the Cross: all these may remain buried for years before circumstances suddenly make them live again.
This is why parents and grandparents must never conclude too quickly that their efforts have failed. A child may drift far from the Faith and yet carry within him memories which grace can later awaken. St Monica could not see the future Bishop Augustine while she was weeping for her wandering son. She simply continued to pray. God gave the harvest in His time.
The same principle applies to the restoration of Catholic life. Much that previous generations received almost automatically must now be deliberately taught. Children must learn the prayers. Gregorian chant must be learnt because it is no longer simply heard everywhere. Catholic customs must be practised because otherwise they disappear. The Catechism must be taught because the surrounding culture will not transmit the Faith for us. Vocations must be prayed for and encouraged. The home itself must become once again a place where Catholic life is visible.
This work is slow, but slow is not the same as fruitless.
A mother teaching a child his prayers is sowing. A father taking his family faithfully to Mass is sowing. A priest teaching doctrine clearly is sowing. A server learning the responses is sowing. A choir learning the sacred music of the Church is sowing. A family observing the feasts and fasts of the Church is sowing. A young man considering a priestly vocation is sowing. A convert learning the traditions of the Faith is sowing.
Very little of this appears dramatic. Yet Christianity has always grown through such acts. God often builds through things which the world regards as small.
This is why we should resist the temptation to measure spiritual fruit only by immediate success. The world measures by numbers, visibility, influence and speed. God frequently works through hiddenness, patience and perseverance. Bethlehem was small. Nazareth was obscure. Twelve Apostles did not appear to be the beginning of a civilisation. The Cross looked like failure. Yet God’s harvest is not measured according to worldly appearances.
St Paul therefore says: “Whilst we have time, let us work good to all men.” We have time now. Yesterday cannot be recovered, and tomorrow is not promised. The seed we can plant is the seed placed into the ground today. The prayer we can say is the prayer said today. The duty we can fulfil is the duty before us today. The person we can help is the person God has placed before us today.
There is no need to wait for ideal circumstances before becoming faithful. The world may remain confused. The Church may continue through trials. Our families may remain imperfect. Our own spiritual progress may seem painfully slow. Still the command remains: sow in the Spirit.
And here there is something especially beautiful about Catholic Tradition. Tradition itself is a harvest which became seed again. What earlier generations received, they handed on. Their prayers became our prayers. Their liturgy became our liturgy. Their doctrine became our inheritance. Their devotions, disciplines and customs reached us because somebody before us refused to let them disappear.
Now the responsibility belongs to us.
We are not preserving a museum. We are handing on life.
A child learning the Mass today may one day teach his own children. A boy serving at the altar may one day become a priest. A family preserving Catholic customs may establish them in another generation. A soul returning to confession may eventually lead others back. We do not know how far the seed will travel.
We only know that we must sow it.
And St Paul gives us the final measure of the harvest: “He that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting.” That is the purpose of everything. Catholic culture, Catholic family life, beautiful liturgy, sound doctrine, prayer, discipline and tradition all exist finally so that souls may possess God forever.
So let us not grow weary.
Continue praying for the person who seems unchanged. Continue teaching the Faith. Continue bringing children to Mass. Continue supporting what is faithful and good. Continue rebuilding Catholic life in the home. Continue planting seeds whose harvest you may never personally see.
God does not ask us to produce the harvest by our own power.
He asks us to remain faithful in the sowing.
And He gives us His promise:
“In doing good, let us not fail: for in due time we shall reap, not failing.”
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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