The harvest is abundant

The Harvest Is Abundant

Just as lands covered thick with produce, and broad and long, require numerous and able laborers; so the whole earth, or rather the company of those about to believe in Christ, being great and innumerable, required not a few teachers, but as many as would suffice for the work. And for this reason Christ appointed those who were to be the allies, so to speak, and assistants of the twelve disciples. They went, therefore, on their mission, being sent two and two to every city and village, crying, as it were, in the words of John the Baptist, prepare ye the way of the Lord….

But inasmuch as it belongs to the supreme God alone to send forth laborers, how was it that Christ appointed them? Is he not, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, and God the Father, by him and with him, the Lord of all? All things, therefore, are his, and there is nothing of all things which are named that belongs to the Father, which is not also the Son’s….

And the wise John also affirms that we all are his, thus saying of him: I indeed baptize you in water: but after me cometh he who is mightier than I; he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit, and in fire. Whose fan is in his hand, and he will cleanse his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

May it be our lot then as rational wheat, to be carried into God’s treasure house, even into the mansions that are above: that there, in company with the rest of the saints, we may enjoy the blessings which God bestows in Christ; by whom, and with whom, to God the Father be praise and dominion with the Holy Spirit, unto ages of ages. Amen.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria

Saint Cyril of Alexandria († 444) was an eminent figure of ancient Christian literature and a valiant defender of the Faith.