From the Rector - Monsignor Mancini

My dear Brothers and Sisters,

I would like to share with you the following meditation:

Ask the Master of the Harvest

All true apostolic workers expect much more from their sacrifices and prayers than from their active work. The secret of a fruitful apostolate is to be found much more at the foot of the Cross than in the display of brilliance. "These three remain: word, example, prayer; but the greatest of these is prayer" cries Saint Bernard. A very strong statement, but it is simply a commentary on the resolution taken by the Apostles to leave certain works alone in order to give themselves first of all to prayer; and only after that to preaching (Acts 6).

Consider the fundamental importance the Savior gave to this spirit of prayer. Looking out upon the world and upon the ages that were to come, he cried out in sorrow: The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few. What would he propose as the quickest way to spread his teaching? Would he ask his apostles to go to school in Athens, or to study, at Rome, under the Caesars, how to conquer and govern empires? He reveals a program and a principle full of light: Pray ye therefore the Lord of the Harvest that he send forth laborers into the harvest. No mention of techniques of organization, of raising funds, building churches, or putting up schools. Only pray ye. This one fundamental truth of prayer, and the spirit of prayer, is something the Master constantly repeated. Everything else, without exception flows from it.

Pray ye therefore! First of all, pray. Only after that, does Our Lord add going, teach...preach. Of course, God will make use of these other means; but the blessings that make a ministry fruitful are reserved for the prayers of a man of interior life. Such prayer will have the power to bring forth from the bosom of God the strength for an apostolate that souls cannot resist.

DOM JEAN-BAPTISTE CHAUTARD, O.C.S.O. Dom Chautard (1935) was a French Cistercian monk and the abbot of Sept-Fons Abbey.