Plowing the Fields

A well beloved hymn, put into a new musical setting in Godspell many years ago, still reverberates the ancient but ever current truth:
We plow the fields, and scatter
The good seed on the land,
But it is fed and watered
By God's almighty hand.
Perhaps this is nowhere more evident than in Catholic education. The daily routine of class after class, the lack of time to "get everything in", the unnerving questions in religion class, the sometimes apparent hostility, the joys of leaping ahead counterbalanced by the setbacks, seem to lend themselves to the doubt that we are accomplishing anything. These are the years of the sowing. Then, years later, a student returns from college to testify before parents, teachers, and prospective students, how well he or she was prepared for undergraduate work, and of particular note to a Catholic school community, how prepared he or she was as far as the understanding and love of their faith, for the onslaught into a world of challenge, question, mockery and outright temptation. The simple sentence, "It is possible to live the Catholic Faith on a secular campus" from a graduate, is music to the ears. Somehow the "watering" was done by a power beyond us when we thought nothing was happening. And this principle holds true in so many other facets of life: the raising of children, leadership in the workplace, governance in the community, etc. It leads us to sing with great joy the chorus of this old hymn:
All good gifts around us
Are sent from heaven above;
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
For all his love.
Bro. Rene