Reading the Crowd, 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A), June 18, 2023

"Reading the crowd" was one of Jesus' great gifts. As we hear in today's Gospel passage from Matthew 9, his intuitive sense of both the joys and burdens of those who came to him in great numbers allowed him great compassion for them and gave him the ability to grace them with blessings where they were most need. He passes this gift on to the Twelve, a reminder to us that we, too, have been sent out, blessed with this gift to console, heal, and liberate. 

When Jesus invites his disciples to pray for laborers for this great harvest, we are not praying for others to join the harvest; we have met those laborers, and they are we.