"Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into his harvest!" This means that the harvest exists, but God wants to use men so that it may be brought into the barn. God needs men. He needs people who will say: Yes, I am willing to become your worker in the harvest; I am willing to help so that this harvest, which is ripening in the hearts of men, can truly enter the barns of eternity and become the eternal divine communion of joy and love.
"Pray to the Lord of the harvest!" This also means: we cannot simply "produce" vocations, they must come from God. We cannot, as in other professions, simply recruit people through well-targeted advertisements or the right strategies. The call, coming from the heart of God, must always find its way to the heart of man. And yet, precisely so that it reaches the hearts of men, our cooperation is also necessary. Praying to the Lord of the harvest certainly means, first of all, praying for it, shaking the heart and saying: "Please do it! Wake up the men! Ignite in them the enthusiasm and joy for the Gospel! Help them understand that this is the most precious of all treasures, and that those who have discovered it must pass it on!"
We shake the heart of God. But praying to God is not only done through words of prayer; it also implies transforming the word into action, so that our praying heart may spark the joy in God, the joy of the Gospel, and awaken in other hearts the willingness to say “yes.” As people of prayer, filled with His light, we reach others, and by involving them in our prayer, we bring them into the light of God's presence, which will then do its part. In this sense, we always and again want to pray to the Lord of the harvest, shake His heart, and touch, through our prayer, the hearts of men so that He, according to His will, may mature in them the “yes,” the willingness, and the perseverance through all the confusions of time, through the heat of the day and the darkness of the night—to faithfully persevere in service, drawing from it the awareness that, although tiring, this effort is good, it is useful because it leads to the essential: to make men receive what they are waiting for—the light of God and the love of God.
Pope Benedict XVI
Meeting with priests and deacons in Freising, September 14, 2006.