The work of evangelizing souls is always effective. The Lord, in often unsuspected ways, makes our efforts bear fruit. My chosen ones will not work in vain, he has promised us.
The apostolic mission is sometimes sowing, without visible fruits, and other times harvesting what others have sown with their word, or with their pain from a hospital bed, or with a hidden and monotonous work that remained unnoticed to human eyes. In both cases, the Lord wants the sower and the reaper to rejoice together. The apostolate is a joyful task and, at the same time, a sacrificial one: in the sowing and in the reaping.
The apostolic task is also patient and constant labor. In the same way that the farmer knows how to wait for days and days until he sees the seed sprout, and even more so until the harvest, so must we do in our efforts to bring souls closer to God. The Gospel and our own experience teach us that grace usually needs time to bear fruit in souls. We also know of the resistance to grace in many hearts, as may have happened in our own in the past. Our help to others will then manifest itself in greater patience - closely related to the virtue of fortitude - and in constancy without discouragement. Let us not try to pluck the fruit before it is ripe. "And it is this patience that impels us to be understanding with others, persuaded that souls, like good wine, get better with time."
Waiting is not to be confused with neglect or abandonment. On the contrary, it moves us to put in place the most appropriate means for the concrete situation of the person we want to help: an abundance of the light of doctrine, more prayer and joy, a spirit of sacrifice, a deepening of friendship....
And when the seed seems to fall on rocky or thorny ground, and the desired fruit is slow in coming, then we must reject any shadow of pessimism when we see that the wheat does not appear when we wanted it to. "You are often mistaken when you say: "I have deceived myself with the education of my children", or "I have not known how to do good around me". What is happening is that you have not yet achieved the result you intended, that you do not yet see the fruit you would have wished for, because the harvest is not yet ripe. What matters is that you have sown, that you have given souls to God. When God wills, these souls will return to Him. You may not be there to see it, but there will be others to reap what you have sown". Above all there will be Christ, for whom we have labored.
Working when we do not see the fruits is a good symptom of faith and uprightness of intention, a good sign that we are truly carrying out a task for the glory of God alone. "Faith is an indispensable requirement in the apostolate, which often manifests itself in the constancy to speak of God, even if it takes time for the fruits to come.
"If we persevere, if we insist, well convinced that the Lord wants it, signs of a Christian revolution will be seen all around you, everywhere: some will give themselves, others will take their interior life seriously, and others - the laziest - will at least be alerted."