Dear Lord, in many broad fields of this vast country of ours, the wheat is
growing now. Some is still young and green, some is headed out, and all,
before very long, will be golden ripe.
Most of it, dear Lord Jesus, will go to feed the hungry. In countless
loaves of bread and in cereals, it will find its way to tables in city and
country almost all over the world.
Some of it will be used at another table. It will be ground into fine flour
and used to make the hosts, the altar-breads for Holy Mass. Priests will
take it into their anointed hands and pronounce over it the words of
consecration, and it will cease to be ordinary bread, and will become the
Bread of angels. It will look as it did before, but we know and believe
that it will be the Body and Blood, the Soul and Divinity of You, Lord
Jesus Christ, there really present, under the appearances of bread.
O Jesus, bless the broad, rich fields of wheat in our whole land. Protect
them from hail and beating rains, from blight and rust, from windstorms and
drought. Let them be full and rich, so that the hungry may be fed, and may
praise You and thank You as You deserve. And may all the Holy Masses that
will be said with hosts made of this wheat hasten the day when at last
there will be enough reapers working in Your harvest, which is ripe and
ready now, waiting only to be gathered home. Amen.
[from Rural Life Prayer Book, Catholic Rural Life]
