Fr Mark Schultz

Dear Friend,

Our Office Gospel today gives us a beautiful reminder of the importance of rest, of retreat, of the rejuvenating virtue of the prayer of silence. The apostles have just returned from a period of teaching, healing and mission, and they’ve eagerly told Jesus all about their adventures (and probably some of their misadventures) along the way. I can imagine Jesus receiving their reports with good humor, joy, and encouragement, and I can imagine the disciples itching to get back on the road again for more mission, more teaching, more healing, more more more. But instead of sending them back out, Jesus invites them to rest within: “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”

I can see a few of the disciples looking quizzically at Jesus. “Teacher,” they might have said, “come on. We can do this all day! Don’t worry about us. Let’s get some more stuff done!” To which Jesus may have smiled and said, “Look at you! You don’t even have time to eat!” “That’s okay!” they reply, “We don’t live on bread alone, after all, right? Right?” “You might not completely understand what that means,” Jesus may have countered, “but how about we get into a boat and go to the far shore and see what happens.”

What happens is another opportunity for mission—a crowd gathers as Jesus and the disciples disembark from the boat, and Jesus has compassion on the crowd and teaches. But after a while, the disciples say to Jesus: “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.” There’s something about this suggestion that feels like it comes from a place of deep weariness: the ministerial wells in the disciples have run dry. They’re saying, “We didn’t realize how tired we were! And this is that deserted place you wanted us to get to…only it’d be a lot more deserted if there weren’t so many people about, so why don’t you tell them to go away and eat and we rest awhile?” (It’s telling to me that the empty stomachs of the apostles—the gospel tells us they weren’t able to eat for all their busy-ness—are mirrored in the hunger of the people…as if the people took on board the disciples’ own poor relationship to sustenance-seeking. Which is, I think, a caution to us all—our own unhealthy behaviors and patterns are just as likely to be taken up by the people around us with- and amongst whom we live, work, and minister, as are the healthier patterns we would wish to model!)

I think that when Jesus asks the disciples to provide food for the crowd themselves, he knows they’ll balk. He knows they’re running on empty. He knows they can't do it on their own. And the miracle of the subsequent feeding is as much an act of compassion toward the hungry crowds as it is a lesson for the disciples—which is to say, it’s as if the Lord is teaching: “The power for the work you’re called to do is not from you—it's not your own energetic enthusiasm that'll sustain. The strength with which you’re called to fulfill your vocation is not your strength at all. No! It’s grace. It’s God’s love. It’s God’s power. And you really actually do need to take the time every now and again to reconnect with this power alive in you to refresh you, renew you, and equip you to do all those good works that God has prepared for you to walk in.” And as a model to and for his disciples, Jesus goes to a quiet place to pray.

Dear Beloved Friend, it is simply a fact of who we are that we cannot persist in the good to which we’re called without taking the time to rest, to be nourished and refreshed not only in our bodies, but in the depths of our souls. A daily time of prayer and reflection, a weekly or biweekly time of more extended quiet and silence, a seasonal time of retreat are all important to the deepening of our prayer and of our ministry. And let me tell you, Dear One—this is encouragement I need to take myself! Beloved, may we commit to intentional and frequent return to the fountain of our being, the fountain of our love, the fountain of all our good, even Jesus Christ our Lord!

Under the Mercy,
Fr Mark+