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Commentary of the Gospell
Come and rest for a while
The task that Jesus entrusted to the Twelve was not entrusted to them alone, but to each disciple; so today he entrusts it to us. This is the invitation in today’s Gospel: to gather around Jesus to tell him what we are doing, what we have done, and what we are teaching to see and verify if we are doing the mission correctly. I am borrowing a few thoughts from Fr. Armellini in this reflection.
«Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.» This is the invitation that Jesus addresses to us today; An invitation to meet him in the privacy of our personal time with him in prayer. If you have become angry with an employer, if you are tempted to compromise your conscience, if you are agitated by family problems or troubled by a bad love relationship, stop for a while. Look for these moments in which you are alone with Christ, with his Gospel, to know what he thinks of those problems, of your anguish.
These are the moments of prayer, of dialogue with Jesus; after dialoguing with him to tune our options according to what he likes. If we do not pray, we do not see it together with Jesus, problem-solving becomes the only purpose of our life, which ends up dehumanizing us; makes us lose sight of the highest values. And our life becomes an excessive running that in the end leaves us breathless. This is our daily experience, and we get exhausted. This invitation to rest is addressed to all the disciples, in particular, this is a recommendation that perhaps applies more to priests and leaders of the Church, who are involved full time in pastoral activities to the point that they no longer have time even to pray.
The evangelist says that there were many coming and going, and the disciples no longer had time even to eat. It doesn’t say they were looking for Jesus to hear his message; it says they ‘come and go.’ This kind of people wastes a lot of time. There was a lot of confusion, people coming and going, and what does Jesus do? He departs with his disciples. How is it that Jesus leaves in that boat when so many people were looking for him?
It’s a time when it’s good to let people reflect, to become aware of the need to meet Christ. To help them identify what do they actually want. The Christian community represented by that boat is beautiful, then it attracts. People must have said, ‘those people in the boat look really happy.’ Joy is the sign of the presence of the Spirit. This crowd looking for the boat is the living image of humanity today who does not find the meaning of their lives but feels a deep need to find peace, serenity, joy, inner harmony; they are looking for God