Commentary to the 16th. Sunday in Ordinary Time – B

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THE TEXT BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO COMMENTARY BY FR.  FERNANDO ARMELLINI 

"The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught." 

A good Sunday to all.  

In Nazareth, things had not gone well at all; the disciples had witnessed the failure of  Jesus' preaching and probably in their minds also the thought 'perhaps it would be better to  abandon this project of a new world that Jesus has in mind; if even their countrymen and  their relatives do not accept it, there is not much hope of success.'  

It is those moments of discouragement that we too experience when things are not going  well in the life of our Christian communities. We would have expected the disciples to return  to Capernaum and resume their work as fishermen, but last week we heard that Jesus sent  them back to a mission and entrusted them with the task of casting out demons. Today we  see them returning from this mission.  

They gather around Jesus and report to him what they have done and what they have  taught. We already said last week that this task that he entrusted to the Twelve did not  entrust it to them alone, but to each disciple; so today he entrusts it to us. That 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.  

The Twelve began to tell their experience and verified the wonders that happen when  the disciple comes with the Gospel. Luke tells us that when they returned, they were radiant  and amazed that where they went, the demons disappeared. Let's try to verify if today we can tell Jesus these things that we have done; is it true that demons disappear where today  we, his disciples, arrive?  

We know what demons are: all that dehumanizes, all the forces of evil, do they disappear  where the Christian community arrives? Do selfishness, offensive words, hunger, misery  disappear from there? Is no one poor because goods are shared? Do immoral life, divisions,  wars, injustice disappear? Do people love each other well, forgive each other and are  generous, welcoming? Can we affirm these things today? Or maybe the Gospel has lost its  effectiveness? Or perhaps we have not proclaimed the true Gospel? Have we made it quite  insipid with our reasonings, have we distorted it by adapting it to the criteria of this world to  make it a little more acceptable, more practicable? If so, we have distorted it, and then those  prodigies that Jesus expects from his disciples do not happen.  

Or perhaps, instead of making the demons disappear, we have centered on some  religious practices. We have insisted on encouraging devotions, pilgrimages, solemn  liturgies... good things, nice things, but if demons don't disappear, we must look for the reason. Have we incarnated the Gospel message? Have we announced the Gospel?  

The criterion to evaluate the effectiveness of our missionary work is the disappearance  of demons. Also, what do we teach today in our communities? What shall we say to Jesus  about our catechesis, about our homilies? The message that we announce, is it that of the  Master, or do we make some vague, superficial speech that does not touch the heart of the  people, does not invite them to make a radical change in their lives? Our preaching does it  touch people's hearts? Are those who listen to our sermons marked for the rest of the week?  Let us remember the sermons preached by the rabbis in the synagogue. They left the demons  very quiet. They were just words to the wind.  

Here we must speak to Jesus and check with him if what we announce corresponds to his  Gospel. Hence the need to confront ourselves with him. Now we would expect Jesus to  congratulate his disciples because they have done their mission well and have taught what he  teaches and wants it to be proclaimed.  

Instead, let's listen to what he invites them to do:  

He said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while." People  were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat. So they  went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place."  

"Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while." This is the invitation that  Jesus addresses to us today; we must meet him again, in an uninhabited place, 'kathidían' in  Greek. It means in private; they are those moments of intimacy with the Lord. This expression  is used when he is alone with his disciples to reveal messages that only they can understand.  For example, after telling the parables, the evangelist Mark tells us that Jesus privately  ('kathidían') explains everything to them; or when Jesus leads these three disciples on the  mount of transfiguration, it says that he led them alone, apart; and then, they must go to a  deserted place, 'éremos' in Greek is an adjective from which the word "hermitage" comes.  Therefore, a place of silence, solitude, and meditation, where there is no confusion, must  meet alone with him. It is that moment of intimacy that today we can call with a name that  we know very well, moments of prayer.  

Prayer is the dialogue between people in love who want to deepen their mutual  knowledge, want to exchange their dreams and share their expectations, their hopes, and  their mutual love. Our relationship with Christ is not that of the master, of the employer, who at the end of the day pays us, no. The relationship with Christ as it is presented in the Gospels, is the spousal relationship, the one cultivated by people in love who spend a lot of time  together, who cultivate these moments of intimacy.  

These are the moments of prayer, of dialogue with him because we are the ones who  must solve the problems, but after dialoguing with him to tune our options according to what  he likes. If we do not pray, we act in the wrong way. About our profession: if we do not  dialogue with Jesus, we do not see it together with him, it easily becomes an idol; it becomes  the only purpose of our life, which ends up dehumanizing us; makes us lose sight of the  highest values. I can dedicate all our time, all our thoughts to the idol that makes us lose sight  of the highest values and then our life becomes an excessive running that in the end tires and  leaves us breathless. And, at a certain point, we no longer understand what the end of  everything we do is.  

We all do this experience, we spin like tops all day long, and we arrive at night exhausted  by our activity which absorbs us completely, prevents us from thinking about anything else,  and makes us forget the most important thing. Here is the need we all must stop and look  again at what is happening in our life with Jesus, alone, in silence and meditation.  

"To rest for a while." The objective is rest; it is not a recommendation to take a few days  of rest and then resume our work with more frenzy. No, the objective of this rest is to regain  inner peace, the tranquility of mind, the serenity of heart, to find ourselves. 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, 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.  

How can you say that he does not speak to you! Because if you know his Gospel, if you  are his disciple, you know how he thinks, and then you hear him speak, you know the  suggestions he gives you. You need those moments when you dialogue with him so that you  are not at the mercy of your passions, of your pride, your jealousy, your envy, your  resentments. Here you find the peace that these moments of encounter with him give you.  The most immediate application is the experience that we have on the Lord's day, which is  the time of rest of our week when we listen to his Word, we meet the brethren who share  with us the same life project. That is a truly unique experience that should give meaning to  our lives, to the rest of our week and also of our life.  

This rest is exactly what is recounted in Psalm 23 to which the evangelist clearly refers. It  is the oasis where we meet with the shepherd, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He  makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside the still waters, he refreshes me,  he leads me in the right way." It is the invitation to rest, to meet the Lord.  

And if this invitation to rest is addressed to all the disciples, there is an appeal, a  recommendation that perhaps applies more to priests and parish priests, to those who are  involved full time in pastoral activities that sometimes absorb them more than necessary to  the point that they no longer have time even to pray. And, in fact, the evangelist says that  there were many coming and going, and the disciples no longer had time even to eat. This is  the experience that many times we priests have in the parishes; many times, we meet with a  chaotic, disorderly crowd that gives the idea of people who come and go and it seems that  they do not know exactly what they want, what they expect from the parish and Jesus.  

It doesn't say they were looking for Jesus to hear his message; it says they 'come and go.'  This kind of people also wastes a lot of time and is very different from those crowds that we  are going to talk about in a little while in the Gospel, people who are looking for Jesus. These people that come and go are not only not helpful to find the inner rest, but also certain  religious manifestations made of scattered exteriority do not lead to union with the Lord, and  in the end, we perceive that they are not even beneficial.  

What does Jesus do now? He departs with his disciples with the boat and goes to a  deserted, secluded place. Again, these places are mentioned that indicate solitude and  silence, meditation. Let's look at this boat now as it sails away on the lake. It is the moment  of rest, but it does not last long. Then comes the encounter with the needs of the people.  

Let's listen to what happens to Jesus and the disciples when they arrive with their boat  on dry land:  

"People saw them leaving and many came to know about it. They hastened there on foot  from all the towns and arrived at the place before them. When he disembarked and saw the  vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a  shepherd; and he began to teach them many things."  

Let's try to understand the meaning of Jesus' decision to leave the crowd and go with the  disciples in the boat. There was a lot of confusion, people coming and going, but also people  who wanted to hear his message. How is it that Jesus leaves in that boat? It's a time when it's  good to let people reflect, to become aware of the need to meet Christ.  

Of course, you must be salt and leaven in the world, but there comes a time when it is  wise to disregard people because you can become even more significant just when you step  back for a moment, and all the people come walking. If 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. We know, indeed, that  those who live in hardship, those who have serious economic problems have no rest, but  neither have rest those who live in opulence, in unrestrained luxury, in sensuality, in daze that  does not know what madness to invent to experience the excitement of new adventures.  None of them live in the condition of serenity, of rest, of inner harmony.  

What does this crowd do? It even precedes the boat, a sign of the need of the multitude,  and also of humanity today, to meet Christ. This Christ that is found in this community, what  does Jesus do now? Let's look now at the verbs that are life lessons for the Christian  community today.  

The first verb: disembark. The temptation that the Church may have is not to disembark,  not to find a way to find this humanity as it is, therefore, to assume that attitude of  detachment and to limit itself to repeat the usual complaint that the world is disordered, that  there is moral degradation, that all moral values are lost. The Church must come out of itself,  out of its self-referentiality, and must go to meet the man, the woman of today, as he or she  is.  

The Church could be afraid of this world, of this confrontation with the world; afraid to  present that humanism which is that of the beatitudes of Jesus of Nazareth; afraid of being  considered retrograde, of not being up to date with the times, be afraid that its proposal will  be considered that of the dreamers and afraid above all to tell the central truth of faith and  of Easter, which is the faith in a life that goes beyond biological life. This is the first message  that comes from the Master: he comes down from the boat and meets this humanity. 

Second verb: "he saw a great multitude." He sees a great multitude; he opens his eyes to  see the needs of this multitude that seeks rest, that does not know where to go; and the  people catch the look that the Church has towards them, the love that is felt towards them.  This humanity perceives if we have captured the restlessness that they have, and expects us  to answer these inner questions.  

Third verb: "He had compassion" with the famous verb 'splangenísomai.' 'Splángema' is  the bowels, are the reference to the Hebrew term with which the Lord presents his love: 'Ani  Rachun,' it says in the book of Exodus. That is, 'I am the one who feels love for humankind,'  and is presented with the image of the passion that a mother feels for her child that she  carries in her womb. And, in fact, 'rejem' in Greek is the mother's womb; the love of God is a  uterine love. This is 'splangenisomai.' It is beautiful that when God presents his love, He does  not say that he loves us with all his heart, but with his womb. It is a feminine image because  men also have, but the womb only women. This is the ultimate in passionate involvement.  This is what Jesus feels for this humanity that needs him and his Gospel.  

The reason: 'They were like sheep without a shepherd.' The reference is to two Old  Testament texts. The first is that of Moses who at the end of the Exodus, in the book of  Numbers, remembers and asks the Lord: 'I pray to you that these people may not be like a  flock adrift without a shepherd.' He asked the Lord to send them one day a shepherd to lead  them as he had led them. Indeed, they had shepherds, even many, but they did not care for  their people; they thought of their interest and their privileges; they dominated over the  people, they exploited them, and in fact, the prophet Ezekiel says (and this is the second text  the evangelist refers to) says that because of the shepherds, the people are scattered, and  the sheep, which are the flock of the Lord are prey to all the ferocious beasts. And they are  sheep, and they are wandering all over the land, and no one cares for them.  

In Jesus' time, there were shepherds: the scribes, the Pharisees, the rabbis, the political  leaders, King Herod, but they took care of themselves, not of the people. One can be a good  shepherd, but there are also bad shepherds. And those who follow a good shepherd become  a good person, and those who follow a bad shepherd becometh a bad person. This is the  reality of our humanity today. We must have the look and love that Jesus showed for those  multitudes that we see around us.  

There is a widespread thirst that cannot be quenched by pleasures, by dumbing down;  there is a deep need that we often do not become aware of, but it is felt. It is the need for  God. We must have that look at the people around us and grasp that need they feel. Let's ask  ourselves why today many resort to esoteric rites, to theosophies, to oriental religions... they  are looking for their soul's rest. If these people would meet Christ in the Christian community,  if they would meet his Word, they would find the answer to their concerns... because when  one is thirsty and is not shown the fountain of living water which is the Gospel, then he ends  up drinking from whatever cistern he or she can find.  

Also, today Jesus could say that the disbanded people, like sheep without a shepherd,  are not bad, but if they are guided by bad shepherds, they go to death. The shepherds are the  models of people who lead the people also today. The Christian must have the courage to  present with his word and with his own life that he embodies the Gospel, the proposal of man  made by Jesus. Therefore, this tenderness and this compassion are what the man and woman  of today seek in the Church.  

It is the compassion for the fragility, the weaknesses, the losses due above all to the  shepherds. What does Jesus do? He begins to teach, not to curse, not to get angry, no. He announces his Word but not like the professors who give a lesson, but like the rabbis who  involved the disciples in their life; they made the disciples experience their own life.  The call for us today is to get involved in the Word and the life of Jesus. When we present  the Word and the Gospel incarnate in our lives, we will be a calling to all those who are called  to the Gospel who today are disoriented because of the shepherds who have led them in the  ways of death.  

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.