Homily

The Gospel passage that we heard last Sunday showed us Jesus sending the twelve apostles, two by two, to the villages of Galilee to announce the coming of the kingdom of God, to heal the sick and to help the weak and the poor. The evangelist speaks explicitly of a “power” conferred to the envoys so that they may be able to perform such things. Obviously this power is neither political nor economic, but it is a real power, a force that healed both body and heart. The Gospel passage this sixteenth Sunday narrates the return of the six couples of apostles from their mission. From the evangelist’s description, we can deduce the satisfaction of both the disciples and Jesus, who entrusted such a task to the disciples, although he knew how little prepared they were. It was sufficient that they had obeyed what they were ordered to do to the letter. They preached that a new time has come and repeated his gestures of mercy. Obedience bore fruits. And we can imagine the affectionate expression on Jesus’ face while they recounted all that they had done. The twelve were happy and even a bit tired, as happens to every true “missionary” who forgets him or herself while serving the Gospel.
After having told Jesus all that they had done, Jesus said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” Jesus’ exhortation resonates with us in this time as many begin to prepare for repose or, even more, it speaks to the necessity of silence, for a serious return to an interior life. These words of Jesus can most certainly be applied to moments in reflection meetings and spiritual retreats, but also to the weekly “rest” that is the Sunday Mass. I do not know if the Sunday liturgy is ordinarily lived with this spirit, but if one had to find a Gospel passage to express the spirituality of Sunday, these words of Jesus are very suitable. During the Sunday Mass, we are all taken “away” to a place different from our ordinary life, different even from the places where we vacation, so that we can enter into dialogue with the Lord, listen to a true word for our life, nourish ourselves with a solid friendship and receive a strength capable of sustaining us, a medicine able to heal us. It is not about escaping from life. Encountering the Lord on Sunday is not separate from our life’s ordinary time; if anything, it is a hinge connecting last week with the upcoming one. It is like a light that illuminates the time that passed yesterday, so that we may understand it, and the time to come tomorrow, so that we may chart our course through it.
It is this that happens in this Gospel story. Jesus and the disciples get in a boat to get to the other shore. The time spent during the crossing, getting from one side to the other, could be compared to the Sunday liturgy, which connects the two seashores always crowded by people in need. The crowds both of yesterday and today are, without a doubt, the primary object of the mission of both the Lord and the disciples. It is to them that Jesus directs his compassion. For this reason, the Gospel can note, “For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” The going “away” in the Sunday Mass does not mean fleeing; if anything it is a moment to fortify and perfect one’s compassion. It is a moment to listen to the Lord, to allow deep into the heart the words of Scripture that are like breaths in which the mind can find repose and like breaths of pure air that we all need in order to think better, to feel in a more generous way and to recuperate our strength. The beginning of the following week should find us encouraged in spirit and closer to the Lord’s thoughts and feelings.
Upon reaching the other shore, once again, there is the crowd waiting for them. Perhaps they had seen the boat’s course and deduced the point of landing. They run up ahead and reach Jesus first, who, as soon as he gets out of the boat, finds himself surrounded once again. Mark writes, “Jesus saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” John the Baptist had been killed not too long ago and there was no other prophet. The Word of God was rare. It is true, the Temple was full of people and the synagogues were crowded, so much so that one could say that religion was thriving. And yet, the people, above all the poor and weak, did not know in whom they could trust, in whom to put their hope and to whom to go and knock at the door. In the last words of this Gospel passage we hear echo the whole of the Old-Testament tradition on the leaders’ abandonment of their people. The prophet Jeremiah cries out with clear words, “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” It will be the Lord himself who will take care of his people, “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold.” The secret of all of this is hidden in the Lord’s compassion for his people. This compassion, which urged Jesus to send the Twelve to proclaim the Gospel and serve the poor, continues to compel him, as soon as he gets out of the boat, to resume immediately his “work.” This is what is always asked of the disciples of every time.