theROCK

Come Away and Rest

As I prepared to write this reflection, I found myself pacing in my office. I was deep into the, “Lord, reveal to me what you need your disciples to hear so that it be your words not mine.” In the gospel from Mark I was struck by verse Mark 6: 31, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” How often do we do that? 

At this point in the Gospel of Mark, the apostles learn of John the Baptist’s death. Jesus desperately tries to remove them from the crowds so that they may come away by themselves and rest awhile. Jesus is encouraging self-care. Jesus is encouraging time to mourn. Jesus is loving His disciples, striving to provide them with what they need, yet the crowds press on.  What does this mean for our own lives? 

Our culture has allowed us to believe that busy is better. That the busier you are the better you are. It is a badge of honor to share how impossible your schedule is. Why? Is busier better? Is it somehow a show of popularity? Is it arrogance to some degree? I have come to learn through many Saintly examples that the busier we are, the less charitable we are able to be, that if we don’t set boundaries with our time, we are unable to respond to the demands of love around us. How does the adage go? You can’t give what you don’t have. Jesus clearly knows that and strives to provide that for His disciples.  We often see Jesus retreat in order to pray, to rest, to fill His cup. If He can do it, so should we. In today’s Gospel, He is teaching this important practice, to go away to a deserted place to rest.  As disciples, we must refresh, restore, and renew our energies in order to be the hands of Jesus in the world.

My fellow disciples, take time to go away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile. Summer provides an opportunity to do that if we let it. This could mean turning off the radio in the car, sitting on the deck/patio so you are not distracted by the TV, putting down or putting away our phones, spending time just “being,” or visiting church to sit before the tabernacle or in Adoration. Simply unwind and unplug. If this isn’t part of your routine, might I suggest starting slow with 1 or 2 minutes and building up from there? To the unpracticed, one minute can seem like an eternity! Create a habit of withdrawing to fill your cup so that you can be a peace-filled disciple, one who is ready to respond to the demands of love placed before you on a daily basis. Go, rest a while.

The Authentic Jesus

Today’s Gospel is about the people who know Jesus the most, the people he grew up around, rejecting Him. He didn’t fit the image they had of Him from His youth, so they couldn’t accept Him as He really is—the Son of God, here to preach and teach them about God. They were offended by what he had to say.

I find this such an interesting Gospel for the weekend of the 4th of July. Is the above not true of our current political climate? Everyone is offended by Jesus, or at least the authentic Jesus found in the Scriptures. We all have these little false Jesus’ we’ve created in our minds that fit our political ideologies. And we get really offended and astonished when presented with Gospel passages or Church teachings where Jesus contradicts the idea we have of Him in our mind. Both sides of the political spectrum agree with some of Jesus’ 
teachings and reject others.

Which is actually very fitting because Jesus says himself, in the Gospels, that he did not come to fit into the existing paradigm, but to upend it, to be above it all, to flip it on its head and restore His own order—God’s order.

So today, on this 4th of July weekend, as we celebrate our amazing country with an eye to the upcoming presidential elections, let us all take a moment to reflect on which Jesus we are worshipping – the Republican Jesus, the Democratic Jesus, or the authentic Jesus of the Scriptures. And let us once again commit to daily reading of the Gospels so we might come to know more closely who Jesus authentically is from the source itself. Only then can we truly make this country as great as we desire it to be.

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the United States of America, pray for us.

Missing Trains

While I have not read many of his works, the author G. K. Chesterton is one of my favorites. Not only because his writings have led some to call him the “Apostle of Common Sense,” but also because he lived in the present moment. There is no better example of this than a recurring incident in his life: 

Whenever Chesterton had to step out of the house, he used public train transportation. While he waited for his train, he would often become intrigued by a nearby bookstand and casually begin reading. Inevitably, Chesterton would become so engrossed in the book that not only would he miss his train, he would begin walking. To where? Who knows, he sure didn’t! This occurred so often that the owner of the bookstand had a running account with Chesterton, as the author would walk away having not paid for the very book in his hands.

While some could interpret his actions as irresponsible and rude to those for whom he had appointments, I admire and even desire Chesterton’s ability to live in the present moment. We live such scheduled lives, even if nothing is on the calendar. From the moment we wake up, we run from appointment to appointment and stress over the thought of missing any of these “trains.”

When I finally have a chance to catch my breath, I wonder if this is what life is all about. I doubt it, for it is often when I miss the “train” that the beauty of life reveals itself. The times when I am hurrying to the church for business only to be stopped by school kids chanting my name to play sharks and minnows. When I am rushing to that meeting and a couple asks me to bless them on their wedding anniversary numbering twice my age.

These moments that make me miss the “train” are often the moments I remember most, They remind me what life is all about, not going to one appointment after another, but the stories found along the way. The story of children whose highlight of the day is their priest playing with them at recess, the story of a couple and their many years of faithfulness to each other, the story of a good book that makes us forget where we are and need to be, all of which reminds us that sometimes it's ok if we miss a few trains along the way.