"An invitation to rest, ... and Jesus’ compassion for the crowd. It is very beautiful to stop in order to meditate on Jesus’ compassion. These may seem like two incompatible things, while they actually go together: resting and being compassionate. Let us look more closely."
This was Pope Francis' invitation to those gathered for the midday Angelus this July 21, as he reflected on today's Gospel.
Jesus is "concerned about the disciples’ tiredness," the Pope says, wondering if Our Lord is aware of a danger that can affect us too: when, for instance, our enthusiasm in carrying out our mission or our work, as well as the roles and tasks entrusted to us, make us fall victims to a kind of activism which is overly concerned with things to do and with results.
"And this is a bad thing," the Pope warned. "We become overly preoccupied with the things to be done, overly preoccupied with results."
Dictatorship of doing
This leads to an "agitation" and brings us to "lose sight of what is essential," the Pope said. "We risk exhausting our energies and falling into bodily and spiritual fatigue."
Francis noted that this can happen to us personally, in our society, and also in the Church.
"Brothers and sisters," he said, "let us beware of the dictatorship of doing!"
Necessary busy-ness
The Pope acknowledged that sometimes this situation arises out of a necessity, "for example when the father has to be away for work to earn a living, thus having to sacrifice the time he could have spent with the family. Often, parents leave early in the morning when the children are still sleeping and return late in the evening when they are already in bed. And this is a social injustice."
In families, fathers and mothers should have time to share with their children, to let love grow within their family and in order not to fall into the dictatorship of doing. Let us think about what we can do to help people who are forced to live in this way.
Jesus' type of rest
Pope Francis reflected, though, that Jesus' proposal for rest is "not an escape from the world, a retreat into a merely personal well-being."
On the contrary, when He is confronted with the bewildered people, He feels compassion. And so, from the Gospel, we learn that these two realities — resting and being compassionate — are linked: only if we learn how to rest can we have compassion. Indeed, it is only possible to have a compassionate gaze, which knows how to respond to the needs of others, if our heart is not consumed by the anxiety of doing, if we know how to stop and how to receive the Grace of God, in the silence of adoration.
As usual, the Pope concluded with questions for reflection:
Am I able to stop during my days?
Am I capable of taking a moment to be with myself and with the Lord, or am I always in a hurry, in a constant hurry for the things to do?
Can we find some kind of an "inner desert" amidst the noise and activities of each day?
"May the Holy Virgin help us to 'rest in the Spirit' even in the midst of all daily activities, and to be available to and compassionate towards others," the Pope prayed.
