1) The mission is born from communion and it is reinvigorated in it.
This sixteenth Sunday’s Gospel tells of the disciples of Christ who return from a mission during which they brought the announcement of the good and joyful news: the «Gospel of Joy» (Pope Francis). While last Sunday’s Gospel 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, today’s Gospel describes the return of the disciples from their mission. They return happily to Christ. They are happy, but also a little tired, as it happens to every true «missionary» who forgets himself and struggles to bring to the world the Gospel, the good and happy news that mercy has taken place among men.
In their apostolic journey they experienced the power of the Word, but also fatigue and rejection. Today, Jesus invites them to rest in a solitary place and in his company. «Come aside, in a solitary place, and rest a while» (Mk 6:31), because it is in the desert that God speaks to their and to our hearts. There is the moment of the mission and of the commitment and there is the moment of rest. There is the moment of acceptance and there is the moment of solitude. With Christ the «solitary place» becomes an oasis to stop, savor the joy of communion with Him, and quench our thirst for God.
Whether it takes place in distant lands or by the neighbor with whom we live and work, the mission needs not only words and witnessing, but also prayer and contemplation. It takes the silence of the desert to grasp what is essential; without the words of men it is easier to listen to the Word of God. It is not a question of speaking or of being silent, of doing or not doing; it is about deciding who to talk to, who to act with. Saint Teresa of Calcutta said to her sisters: «To be able to realize peace we will talk a lot with God and to God, and less with men and to men»
To put into practice this teaching of the Saint «of the poorest of the poor», I think it is useful to underline not only the importance of finding moments of meditation during the day and going to places where we can make a spiritual retreat, but the «necessity» to go to church to taste the «rest» that is the Sunday Mass. Perhaps, Sunday Mass is not normally lived as a moment of rest but, by going to church at least on Sunday, we welcome Christ’s invitation to «stand aside», that is, in a place different from our ordinary occupations and therefore far away from being absorbed from distractions, even those legitimate of the holidays. This will make us able to encounter God and to dialogue with him, to listen to a true word about life, to nourish ourselves with a food of communion and a steadfast friendship, and to receive grace capable of holding us.
It is not about escaping from life. The encounter with the Lord on Sunday is like a light that illuminates the time of yesterday to understand it, sanctifies the present putting it in the hands of God, and clears the tomorrow to show the path. In this way, we can all be missionaries who walk in the world to look for others, but rest with Christ, comforted by him, to find ourselves.
2) Prayer is not an escape from mission, it is its soul
The people of the time and of today are undoubtedly the primary object of the mission of the Lord and of the disciples. It is toward them that the compassion of Jesus is directed; for this reason, the Gospel can say: «there was a lot of people coming and going and they did not even have time to eat». However, this does not prevent Christ and his disciples from living moments «on the sidelines», which does not mean an escape from the world and from men. These are moments in which Christ teaches his disciples how to live in communion. «On the sidelines» the disciples listen only to the Lord, make descend into their hearts the words of the Scripture that are like a greater breath in which to rest the heart, lighten the mind, think in the same way their Master thinks, love as He loves, and are with him in peace.
If we really want to be missionaries and to do good to humanity it is very important, I will say indispensable, to take some time to be alone with Christ. In addition to Mass, therefore, let us find time every day to be in silence and in prayer, listening to the Lord.
A very significant example comes from Consecrated Virgins who, with their life focused on prayer, show that the important thing to do, immediately and always, are not the things of the world, but the acceptance of Christ and his Kingdom. The urgency of the «things of God», the search for God, the listening to his Word are the priority conditions to make room for people, without being overwhelmed by the haste of things to do and the anxiety of possession.
It is the charity of Christ, to whom they have given themselves fully and joyfully, that envelops, involves, and pushes the consecrated Virgins toward their brothers and sisters in humanity, bringing the happy news that there is a God, whom we can meet and who has put his tent among us.
These women also testify that assiduous prayer does not take them away from the world in which they work every day. Constant prayer keeps them oriented to Christ. In fact, without Him, even with the best intentions and actions done for the purpose of doing good to others, one can lose oneself. One can «empty himself» to the point of no longer verifying the sense and the orientation for which he or she works. If we do not pray «resting with and in Christ», we are like leaves in the whirl of what surrounds us.
Their consecration «forces» the Virgins to give priority to God. He filled them with grace because they stood apart for Him. To them who, silently and discreetly, give Him their time and their life, the Lord dispenses his wealth. For this reason, «we must not measure the time of prayer. The more we lose time in prayer, the more we earn it «(Chiara Lubich, great spiritual teacher and founder of the Focolare Movement)
In the time given generously to Christ, these consecrated women look at Jesus and give us the example of how to look at him and have his gaze, which does not stop at the surface but grasps what is in people’s hearts.
For Jesus the people he meets are not numbers, they are not even indistinct masses to use. For him every person is a face and a journey to take care of. His seeing can perceive in the situations not a problem to be solved but a ‘you’, a people made of faces that suffer, raise a question, live for a waiting, feel the weight of the contradiction of evil but also have thirst of truth and love.
Jesus’ way of looking is a seeing that pauses and stops, letting be struck by those who are in front of him. If we learn to look as Christ does, what comes from the eyes does not come only to the mind and the heart, but makes one be touched, as the Gospel of today says.
In this Gospel, Saint Mark tells us that Jesus is moved by the people. He allows himself to be hurt. He does not present himself as someone who has something to give. Jesus encounters people like the poor, and makes room to welcome the suffering, the request for health and life, fear, and, in short, everything that moves in the depths of the human heart, without judging, without excluding, but becoming company. To be moved is a «feminine» verb because in Hebrew it indicates the movement of the maternal womb. With Jesus let us change inside and share his compassion.
