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

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The apostles gathered 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, in their minds, probably thought, ‘Perhaps it would be better to abandon this project of a new world that Jesus has in mind; if even their countrymen and relatives do not accept it, there is little hope of success.’ 

It is in those moments of discouragement that we, too, experience when things are not going well in 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 on a mission and entrusted them with the task of casting out demons. Today, we see them returning from that mission. 

They gather around Jesus and report to him what they have done and taught. We said last week that the task Jesus entrusted to the Twelve was not given 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 and tell him what we are doing, what we have done, and what we teach, so we can see and verify whether we are carrying out the mission correctly. 

The Twelve began recounting their experience and confirmed the wonders that occur when a disciple brings the Gospel. Luke tells us that when they returned, they were radiant and amazed that wherever they went, the demons disappeared. Let’s see whether we can tell Jesus today about what we have done. Is it true that demons disappear wherever we, his disciples, arrive today? 

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

Or perhaps, instead of making demons disappear, we have focused on certain religious practices. We have insisted on encouraging devotions, pilgrimages, solemn liturgies… good things, nice things, but we must ask why demons don’t disappear. Have we incarnated the Gospel message? Have we announced the Gospel? 

The criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of our missionary work is the disappearance of demons. What do we teach in our communities today? What shall we say to Jesus about our catechesis and our homilies? Is the message we announce that of the Master, or do we offer vague, superficial speech that does not touch? Does the heart of the people invite them to make a radical change in their lives? Does our preaching 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 whether what we announce aligns with his Gospel. Hence, we need to confront ourselves with him. We would expect Jesus to congratulate his disciples because they have done their mission well and have taught what he teaches and wants proclaimed. Instead, let’s listen to what he invites them to do: 

Jesus told them, ‘Come away to a deserted place and rest a while.’ People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no time even to eat. So they went off in the boat alone to a deserted place.

“Come away to a deserted place and rest a while.” This is the invitation Jesus extends to us today; we must meet him again in an uninhabited place, ‘kathidían’ in Greek. It means, in private, those intimate moments with the Lord. This expression is used when Jesus is alone with his disciples to reveal to them 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, an adjective from which the word “hermitage” comes. Therefore, a place of silence, solitude, and meditation, where there is no confusion, must be where he meets alone. It is that moment of intimacy that today we can call by a name we know very well, moments of prayer. 

Prayer is the dialogue between people in love who seek to deepen their mutual understanding, exchange their dreams, and share their expectations, hopes, and love. Our relationship with Christ is not that of a master or an employer who pays us at the end of the day. No. The relationship with Christ, as presented in the Gospels, is a spousal relationship, one cultivated by people in love who spend much time together and nurture their 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, we tune our options to what he likes. If we do not pray, we act wrongly. 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; it makes us lose sight of the highest values. I can dedicate all my time and all my thoughts to the idol that makes us lose sight of the highest values, and then our lives become excessive running that, in the end, tires us and leaves us breathless. And, at a certain point, we no longer understand the reason for everything we do. 

We all experience this; we spin like tops all day long, and we arrive at night, exhausted from 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 lives 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 off 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, and 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 moments when you are alone with Christ and his Gospel to know what he thinks of those problems and of your anguish. 

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

This rest is exactly what Psalm 23 recounts, and the evangelist refers to it. It is the oasis where we meet 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 an invitation to rest and 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 to pray. And, in fact, the evangelist says that many were coming and going, and the disciples no longer had time to eat. This is the experience that we priests often have in the parishes: we meet a chaotic, disorderly crowd that gives the impression of people who come and go, and it seems they do not know exactly what they want or expect from the parish and from Jesus. 

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

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

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

People saw them leave, and many learned of 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. He began to teach them many things. 

Let’s understand the meaning of Jesus’ decision to leave the crowd and go with the disciples in the boat. There was a lot of confusion, with people coming and going and others 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 and 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 step back from people, because you can become even more significant when you do. All the people walk. If the Christian community, represented by that boat, is beautiful, it attracts. People must have said, ‘Those people in the boat look delighted.’ 

Joy is the sign of the Spirit’s presence. This crowd looking for the boat is the living image of humanity today, which does not find meaning in life but feels a deep need for peace, serenity, joy, and 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 do those who live in luxury, unrestrained luxury, sensuality, or a daze that does not know what madness to invent to experience the excitement of new adventures. None of them lives in serenity, rest, and inner harmony. 

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

The first verb: disembark. The temptation the Church may face is not to disembark, not to find this humanity as it is, but to adopt an attitude of detachment and to limit itself to repeating the usual complaint that the world is disordered, that there is moral degradation, and that all moral values are lost. The Church must come out of itself, out of its self-referentiality, and meet the man and the woman of today as they are. 

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

Second verb: “he saw a great multitude.” He sees a great multitude; he opens his eyes to the needs of this multitude that seeks rest and does not know where to go; and the people catch the Church’s look toward them, the love felt toward them. This humanity perceives that if we have captured their restlessness, we expect us to answer these inner questions. 

Third verb: “He had compassion” with the famous verb ‘splangenizomai.’ ‘Splángema’ is the bowels; it is a reference to the Hebrew term by which the Lord presents his love: ‘Ani Rachun,’ as it says in the book of Exodus. That is, ‘I am the one who feels love for humankind,’ and it is presented with the image of the passion a mother feels for her child carried in her womb. And, in fact, ‘rejem’ in Greek is the mother’s womb; the love of God is a uterine love. This is ‘splangenizomai.’ 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 hearts, but only women have wombs. 

This is the ultimate in passionate involvement. This is what Jesus feels for 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 from 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 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 interests and privileges; they dominated the people, exploited them, and, in fact, the prophet Ezekiel says (and this is the second text the evangelist refers to) 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, and King Herod. But they took care of themselves, not the people. One can be a good shepherd, but there are also bad shepherds. Those who follow a good shepherd become good people, and those who follow a bad shepherd become lousy people. This is the reality of our humanity today. For the multitudes around us, we must look at and love what Jesus loved. 

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

Also, today, Jesus could say that the disbanded people, like sheep without a shepherd, are not bad, but if they are led by bad shepherds, they go to their deaths. The shepherds are models for those who lead others, even 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 compassion for the fragility, the weaknesses, and the losses caused, above all, by the shepherds. What does Jesus do? He begins to teach, not to curse or get angry. No. He announces his Word not like professors who give a lesson, but like rabbis who involve the disciples in their own lives; they make the disciples experience their own lives. 

Our call today is to engage with the Word and the life of Jesus. When we present the Word and the Gospel, incarnate in our lives, we will be an example to all those called to the Gospel, who are today disoriented because of shepherds who have led them to death. 

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