Show Notes
Sometimes we need to take a moment and recenter ourselves in the presence of Christ. Fr. Rob offers some insights about how to accomplish this.
Gospel: Mk 6:30-34
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit. A reading from the holy gospel according to Mark.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: Glory to you.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all that they had done and taught.
He said to them, come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile.
People were coming and going in great numbers and they had no opportunity even to eat.
So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place.
People saw them leaving and many came to know about 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 shepherdess, and he began to teach them many things. The gospel of the Lord praise you, Lord.
When do you think I am the most crabby? If you say now, I might come out and smack you.
When I am most crabby is when I am the most busy. When I've got about seven or eight things I'm trying to get done.
And if you've ever run into me in one of those situations, I'm not always the most attentive. I can be a little short. It's a flaw that I have. But my guess is many of you, when you are busy, can become a little bit short, perhaps a little bit crabby.
Well, here in the gospel we have Jesus listening to the reports his disciples are giving him about the task he gave them to go out and proclaim the good news, and they're telling him of all the marvelous things that were happening and how busy they had been.
But he was also to recognize in them that they probably needed a break. They needed to pull back from all this busyness to allow their minds and their hearts and their lives to settle a bit, because none of us are at our best when we're going 100% all of the time.
Well, over the years I have had the privilege of spending time with people who are near death and have some really powerful conversations with them. And there is not one person in that situation that I've had the ability to talk with that said to me, you know, if I would have just worked a few more hours a week, I would be so much happier.
But they have said more than once that they wish they spent more time with the people they loved, with their family, with their close friends.
They have said that they wish they would have set aside time, perhaps to see a bit more of the world, to travel a bit, to relax a bit more, and that all those things they worried so much about throughout their lives mean next to nothing right now.
Well, our world has gotten not easier, in my opinion, it's gotten harder because not only are we busy with all of the things we have to do in our own personal lives and trying to keep up materialistically and financially, but we're also constantly bombarded by noise.
For some, it is a tv on all the time, a radio blaring in the background. For some, it is the constant scrolling on an electronic device. For some, it is paying attention to the amount of likes they receive on Facebook or on Instagram.
For some, it's worrying where their next TikTok video idea will come from. And all of those things, simply put, more and more stress upon our lives.
So what I suggest is we listen a little bit to that wisdom of Jesus, take some time to pull back, to go to a quiet place, to allow ourselves to decompress a little bit.
Because all of those distractions, all that constant bombardment, all that does is put another layer of stress on top of us.
And there's really none of us. No matter how much we like to convince ourselves we work well under stress, there's none of us that are good at it.
We're all much better when our hearts are calm, when our blood pressure is lowered, when we're at peace.
So give it a shot.
Sometimes the best way to find that peace is to go off in a quiet corner of our home or go for a walk. Sometimes it's just to sit quietly with the Lord, and sometimes it's to be with those people we are closest to. But all of those things give us a much better perspective on what's really important.
