July 19^th 2015.  Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL Mark 6:30-34

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL Mark 6:30-34

The apostles re-joined Jesus and told him all they had done and taught. Then he said to them, ‘You must come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while', for there were so many coming and going that the apostles had no time even to eat. So they went off in a boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. But people saw them going, and many could guess where; and from every town they all hurried to the place on foot and reached it before them. So as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he set himself to teach them at some length.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . Don Fabio focusses on the compassion shown by Jesus in this passage from the Gospel. Sometimes we think we have power or influence in the world, but the only worthwhile power we have is the power to serve and to give our lives for others. It is acts of compassion for others that make the world a beautiful place. If we only did what we were obliged to do towards others, or if others only respected our rights and nothing more, then the world would become a very banal and unbearable place. The pastors that are condemned by Jeremiah in the first reading probably did exactly what they were obliged to do. Yet their failure to go beyond the rules destroyed and scattered the people. If the members of a family all acted only out of obligation, then the family would be a miserable place. Compassion takes us beyond mere adherence to rights and expectations. It is love, mercy and patience that holds relationships and society together. None of us could stand before God if it were not for his mercy!

Salvation is not just between God and me, it is something we participate in as a community. We mediate salvation to each other and we do so by service and self-sacrifice. If we obstruct the transmission of the love of God to others then the world can become a terrible place.

The first reading from Jeremiah consists in a prophecy against the pastors of the people. Not only have they failed to shepherd their flock: they have allowed the people to be destroyed and scattered. The issue at stake here is the manner in which God saves us. We are not redeemed in an individual or vertical way directly by the Lord. God saves us through the mediation of others. The world is a wonderful place, made so that we might love each other and go to God together. But when we obstruct the love of God and fail to mediate that love amongst each other, we make the world into a terrible place, a veritable torture chamber. The Church is a place where people minister the salvation of God; they do not have ownership over redemption. None of us has even a crumb of true authority if it is not given to us by the Lord and is not administered in his name. We tend to think we have power, but the only thing we are truly able to do is to be of service and to give our lives for others. If our work in the Church becomes something else then it does not come from God. In fact, often what we do becomes reduced to something extremely repugnant.

It is acting from compassion that is the mark of a true follower of Jesus. As long as we limit ourselves to fulfilling our obligations, then we exclude and drive away others.

The disciples come back from their mission and tell Jesus what they have done. Jesus wants them to rest and takes them away in the boat. Rest is necessary for all of us. We have an obligation to get away every now and then in order to rest and be recharged. The disciples and Jesus head for a lonely place but when they disembark they discover that the crowd has followed them there. Here we discover what was lacking in the shepherds described in the first reading from Jeremiah, and it is often missing in our choices and actions too - Jesus has compassion on them. Here we are not merely talking about human compassion. What is referred to here is something that comes from the very interior of God, and is reflected in an inadequate way in our acts of compassion. The compassion of Jesus is something that prompts him to live and move for others. It is something that goes beyond rights and obligations. As long as we are fixated with rights and obligations we exist on a level of banality that is incompatible with love. If we only do that which is expected of us, we become exactly like those pastors spoken of by Jeremiah. This is true of priests, but also of the baptized, and also of men and women in general. For as long as we limit ourselves to doing only that which we are obliged to do, we exclude and drive away others. In a diocesan meeting in Rome, Pope Francis warned about the parochial house becoming a sort of parish customs house in which rules are used to exclude people who are looking for a simple word of salvation. If we cannot get beyond regulations and bureaucracy, then everything becomes ugly and devoid of love.

It is compassion and mercy that keeps families and societies together, not regulations and protocol

If the family became a place in which we merely counted expectations, obligations and rights then it would lose its humanity. It is compassion and mercy that drives the healthy family. Let us prepare ourselves for the Year of Mercy by focusing on the one thing that resolves all problems! It is not precision, regulations or perfect proportionality that keeps things moving along in life. What makes situations productive is patience and compassion. In the Western world there is the myth of the ideal world in which the person does everything according to protocol, respecting all his obligations and having all of his rights respected. But no human being has ever been capable of being obedient to all laws to the very letter. Laws are cold, it is only the heart that truly motivates.

All of us are utterly dependent on the mercy of Christ. Without it, who among us could stand before the Lord? We too must become mediators of that compassion.

Jesus goes beyond rights and obligations. He and his disciples had the right to rest themselves. For the salvation of the family, for the salvation of the parish, for the salvation of the Christian community, for the salvation of ordinary friendships, we must all go beyond rights, and it is only compassion that enables us to do it. If any of us were to place ourselves before God according to our own merit, then who among us would not be shamed? All of us live by the mercy and compassion of Christ.