Sunday July 19, 2009 Fr. Pat Grile

I believe one of the ways to approach this gospel is to understand that you know 2500 years ago people didn’t live in huge cities like you and I do today. You had a few large cities, Jerusalem, a couple others. Maybe they had 40,000 people. That would be large, very large. Ninety percent of the population lived in little villages, towns or hamlets. Fifty people, maybe one hundred and fifty. Probably the little town of Nazareth where Jesus came from would have been that. At the most maybe 150 people and that’s less than what you have in this church. So take all of you people here on the West side and that would be a village. And if you live in that village just by yourselves you know everything don’t you about everybody else? There is no such thing as privacy. Everybody’s business is your business and vice versa.

Okay, that’s the context which Jesus comes out of or what’s going on. He’s been traveling around, He’s tired, He’s been preaching, He’s been healing, He’s been doing miracles. His apostles come back. They’ve been doing the same. Jesus says, “Okay guys, time for rest. Let’s go away to a deserted place.”

Again understand the geography of that time. You had the big city of Jerusalem, then you had these tiny little villages. They weren’t necessarily close to one another. There was a distance in between them. You didn’t have super-shuttles going back and forth between the villages. You had to walk to get from one place to another. And there might be a distance, perhaps three miles, five miles in between these little villages and hamlets. The place in between was called the deserted places, the lonely places, the desert place. There’s where the robbers hung out. There’s where the wild animals were. So you didn’t have a Sunday picnic in the park. There was no such thing.

So if you wanted to get away it really was something to try to do. Now here’s Jesus saying, “Okay guys, lets go away to a deserted place.” Well you’re in this small little village and somebody over here says, “We’re going to go away” everybody else knows about it. So, “Why are they going away? Don’t they like us? Is there something else out there that we don’t know about? Gee, maybe we better find out as well too.”

So what happens, they all rush off. Many came to know about it. All the busybodies, the gossip was around, “Hey, Jesus and His guys are going out into the desert places. Hey we gotta find out what’s going on. Let’s get there before them.”

Jesus and His apostles get out of the boat. “Hi guys. Gee we didn’t know You were coming here Jesus. Wow, what’s going on.” What’s Jesus’ reaction? He could have said, “Oh give Me a break will ya? I need some rest.” As the scripture says, “Jesus was moved with compassion. He had pity for them for they were like sheep without a shepherd. And then He began to teach them many things.”

So there are two very simple things we can take from our gospel story today. I think number one is as Jesus did with the apostles, come away and rest. Everyone of us here needs to be able to do that for ourselves. You need to be good to yourself. You need to have time to get away, to rest, to reenergize yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually. Hopefully you can do that every day. Take at least 5 minutes. Turn off the TV, the radio, the computer. Mom’s and Dad’s if you can’t find a private place you go into the bathroom and shut the door, Huh? That’s your private place. No one can get to you there. Take as long as you need. Take 5 minutes or take 10 minutes. But do it every day just to be alone, to allow the Lord to be with you. Hopefully you can take more time than that. If you can get away physically, yes, but if you’re not able to you need to find a place and the space where you can be quiet and be alone and reenergize from within. Be good to yourselves because you cannot give what you do not have. You need to fill up your cup. You need to fill up your place because others will need to eat and you will need to nourish other people.

Now in our Redemptorist rule, Alphonsus made it very strong that we were to take 10 days every year to make a retreat. And down through time in history many guys got very clever with this. They figured out, okay, I’ll break it into two 5 day retreats. A day to get there, 5 days retreat, a day to get back. I can get 14 days out of this. And for a while maybe I was only doing 3 or 4 day retreats but over the last several years I found out that I need to nourish myself. What I have been able to come up with is I do take 10 days in a row. And I am very blessed and very fortunate. Not everybody can do this, I realize that. But God has blessed me with the means, with the people, with the opportunity that I can go away for 10 days. And I don’t have to talk to another person for 10 whole days. It’s great! I don’t have to watch TV, no computer, no phones, no faxes. Just me, myself and the wonderful Lord. It is beautiful. Some people say, “How can you do that?” Very easy. I look forward to it. It nourishes me. Because I know that for myself it takes me 5 days literally to unwind, no let go of stuff and then I have 5 beautiful days to let the Lord fill me back up.

Now I know that you all don’t have that opportunity. But what I’m trying to say, you need to find the way that you can be good to yourself. Find the means, the way, the how to nourish yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually because as the gospel points out there will be people coming to you and to me who need to be nourished and be fed and helped.

The scripture text says, and it’s a very beautiful word, Jesus had compassion. And it just isn’t the head. The word from the original Greek text is a beautiful Greek word, splunknitzomai. Never heard that word before did you? But that’s the Greek word, splunknitzomai. And you can even almost sense it as I say it. It means that my whole body is moved, it’s my loins, it’s my body, my bowels, everything within me feels for these people. It isn’t just something coming from my head. Jesus’ whole body was moved with compassion. It was the seat of His emotions, His compassion, His feeling. That’s what the text is saying. That’s how Jesus ministered. He didn’t hold anything back. You cannot give what you do not have. He could not do that unless He know and had been nourished by the Father first.

Prayer leads to service. So how do we treat people with compassion. There’s the kicker. Do not see people as things. “Oh gosh, you again, what do you want now?” But we see people as people. Human beings just like you and me. Eyes, ears, hands, feet, emotions, feelings, families and isn’t it true sometimes you and I are the haves and sometimes we are the have-nots. Sometime we are the leaders, sometimes we are the followers. Sometimes we are the givers, sometimes we are the receivers.

So number one—be good to yourself. Nourish yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually. And then from your plate, from your cup others will come who need what you can give. And isn’t it true? Sometimes the people that you and I nourish will be the very people who will be there to nourish you and I when we need compassion. And all of us come here this morning to be nourished by the Body and Blood of Jesus. Put yourself, as I said earlier, on this altar. All your loved and dear ones, put them on the altar. Jesus will take us to Himself, become the Body and Blood of Jesus. You’ll come down the communion line, you’ll receive Jesus Himself, your nourishment, your strength, your compassion.

May we all go forth from this Eucharist to be good to ourselves and to be compassionate. Let’s be so grateful for what’s happening here today.