Resting in Prayer to Give More of Ourselves

Homily: Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Mark 1:29-39

7 February 2021 

Fr. Ricky C. Montanez

I feel time seems to be slipping by so quickly again. Since the easing of the lockdown many months ago, the days fly by surprisingly fast. We are anticipating the Lunar New Year on the 12th February and very soon we will commence the Lenten Season with Ash Wednesday on the 17th February. Now that more establishments are opening, public transport is resuming and people are getting used to pandemic living, we have a bit more freedom to go about our lives in society. Our days have become less routinary and boring than when we were on stricter quarantine restrictions at the start of the lockdown. Many of us have found more ways to keep ourselves busy. Those of us with the means and capacity to travel were even fortunate enough to do domestic travels during the holidays. Everyone is just craving even a little bit of normalcy in life  to get a break from the wearisome grind of life in quarantine. 

In this Sunday’s Gospel passage from Mark, we are shown what a day in the life of Jesus was like. Coming from His regular synagogue attendance, Jesus goes to visit Simon and Andrew’s home where He heals Simon’s ailing mother-in-law. He shares a meal with them but barely has time to enjoy a casual time with them because He resumes attending to the crowd of sick people seeking healing from Him.  Then the gospel recounts that before dawn Jesus goes off to a deserted place to spend some intimate time speaking with His Father in prayer. There seems to be no single dull moment in Jesus’ day. Jesus was very much occupied in giving Himself at the service of  people, bringing healing and wholeness into their lives. In all this, we do not see nor hear Jesus complain and groan about the task at hand despite the need at times to forego His own temporal needs for the sake of others. After His time teaching in the synagogue  where we are told in last week’s gospel, that He even cast out an unclean spirit from  a man, you can imagine that Jesus would have needed to rest. In fact, we can assume that is why He heads over to His friend’s house. If you visit Capernaum today, you can still see the foundations of the synagogue from Jesus’ time and it is just a stone’s throw from what is supposedly the house of Peter. That was the perfect place for Jesus to take a break. He ate there and might have wanted to take a little nap to get refreshed but chose instead to attend to others in need who had lined up outside the house like patients at a doctor’s clinic. 

Contrast this with the life of Job.  Job laments his own miserable life condition. He describes the human life as filled with drudgery. He feels trapped like a slave and is desperately bemoaning the futility of his existence.  He spends restless, sleepless nights thinking about the meaninglessness of the human condition. For Job each day simply drags on with no hope in sight. This is very sad indeed but no surprise considering he lost his wife, his children, his business, his possessions, his friends. He even fell sick and his whole body was covered with boils and sores!  Maybe during those moments of our lives when we suffered simultaneous losses or when none of the various aspects of our life seems to be going well, we would have identified with Job’s frustration with regard to finding meaning in our work, our various responsibilities, and even life, itself. Recall the days when you can’t seem to convince colleagues to be responsible in doing their share of the assigned tasks. Aren’t you tempted to be less motivated to do your work to the best of your abilities, doubting the real value of what you do? It has happened to me. At one point, my own frustrations even led me to consider leaving my vocation and just go back to teaching. I am grateful to the mercy of God and to the prayers of people who were aware of my plight, that I was able to overcome those difficulties. It is even worse when you simply do your work for the sake of money. It is true that many among us do not have the luxury of having our dream jobs or jobs we are passionate about, but we must strive to find meaning in what we do in order for us to do our job well and get some sense of fulfillment. 

In today’s gospel we are shown how much Jesus gives of Himself in a day. Working mothers will relate to such a busy lifestyle. They are busy with their jobs and careers all day, sometimes they must even do some of their work at home. Then they have meals to prepare, the house to maintain and the husband and children’s needs to attend to.  All that, every day through the work week! On the weekends the chores and errands are waiting to be done.  This is how Jesus lived everyday of His life — an emptying of Himself for others. There are two important details we need to draw from this — Jesus took the time to rest briefly and He took the time to pray. Despite His hectic days, Jesus would wake up early and go to a deserted place to pray. He simply didn’t alot the left over minutes of His day to prayer.  He really made time for this. These frequent moments of communion with the Father gave Him the guidance and inspiration to unreservedly attend to the needs of the people who come to Him for healing, wholeness and peace. Then for those of us who are always busy, we are reminded of the  importance of taking a break, of resting from what we are accustomed to do, to step back from the patterns we have set for ourselves. In life, taking a rest is needed not only to recharge ourselves but also to help us do our work well and to have a greater appreciation of what we do, especially when things become too routinary. We also have to always strike a balance between the needs of others and our own. 

When Fr. Jojo was still serving with us here at Christ the King, there was a running joke among the three of us, priests, concerning the long queues I get in the confessional. Actually, this was the reason why there was a bit of delay at the start of one our 6 pm anticipated Sunday masses last month. I jokingly say that I seem to be a magnet for sinners. “Maka-relate kasi sila sa akin na kapwa makasalanan.” Joking aside, hearing Confessions is probably the most taxing and draining of the sacraments for a priest to administer. People with spiritual and emotional burdens approach the confessional seeking healing and reconciliation with God. As the minister of the sacrament, we, priests sit listening to people’s guilt and we cannot help absorb all this negativity.  For this reason, we, priests need to be properly disposed to hear people’s confession. We must be well-rested and we need to have spent much time in prayer in order that we may properly respond to each penitent. The saying remains true that “We cannot give what we do not have.” Jesus took the time to draw strength and guidance from the Father in prayer. Through this constant replenishing of mind and spirit Jesus was able to minister to other nearby villages and to reach out to more people in distress. 

We, too, must take our cue from Jesus who teaches us that we need to replenish our spirit, to rename our priorities in order to keep our spiritual energy from running out. May we like Jesus always find ourselves available to our brothers and sisters who need us. And like Jesus, may we strive to always take the time to renew our minds and spirits through prayer to be able to serve better our brothers and sisters in need.