The 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mark 6, 30–34

The Apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” 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 shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

“The Apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught.”  Today’s Gospel Reading records the return of the Apostles from the mission on which the Lord Jesus had sent them, telling them to preach the Gospel, cure the sick, and cast demons out of the possessed.  The mission must have lasted some time, for St. Mark remarks that “they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them” (Mark 6, 13).  Mark also indicates this by setting the story of John the Baptist’s arrest and beheading between his account of the Lord sending them off and then receiving them again.  We should think of the interval as being at least a few weeks.

“Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”  Mark announces the theme of this next report with the words of Jesus, but we should understand the Lord as speaking these later.  Instead, after the preliminary, “The Apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught”, we should read, “People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat.”  So the Apostles return to a meeting place, likely Peter’s house in Capernaum, and they excitedly tell the Lord all that they did while on mission.  But they are much interrupted by the “people were coming and going in great numbers”, as they did when the Lord was known to be present.  These sought favors and cures.  While the Lord was glad to give these, he was conscious of his exhausted and hungry Apostles.  It is at this point that he says, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”  First, they would have had to gather sufficient provisions for a stay of at least a few days.  These would have consisted primarily of bread and dried fish, and water.  After doing so, “they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place.”

“People saw them leaving and many came to know about it.”  With so many people milling about, the Apostles could hardly disguise their preparations for departure, and the news spread quickly in the town.  “They hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them.”  The fame of the Lord had increased by this time to the point where he attracted large crowds wherever he went. The fact that people knew where they were going suggests that the Lord had taken the Apostles to this site before so that it became known as a sort of refuge for him and his Apostles.  It is also possible that the Lord had told the Apostles where they were going and these had mentioned this to people as they bought their provisions in the market, not realizing that they would be followed.

“When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them.”  We see the Lord’s care for his Apostles and his care for the large crowd that was gathering.  His heart “was moved with pity for them”, with the deepest solicitude for them, “for they were like sheep without a shepherd”.  The Lord cared very much for the physical health of his exhausted Apostles, but even more so for the spiritual health of these people, forsaken by the authorities in Jerusalem who failed to teach and encourage them.  Neither did the Pharisees teach much.  They were a sect unto themselves and did little more for others than to insist that they live according to their own onerous code. 

“He began to teach them many things.”  The Lord may have had as his purpose here showing the Apostles that they must not stint in spreading the Gospel, whether by words, deeds, or prayer; that the true disciple of the Lord must take seriously his words, “I must carry out the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night comes, when no one can work” (John 9, 4).