Friday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 13, 2026

Mark 7, 31-37

Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis. And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”) And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it. They were exceedingly astonished and they said, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

The Lord takes a bit of a circuitous route to return to Galilee.  He left Tyre and proceeded north to Sidon, and then east and then south to the country around Damascus, which is where the events in the Gospel reading for today’s Mass seems to take place.  The region at that time was inhabited mostly by Arameans and other semites, but was dominated by the Greek and Roman culture of its ten major cities, which enjoyed a special status within the Roman Empire.  Now, due to the grammar of the verse describing the Lord’s movements, some of the Fathers concluded that this miracle did not take place in the Decapolis itself but in Galilee near the frontier.  This actually makes more sense than if if it had taken place in the Decapolis, since the people who learned of the healing reacted as though they had seen his miracles before.

“And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him.”  They brought the man to him because they wished to see a miracle, as we see from the fact that Jesus took the man apart from them — something he did not do otherwise.  This man suffered from a double infirmity.  His deafness and speech impediment may have come to him at once through a head injury, or he may have been born with a speech impediment and then lost his hearing in childhood.  The impediment may have been a stutter or an inability to form any coherent sound at all.  “He took him off by himself away from the crowd.”  Despite the crowd’s vulgar desire to see miracles, the Lord desired to heal the man out of his compassion for him.  Evidently, he took him out of the range of the crowd’s hearing, or even out of their sight, perhaps on the other side of a hill.  “He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue.”  These gestures of the Lord are highly unusual, and since they are unnecessary, strictly speaking, for the cure, he must be teaching the Apostles through this sign.  The use of the saliva may be related to an earlier verse in Mark’s Gospel in which the Evangelist tells us that people sought to be cured of their maladies by touching even the fringe of his mantle.  The point is that the power of the Lord Jesus was such that it extended even to his tassels and his saliva.  

“Then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ ” (that is, “Be opened!”).  This is an Aramaic word.  The fact that Mark gives us the exact word that Jesus spoke here is a testament to how its use must have struck St. Peter, who related the miracle to Mark long afterwards.  Mark’s quoting the word, even without the translation, does not make sense unless it had some special meaning for his original — Greek-speaking — audience.  This special meaning undoubtedly came from its use in a baptismal ritual Peter himself used.  In the ancient baptismal rite of the Church, which was altered in the early 1970’s, before the baptism the priest touches the nostrils (in place of the lips) and the ears of the candidate for baptism, moistened with his saliva, at the same time saying, “Ephphatha which means, be opened.”  The new rite of baptism also includes the touching of the person’s ears and lips, though after the baptism and without the priest’s saliva, but without the Ephphatha.  Instead, the priest says to the newly baptized: “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.”  The loss of the Aramaic word is unfortunate because its use was ancient.  More importantly, it was used not only to address the candidate for baptism, but also heaven.  “Be opened” was a command from the priest as alter Christus, telling the heavens to open for the one about to be baptized. 

“And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.”  There is no period of recovery.  The Lord’s power is instant and completely effective.  The people of the crowd will acknowledge this when they say, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”  

“He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it.”  Jesus gives the gifts of hearing and speaking to the man without condition.  His gifts are as free as they are complete.  But he does warn the crowd to not spread the news of the cure around.  The Lord may have given this order for a number of reasons.  As when he commanded demons not to speak about him “because they knew him”, the Lord may not have desired the testimony of these particular people.  This would speak to their character, of which we gain some insight due to the fact that they disobeyed the command of the one who had shown such mercy.  But the Lord lavishes his gifts upon the unworthy as well as on those who truly love him because the nature of love is to love without expecting to be loved in return.

Thursday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 12, 2026

Mark 7, 24-30

Jesus went to the district of Tyre. He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied and said to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

St. Matthew also recounts this episode in his Gospel (15, 22-28).  From his account, the woman began by following the Lord on the road and calling after him.  It seems, from St. Mark’s version, that she followed him to the house in which he was staying at the time, and spoke to him there.  

Mark prefaces his account by saying that “[the Lord] entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice.”  It is noteworthy that he (1) went up to Tyre, which was gentile territory, and (2) was staying at “a house”.  Matthew says that he “withdrew” or “departed” to this country, but he does not explain why anymore than Mark does.  At the same time, he must have stayed at the house of a fellow Jew.  Because he “wanted no one to know” that he was there, he does not seem to have preached in any synagogues in the area, so he would not have met any fellow Jews who might have invited him to stay with him.

Despite the Lord’s desire for anonymity, “he could not escape notice”.  News of the Jew who performed miracles and drove out demons had gone out far and wide.  We read in Matthew 4, 24 that even in his early ministry, “his fame went throughout all Syria.”  This would have included the land of Tyre and Sidon.  Perhaps some who had come to Galilee from this foreign land to be cured by him told about him when they returned to their homes, and then recognized him on the streets when he arrived there and pointed him out to others.  Perhaps the lesson the Lord meant to teach his Apostles here was that with the beginning of their preaching after Pentecost, the Faith he was handing on to them would spread like wildfire throughout the world, and that they would enter a region for the first time and find that believers already existed there.  This is a result of “casting seed”: the farmer casts it in all directions and harvests it wherever it grows.  

“Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him.”  We know from previous accounts in Mark that wherever the Lord went in Galilee, crowds gathered quickly with their sick — even anticipating his arrival in places.  No tendency to reticence prevented anyone from bringing their sick or otherwise afflicted relatives and friends to him.  People even came together to carry the lame to him.  A single sighting of the Lord proved sufficient to throw a whole area into upheaval as folks rushed to him from all sides.  The same might have been expected in this gentile land as well, but even if the Lord’s reputation had become known this far from home, only this woman approached him for help.  

Mark does not tell us, as Matthew does, that the Apostles attempted to have the Lord send her away.  His interest is simply in what transpired between the Lord and this woman and so he streamlines his account.  Now, we notice here that the woman came by herself.  Like the centurion who came to Jesus on behalf of his slave, who was sick, or Jairus, who went to him for his daughter, this woman comes for one who cannot come herself, so terrible is her condition.  Perhaps this girl is tied up as the man possessed by Legion had been, though it had not lasted long in his case.  Binding a demon-possessed person or a lunatic was in those days the last-ditch method of preventing their harming themselves or others.  It was an ancient form of the sedation through drugs we use today.  “She came and fell at his feet.”  She, the heir of the proud Phoenician culture, humbled herself before a Jew from the hinterland, and begged for his help.  Her posture is one adopted before the eastern kings who were acclaimed as semi-divine, or as a slave before her master.  She offered true homage to him as had not been offered anywhere else he had gone.  We do not see the people of Capernaum doing this before him.  Jesus tested her homage, not because he doubted it, but to make this point to his Apostles: “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”  The woman, remaining on the ground before him and covering her head, as was the practice, accepted his calling her a “dog”, for as she had humbled herself as a slave, she showed that she was willing to be addressed as such, if only he would deign to speak to her at all.

  She bravely replied, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”  Jesus did not keep her in suspense.  “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.”  He dismisses her, with her request granted.  She comes to him as a slave, believing that all, including the demons, were likewise his slaves.  He need not render himself unclean by entering her house to help her daughter; he need only give the command, even from afar, and it would be carried out.  

And then she went home, backing out of the house from before Jesus because one never showed one’s back to a king or a master.  Hurrying home at all speed, “she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.”  Jesus had rewarded her faith.  And it was true faith, greater than anyone that had been shown the Lord to this point in Israel, for this is the first time in the Gospel of St. Mark that anyone had addressed Jesus as “Lord”.  

Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 11, 2026

Mark 7, 14-23

Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”  When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) “But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him. From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.”

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass follows immediately after that for yesterday’s Mass.  The Lord Jesus had answered the complaint made by the Pharisees that his Apostles did not ritually purify their hands before eating, as though they were priests offering sacrifice in the Temple.  The Lord rejected their attempt to force people to abide by their interpretation of the Mosaic Law which in fact contradicted that Law.  Now, he seizes the occasion to teach the Apostles and the crowd the true meaning of impurity, as opposed to the ritual impurity that so concerned the Pharisees.

“Hear me, all of you, and understand.”  The Lord gains the people’s attention and makes it clear that what he is about to tell them is important for them to hear.  He has just overthrown the false teaching of the Pharisees, but he is not interested in scoring points off them.  His zeal for the souls of all people compels him to speak of the evil of sin, and the evil caused by sin, for their own good.  “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”  This must have come as a great revelation at the time.  Jewish life was bound up with exterior actions, performing a prescribed act correctly and at the right time.  These actions, including circumcision, keeping the Sabbath, and the purity laws, identified a person as a Jew.  Proper behavior, then, came out of a sense of duty, and of the desire to belong to the Chosen People.  The Lord spoke during his Sermon on the Mount that attitude and rightness of intention mattered at least as much as exterior actions, identifying lustful thoughts as acts of adultery if no actions outside the mind resulted.  He continues that line of teaching here, emphasizing the evil that afflicted the sinner long after the sin was committed.

“Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?”  The Lord rephrases his pint here as the Apostles show slowness to understand.  He compares sin to food.  A person cannot be defiled by another’s sin, nor by thoughts or temptations that arise contrary to a person’s will — from “the outside”, as it were.  The food enters the body and then leaves it as waste.  “But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him.”  That is, that which originates within a person defiles that person.  Jesus thus shows the full meaning of Proverbs 26, 27: “He who digs a pit shall fall into it.”  The sinner hurts himself more than he hurts another by his sin.  Lustful thoughts, as thoughts, do not harm another person directly.  They do, however, defile the person who consents to them.

This word, translated here as “to defile”, has the sense of “to pollute”, and it can mean “to make ritually impure”.  That is, such a person could not participate in Temple worship and would have to keep apart from others until he had performed the proper washing rituals.  This was a very serious matter for the Jews.  This impurity made a person incapable of the holy.  For us, it is a sign fulfilled when the Lord Jesus was driven outside the camp of his people with their sins upon him (cf. Leviticus 16, 21-22), in fact making him sin (2 Corinthians 5, 21).  The ritual impurity of the Jews is shown to be the sign of the reality of mortal sin.  

The Lord lists these mortal sins: “Evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.”  These corrupt and pollute the person who commits them and the effect does not vanish after the sin has been committed, but remains.  It is necessary to repent of our sins, to hate them, to confess them, and to do what we can to make up for them.  Failure to do so makes us unworthy of the holy — the reception of the Blessed Sacrament, and ultimately the life of heaven.  

Tuesday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 10, 2026

Mark 7, 1-13

When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands. (For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders. And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds.) So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?” He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts. You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.” He went on to say, “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition! For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and Whoever curses father or mother shall die. Yet you say, ‘If someone says to father or mother, “Any support you might have had from me is qorban”’ (meaning, dedicated to God), you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.”

In this passage, Jesus does something both bracing and merciful: he exposes a subtle way the human heart can evade God while appearing to serve Him. The Pharisees are not villains in the crude sense. They care deeply about holiness. They have inherited a tradition meant to safeguard reverence, order, and remembrance of God in everyday life. Handwashing, purification, attentiveness to ritual — these began as ways of keeping God close.

But somewhere along the way, the means replaced the end.

Jesus does not criticize their concern for purity; he criticizes the direction of their concern. Isaiah’s words cut straight to the point: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” What has gone wrong is not practice, but priority. Human precepts—originally meant to serve God’s command — have become shields behind which one can hide from the demands of love.

The example Jesus gives is devastating in its simplicity. A person declares his resources qorban, a Hebrew word meaning  “drawing near”. In a religious context this means to draw near to God in order to present him a gift. And in doing this the person is excused from caring for his parents. The act sounds pious. It even sounds sacrificial. But it empties the commandment—Honor your father and your mother — of its living force. God is honored in name, while the neighbor is abandoned in fact.

This is why Jesus calls it hypocrisy — not play-acting, but division. The lips and the heart are no longer aligned. Worship becomes something one performs rather than something one lives.

And here is the uncomfortable truth for us: Jesus is not warning us against tradition as such. He is warning us against using religion to manage God, to keep Him safely at a distance. Traditions become dangerous when they allow us to feel righteous without becoming loving, correct without becoming just, devout without becoming generous.

The question Jesus leaves us with is not, Do you keep the traditions? but rather, Do your practices bring you closer to God’s will — or do they protect you from it? Do they sharpen the demands of love, or soften them?

At its heart, this Gospel is a call to reunite what should never be separated: worship and obedience, reverence and mercy, doctrine and love. God does not ask for cleaner hands at the expense of a hardened heart. He asks for a heart so alive to His command that even the smallest actions—eating, giving, speaking—flow from love.

Jesus does not abolish holiness here. He restores its center. And when holiness is centered again on love of God and love of neighbor, worship ceases to be vain — and becomes true.

Monday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 9, 2026

Mark 6, 53-56

After making the crossing to the other side of the sea, Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret and tied up there. As they were leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him. They scurried about the surrounding country and began to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed.

The city of Gennesaret was in existence at about the time of Abraham and Issac.  It was a large, fortified city on the western coast of the Sea of Galilee.  Long before the sea there was called the “Sea of Galilee”, or, later, “the Sea of Tiberias”, it was called the “Sea of Gennesaret” due to the city’s prominence.  To get to this city from Capernaum, Jesus and his Apostles would have sailed south, but not very far.  The city was situated halfway between Capernaum and Magdala.  Now, in Mark 6, 45, the Evangelist tells us that Jesus and his Apostles went from Capernaum, where the Lord had fed the five thousand, to Bethsaida, which was a little distance to the north.  Now, leaving that location, they sail down past Capernaum to Gennesaret.  The ceaseless traveling and the bearing of the hardships associated with that, such as the irregular meals, the sleepless nights, and the physical exhaustion tell us how driven Jesus was to save the human race.  It says a great deal too about the willingness of the Apostles to endure this for his sake.  We get one tiny insight into their attitude in John 6, 69, when Peter answers Christ’s question about whether they will walk away from him: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”  

“People immediately recognized him.”  These words suggest that the Lord was distinguished by his garb, as John the Baptist had been by his.  His appearance certainly did not fit in with that of a Pharisee or a high priest.  His physical features do not seem to have made him instantly recognizable.  The early Father Tertullian even tells us that he looked very ordinary, and this is backed by Isaiah 53, 3: “Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and his look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not.”  

“They scurried about the surrounding country and began to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was.”  For the people, Jesus meant certain help from above.  He had never turned anyone away, and he had cured everyone who approached him.  He did not demand payment, nor did he act haughtily.  All disease fled before him.  Even the demons who had long sunk their talons into some unfortunate’s soul, screamed and fled in absolute terror.  And as eagerly as the people sought him, he more eagerly sought them.  In fact, he “scurried” about the surrounding country for them.  He let them meet him halfway, however, allowing them to come the final mile or two.  He did this to show that while he offers the grace we could otherwise not receive, we must cooperate with it.

“They laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak.”  These words speak to the Lord’s power, but also to the people’s belief in it.  “The tassel on his cloak”: these tassels or fringes hung off of the mantle the Lord wore over his knee-length tunic, the customary length for Jewish men of that place and time — only the rich wore longer tunics.  The tassels were tiny and thin, like threads or bits of string.  We might think of the Saints as tassels on the mantle of his glorified Body.  As great as they might appear to us through their words and deeds, they are tiny with respect to the Lord.  All the same, Jesus so deigns that if we “touch” one of these “tassels” with our prayers, he will hear them, for as Mark tells us: “as many as touched it were healed.”

The Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 8, 2026

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 Jesus 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 Gospel reading for today’s Mass follows the events of Mark 6, 7-13, in which the Lord sent out his Apostles on mission.  Here, we see them return, exhausted, but crowned with success.  They had “preached that men should do penance: and they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them” (Mark 6, 12-13).  They returned to the Lord at the place he had designated for them and at the time he had appointed, and they “reported all that they had done and taught”.  The Lord approved of their work, and sympathized with their worn out state: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”  The Lord noticed when the people around him were hungry or tired or sick or were running out of wine at their wedding feasts.  He has the eye of a servant intent on his service and on pleasing his master, and he provides aid in due season.  His Apostles are weary and he would take them to a quiet location to eat and sleep.  At the same time, he plans to reveal a fact that will benefit them later when they are preaching in foreign lands.

“People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat.”  Mark’s detail here indicates that the Lord had made it easy for the Apostles to find him when their mission was over by telling them to come to a popular place: a crossroads or a marketplace in one of the Galilean towns.  After they had excitedly told Jesus how they had fared in their travels, the Lord and they “went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place.”  The Greek text says “the boat”, as opposed to “a boat”, which suggests Jesus and the Apostles met up at Capernaum where Peter still kept his fishing boat.  The Lord seemed to want to offer them a break of some days in this “deserted place”, or it would hardly be worthwhile to go to all the trouble of getting there.  First, they would have stocked up on their provisions in the town, and then headed out.

However, “People saw them leaving and many came to know about it.”  Jesus lay low during the time his Apostles had been away, keeping mostly to himself, perhaps spending his time in the wild country around the city where he preferred to pray.  Now that the Apostles had returned and Jesus was publicly meeting them, it would have appeared that he would resume preaching and healing.  Many in Capernaum would have gone off to apprise their friends and relatives in the nearby towns of this so that they could come and listen and be healed of their afflictions.  When the people saw the Lord and his Apostles get into their boat and head out, they worked out about where they would go, and “hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them.”  Possibly people had heard the Lord or the Apostles talking.  They might have seen the direction the boat was taking and deduced their destination accordingly.  The place mighty already have been known as a place the Lord used as a retreat.  The deserted place must not have been very far from Capernaum.  But what are we to make of the fact that the people “arrived at the place before them”?  Certainly this speaks to the people’s need for him, whether to hear the word of God or to be freed of demonic possession or some illness or other condition.  It also highlights a certain recklessness, in that the people did not know for sure that he was going to this or that place, and they might wind up running all over the countryside looking for him.  Now, working people cannot just close up shop and chase up and down a seacoast looking for someone.  Laborers cannot just quit their fields.  That many did just this tells us that Jesus offered them hope for a better life, not merely free from the taxes the Romans or Herod demanded, but a life of spiritual peace and of a heavenly destiny.  

“When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them.”  Here again, we witness the Lord Jesus who looks into the hearts of people.  He sees what is there, that “they were like sheep without a shepherd”, awaiting the One who alone could lead them to safe and abundant pastures.  And, again, he offers his service: “He began to teach them many things.”  

When the Apostles saw the crowds, their hearts must have sunk, because their chance of a needed holiday was gone.  They saw their Master go right back to work as soon as he left the boat.  Maybe it was only years later that they understood what else they had seen: that for the servant of God, there is no real rest on this earth.  The servant of God continuously prays and worships, and is alert for opportunities to spread the Gospel.  This servant is never “off the clock” until the Lord tells him to come on home.  We do not see the Apostles grumbling, nor do we hear the Lord making excuses.  They pick up their burden of ministry and carry on.

Saturday in the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time, February 7, 2026

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 Jesus 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.

We are not told how long the Evangelists spent on their mission to the cities of the Jews.  We ought probably to think in terms of weeks and months rather than of days.  We are also not told the names of any of the towns and villages they visited.  While they were about the tasks the Lord had set them, the Lord himself seems to have stayed in the area from which he had sent them forth and to have continued preaching there.  This is indicated by the placing of the story of the death of John the Baptist directly after the Apostles departed.  We can gather from the first verse of today’s Gospel reading that they found success in their work: “The Apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught.”  It is worth noting that the Apostles reported back to their Master.  They had gone out not of their own accord but for his sake, and they did the things he told them to do.  Having done that, they dutifully returned and reported on the results of their work.  They provide a good example for us, that at the end of some work we do for Christ, or even at the end of each day, we ought to “report” to him in prayer.  He knows all that we have done and experienced, but he wants us to tell him about it anyway.  There is intimacy in the telling and the hearing, and we are reminded in the telling that without him we can do nothing.  

Jesus responds to them by telling them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”  His words must have surprised them, for we find nowhere else in the Gospels that he paused anywhere long enough to rest.  And when he does sleep, it is in the back of a boat that is filling up with storm water.  But now, with an eye to restore his tired envoys, he speaks to them of rest.  As an aside, it would be interesting to know what the Apostles thought on the occasion when the Lord said to the crowd, “Come to me and I will give you rest.”  Certainly, they had gone to him and had worked relentlessly ever since.  

It would seem, though, that speaking to them of rest, he was teaching them a lesson, for he knew that more work lay ahead.  They do go off to a deserted place, but the place is alive with crowds when they arrived there in their boat, for many people “hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them.”  The point Jesus makes in this is that for those who would be his disciples, there is no real rest.  Another man might well have grown bitter at the presence of the crowd when he wanted a well-earned rest, but the Lord saw only the need of the people: “When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.”  They came to him to learn the truth about God and how they should live in such a way as to please him and attain everlasting life.  The Pharisees were not providing this, and John the Baptist was dead.  Their leaders in Jerusalem despised them, saying, “This multitude, that does not know the Law, are accursed” (John 7, 49).  And so the people, desirous of the word of God, flock to Jesus.  As Peter would later say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6, 69). 

“He began to teach them many things.”  It is not only in the Passion that we see the Lord laying down his life for his sheep, but on every page of the Gospels.  The Prophets of old tended to stay in one place, mostly in and around Jerusalem.  The Lord races around almost frantically, preaching and healing, his mind always directed to the salvation of the world.  We ought to think of his desperation to save us, and respond to him in kind.