Rest: A time to be tranquil, to relax and reflect

After all the bustle of the readings last week, our readings this weekend encourage us to take time to pray, to reflect and to rest. In the First Reading (Jeremiah 23:1-6), we read of how God will shepherd his flock. Of course, many see this passage as a prophecy about Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and about the need for good “shepherds” to continue the mission and ministry of Jesus. However, to do all this and to avoid leading people astray, or of not caring properly for others, also needs prayer, focus, reflection and strength.

This is taken up in our well-known psalm (Psalm 23). We often associate this psalm with funerals, especially the lines about walking through the dark valley, or of being led to restful waters. This is certainly the case, but the psalm is also referring to our life here and now. If we take each line, we can see how this is so true. The Lord is our shepherd, he leads us to restful waters (for example, in prayer), he gives us courage in times of difficulty and he feeds us (especially in the Eucharist). In other words, the Lord offers us a crucial gift: a tranquility of spirit. We could therefore echo the words of St. Paul in our Second Reading (Ephesians 2:13-18): Christ Jesus is indeed our peace!

All this leads us to our Gospel this week. It could be called a “summertime” Gospel, in that Jesus and the disciples go away to a deserted place to rest: what we might call a brief vacation! Why did they do this? Well, last week we heard how the disciples had been sent to preach the good news of repentance and to heal the sick. This week we are told how they had returned full of excitement at all that had happened; but presumably, they were also exhausted. Perhaps Jesus wanted them to get away, yes to rest and to recuperate, but also to have some very necessary time to take stock of all that they had experienced and to absorb all of this. If they did not do this, their first real experience of being missionaries of Jesus would be just that: a raw and undigested experience that would remain at a surface level. Lots of doing, but no real reflecting, or thinking, or being! This, of course, is also true for us in our often busy and hectic lives.

We can think of it this way. Doctors tell us that rest is very necessary for our physical well-being, not least so that the human brain can process all that has happened to us during the day. In a similar vein, most of us try to have at least one day off each week, as well as some vacation time. We do this so that we can recharge our batteries and, perhaps, so as to take in properly things that have happened to us, or maybe to plan for the future. There is also that very human and very important need just to be able to stop and to savor life, rather than it rushing past us “untasted” all the time. (My spiritual director, when I was first ordained, used to joke that one must take a day off. “After all,” he would say, “even God rested on the seventh day and remember … you are not God!”).

Taking this in a more spiritual sense, we also need a time of rest and reflection for our soul and spirit to process all that happens in our lives and to deepen and grow. In fact, we call this prayer! We absolutely need to stop and place ourselves in the presence of the Lord and let the gifts of the Holy Spirit — such as wisdom, understanding or awe — to work in us. If we do not make time for this to happen, then it would be very hard indeed for us to make any spiritual progress.

Doctors also tell us that we need an average of eight hours of sleep a day. So, how much spiritual rest time and reflection time do we need each day? That is hard to say, but dare I suggest at least 10-15 minutes could work wonders. To leave a rather tongue-in-cheek last word on this with a very, very busy bishop, St. Francis de Sales: “half an hour’s meditation each day is essential, except when you are busy. Then a full hour is needed!”