Gospel Reflection 2020/2021
In our time, we are so accustomed to noise, crowds and entertainment that we are afraid of silence, solitude and being alone. We are always running around like headless chicken – mindless and directionless – always in a rush to do something, go somewhere or meet someone. We just have no time to slow down, to pause, to breathe and to be.
The great Mother Teresa of Calcutta has this to say, “We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.”
Similarly, in the Gospel reading this Sunday, we hear of Jesus going around teaching and preaching, healing the sick, casting out devils and performing miracles. His schedule was so packed that He and His disciples had little time for themselves. Even though His schedule was hectic and everyone was looking for Him, Mark the evangelist notes that ‘long before dawn, Jesus got up and left the house, and went to a lonely place and prayed there’. We can observe that Jesus’ days and His ministry were always punctuated with ‘pauses’ for silence, solitude and prayer.
Ignatian Spirituality calls this ‘Contemplative in Action’. According to Andy Otto from IgnatianSpirituality.com, ‘Contemplative in Action’ invites us to stop, reflect and repeat.
1) Stop: In the midst of the chaotic and hectic schedule, we are invited to stop a while. No matter how busy our schedule is, we need to spend time with God in silence and solitude. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI says, “It is in those moments of quiet solitude that God speaks the loudest.”
2) Reflect: Spending quiet time with God daily and reflecting on our daily experiences help us to delve into their deeper meaning – How have I responded to God today? How have I resisted God today? What is God telling me through my experiences?
3) Repeat: Jesus returned to His busy schedule, and so must we. Silence, solitude and prayer are not means for escapism. Like sun tanning, the more we are exposed to the sun, we become tanner – it is the sun that tans us. When we spend time with the Son, the Son will transform us, slowly but surely. Our silence, solitude and prayer time will refresh, renew, revitalize and reinvigorate us. God will open before us new insights, new horizons, new possibilities and new hopes. With God's grace, we return to our busy schedule, no longer like headless chicken, but with renewed minds and hearts to glorify Him with our lives.
With Jesus as our perfect example, being contemplative in action means that our active life feeds our contemplative life, and our contemplative life nourishes our active life. Let us therefore stop, reflect and repeat – learning from Jesus how to be, how to see, and how to live.
Let our fervent prayer be:
“Lord Jesus Christ, teach us to be contemplative in action: to stop, to reflect and to repeat.”