It is rather beautiful to notice that Jesus cares about His disciples’ fatigue:
“He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.”
We all can experience fatigue. Being a mother or father can be exhausting. One can feel weary even when passionately following your dreams. Doing good works can be tiring. What is striking is that Jesus cares about us, and not about our achievements – even if they are great.
After all, the spiritual life is not just another thing one does. It is a gift, an opportunity He gives us to breathe again, to recover, to regain the right motivation, and our love for the things we do.
When we are tired and exhausted by life, we carry within us a chaos that needs to find its meaning again. The crowd resembles this chaos:
“As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.”
When we pray, we allow Jesus to speak to the crowd inhabiting us, and to show us the meaning that we cannot find on our own.
We need to give Jesus the opportunity to deal with us – to give our spiritual life its proper place.
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Father Luigi Maria Epicoco is a priest of the Aquila Diocese and teaches Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University and at the ISSR ‘Fides et ratio,’ Aquila. He dedicates himself to preaching, especially for the formation of laity and religious, giving conferences, retreats and days of recollection. He has authored numerous books and articles. Since 2021, he has served as the Ecclesiastical Assistant in the Vatican Dicastery for Communication and columnist for the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
