February 8, 2020 11am

Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center

Jesus says to the apostles: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”

Jesus knows that he and the apostles need to take a break.

They need some time to eat, to sleep, and even to get refocused.

They needed some space away from it all to recall what they were really doing and what they were all about.

But, almost as soon as they got to the place where Jesus thought they could do this, a whole group of people showed up.

They wanted attention, some words of wisdom, even some healing.

And Jesus responds and gives his time to them.

I have to imagine that the apostles did the same thing.

I bet lots of us have had experiences like this:

really needing some time to ourselves but having a tough time getting it.

There’s always more to do or someone who needs us.

Getting this personal time – this can be difficult.

I don’t have an easy answer for this.

I think we need to live the best we can with this tension.

But, I do have three quick pieces of advice that may help us.

First, make sure that we ourselves really want the space and time for ourselves.

Make sure we keep looking for it.

Second, make sure that we are not compulsively inventing one thing after another to do.

Or that we are not always saying “Yes” just to please the other person.

And third, make sure that the incursions to our alone time are real needs of others.

Make sure that it is responding to others with real needs that leads us to shorten or sometimes go without this time to self, as Jesus does today.

It’s a tension we have to live with.