July 19 - Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: work and prayer

First Reading  Jeremiah 23:1-6
The Lord promises to shepherd his people Israel.

Responsorial Psalm  Psalm 23:1-3,3-4,5,6
The Lord is our shepherd.

Second Reading  Ephesians 2:13-18
Christ has reconciled us with God and united us in peace.

Gospel Reading
Mark 6:30-34

In the Gospel we see those who were “sent” returning, after their success, full of their own importance. Instead of recognizing that their success depended entirely upon the one who “sent” them. They have been caught up in the excitement of their missionary success and they have lost their perspective. So the Lord invites them to a “quiet place” just to “rest” and be him. Behind the quiet place are the words of the Psalm: “he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters; He restores my soul” (Ps 23:1-3). There is a practical message here for each one of us. It is simply this: when heavy burden threatens to crush us, we should do what Jesus did. We should turn to God in prayer. He taught them to do what he did: to balance action and contemplation, to go from contact with people to secret and regenerating dialogue with oneself and with God. This need for times of solitude and listening is posed in a special way to those who proclaim the Gospel and to animators of the Christian community, who must stay constantly in contact with the source of the Word that they must transmit to their brothers.