In order to be compassionate and best respond to the needs of others, one must take time to relax and not be anxious about getting things done, Pope Francis said. Source: CNS.
It is also a “social injustice” when working parents hardly see their children because of long hours away from home, he said, before praying the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday.
“In families, fathers and mothers should have time to share with their children, to let love grow within their family and in order not to fall into the dictatorship of doing,” Pope Francis said.
The Pope reflected on the day’s Gospel reading from St Mark (6:30-34) about Jesus telling the apostles to rest after their return from their mission of preaching and healing.
However, when Jesus saw the vast crowd that had gathered, “his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things,” the verse says.
“On the one hand, there is an invitation to rest, and on the other, Jesus’ compassion for the crowd.” Resting and being compassionate “may seem like two incompatible things, while they actually go together.”
“Only if we learn how to rest can we have compassion. Indeed, it is only possible to have a compassionate gaze, which knows how to respond to the needs of others, if our heart is not consumed by the anxiety of doing, if we know how to stop and how to receive the grace of God, in the silence of adoration,” he said.
There is a danger that “can threaten us when, for instance, our enthusiasm in carrying out our mission or our work, as well as the roles and tasks entrusted to us, make us fall victim to a kind of activism which is overly concerned with things to do and with results, and this is a bad thing,” he said.
“It then happens that we become agitated and lose sight of what is essential. We risk exhausting our energies and falling into bodily and spiritual fatigue,” the Pope said.
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Pope warns against falling victim to hectic ‘dictatorship of doing’ (By Carol Glatz, CNS via OSV News)
