The Humble Take Vacations
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Family on Sunday, August 10, 2008 2:30 PM
I love Danielle’s post below about letting go of guilt, and thought you might enjoy Cardinal Ratzinger’s take (scroll to post 14560) on the question of doing it all or feeling guilty if you don’t. This is from his essay, Encountering God While On Holiday, in unofficial translation:
When the apostles came back from the first mission to which Jesus had sent them, they were all in the grip of what they had experienced and achieved. They could not tire of endlessly recounting their own successes, and in fact, they kindled such enthusiasm around them that they ended up having no time even to eat, for all the people who came and went without interruption. Perhaps they expected to be praised for their zeal, but instead, Jesus invites them to come with him to a lonely place where they can be alone and where they can rest. I think it is good to see, once and for all, in an episode like this, the humanity of Jesus, who was not always offering words of extraordinary significance, nor trying to deal uninterruptedly with everything and everyone that demanded something of him.
In fact I like to imagine what Jesus’s expression must have been when he invited his apostles to take a break. Jesus makes them come down to earth by telling them “All right now, unwind, relax!” One can sense the discreet sense of humor and the friendly irony with which he gets them to put their feet on the ground!
And it is this humanity of Jesus that makes visible what is divine in him, which makes him manifest to us as God. Frenzy of any kind - even if it is ‘religious’ zeal and frenzy - is totally alien to the man of the New Testament. Think about it: Every time that we believe we are absolutely indispensable, every time we think that the world and the Church depend on our tireless activity, we over-value ourselves.
We easily apply such advice to workaholics at the office or people who seem to over-volunteer, but doesn’t it apply equally to stay-at-home moms and their children? Of course, it’s possible to err in the other direction, but in general all of us need to find time for silence, prayer and interior life—without apology. The future pope continues:
It is not that I wish to sing the praises of laziness, but I do wish to suggest a certain change in the table of virtues as it has evolved in the Western world, for which only action counts as a legitimate and conceivable activity - whereas meditation, wonder, self-communion and silence are seen to be indefensible and worthless, or at the very least, ‘activities’ that need to be justified.
Sometimes the first people we need to justify these things to are ourselves!
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