Weekly HOMILY for July 31, 2011: Disconnecting in Order to Connect

18th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle A
Terranuova Hermitage
July 31, 2011

Disconnecting in Order to Connect
By (Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato


BEING CONNECTED

It a little over two years ago, that I got a new cell phone – a Verizon Droid.

My Droid keeps me connected with all the parishes I help out in and with the places I am offering retreats. I can place and respond to calls quickly.

As you know I can send and receive text messages and emails. I can get on the Internet, do a Google search for a restaurant, or get directions to your home on the GPS.

Many of you have phones like this and you know exactly what I am talking about. There’s no question about it, there’s a real advantage in being connected like this.


JESUS DISCONNECTS TO CONNECT

On the other hand, one of today’s spiritual writers, a Jesuit priest named James Martin, speaks of the importance of disconnecting.

Martin says that we need to disconnect in order to connect. And isn’t that exactly what Jesus does in today’s Gospel?

Jesus’ spirits are low because he has just heard of the death of his cousin John the Baptist. The passage says that “he withdrew to a deserted place by himself.”

So Jesus disconnects – from his ministry and teaching, from his apostles and everyone. Why does he do this?

I’d suggest that he disconnects in order to connect. He needs to connect with his inner self, with his feelings, his sense of mission, and with the Father.

And what happens is that by his disconnecting, Jesus gets the energy to connect again with others. The passage says that a lot of people show up and we see that he is now able to respond to them.

And then his disconnecting also enables him to connect again with his disciples. They want to send the people away.

But Jesus is again able to draw the best out of them. He moves them to utilize their own resources and take care of the people themselves.

So, Jesus disconnects in order to connect. His connecting with himself and the Father empowers him to connect again with others in a life-giving and positive way.


WE DISCONNECT TO CONNECT

It is easy to say that we also need to disconnect in order to connect, but it is not always easy to do this.

I imagine this is especially challenging for parents with young children or for any adults with long commutes to work and lots of responsibilities. But I want to hold out for this: that we do need some time, if it is only five minutes a day, to turn off the cell phones and be alone with ourselves and with God.

We need this time to disconnect – maybe alone in your bedroom, in your car, taking a walk, or in any quiet place we can find. This disconnecting helps to connect again with our inner self, with what is going on in our lives, with God, and with what God is moving us to do.

It will help us sort out our stresses and upsets. It will help us connect with our best self and with how Jesus moves us to respond to overload or relationship troubles or whatever is weighing on us.

We are also to do this here at Sunday Mass. It is intentional that we are asked to turn off our cell phones here.

We do this disconnect so as to be able to connect with both God and the larger community. Here the Word of God guides us and the Eucharist nourishes us as a spiritual community.

The Word connects us as a community with our resources and gifts, much as Jesus does with the disciples today. It draws us out of ourselves to connect with the larger community of the Church and society and the entire world.

It awakens us from a narrow sense of self and of God that we will probably have if we were just to pray alone at home. It connects us to a fuller, maybe even more accurate sense of life.

And then the Eucharist connects us to Jesus in a way that nothing else can do. It is Jesus, present here for us, nourishing and strengthening us to act – again like the disciples today.


CONCLUSION

In a nutshell – disconnect to connect.

Easy words to remember, maybe not so easy to do! But, important, very important to first espouse and then put into action!

We need to disconnect as much as Jesus did. The stresses of our lives and the problems confronting our country and our world are not going to subside anytime soon.

To be God’s people in this, we need to disconnect. And we need this to connect in a Christ-like, life-giving, positive way – something our world sorely needs right now.