Dead & Busy

We are in the Season of the Apostles. And if there is one thing we can say about the apostles with absolute certainty — it is that they were busy. They walked from village to village. They preached. They healed. They argued with Pharisees. They organized crowds of thousands. They buried their dead, baptized the living, and barely had time to eat. Saint Mark tells us once that they could not even find a moment for bread.

"Come apart into a desert place, and rest a little." For there were many coming and going: and they had not so much as time to eat.

So you would think — if anyone had an excuse to skip prayer, it was the apostles. They were doing the Lord's work. They were on fire. They were moving.

And yet — what do we see them do, again and again? They stop. They withdraw. They pray. Because they learned it from the Master Himself.  Thirty years of silence in Nazareth before three years of preaching. Forty days in the desert before one sermon. The Lord of the universe — the One who had the most important work in the history of the world to do — spent the overwhelming majority of His life in prayer.He retired into the desert and prayed. He passed the whole night in the prayer of God.

Why?

Because Jesus is teaching us something that we, in 2026, desperately need to hear: we do not do more for God when we are busy. We do more for God when we are praying.

Let that sit for a moment. Because I know what some of you are thinking.  Yes. Of course. But listen carefully to what the Lord says to Martha — that good, generous, hardworking woman who was doing real work for Jesus in her own home: Father, that sounds nice, but somebody has to do the work. Somebody has to cook the meals, run the ministries, drive the kids, pay the bills, answer the emails.

"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the better part, which shall not be taken away from her."

Three words. Notice them. Careful. Troubled. Many things.

 Careful — her mind is full of worries.

Troubled — her heart is stirred up, her emotions divided.

 Many things — her energy and her action are scattered in every direction.

This is the spiritual disease of our parish. Of our families. Of me, your priest. It is the sin of busyness. And the devil loves it. Because the devil does not need to make you commit a mortal sin tonight to lose you. He only needs to make you so busy — even with good things, even with church things — that you believe sitting quietly before the Lord is a waste of time

[PAUSE — personal reflection]

These past few weeks have been overwhelmingly busy, I’m not complaining. When somethings gets done, something else needs attention and work. But I feel alive. It’s a sign that the parish is alive. It’s beautiful. However, there’s been the temptation that I am doing more for the church in that than in moments of prayer.

Now look at today's Gospel. Luke chapter 10. A man is going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he falls among robbers. He is stripped, beaten, and left half-dead on the side of the road.

And who passes by? A priest. A Levite. Religious men. Busy men. Men on their way to do something important. And the Gospel tells us they saw him — and they passed by on the other side

I have always been struck by that. They didn't refuse to help out of cruelty. They refused because they had somewhere to be. They had a schedule. They had duties. They had religious work to do. And the half-dead man on the road was an interruption to their busyness.

Brothers and sisters — prayer is the half-dead man on the side of our road.

Prayer is the interruption God places in your day that your busyness tells you to walk past.  I'll pray later. I'll come to adoration next week. I'll do my morning prayers when things calm down. And we cross to the other side. And we keep walking. And we tell ourselves we are doing God's work.

But the Samaritan stopped. He let the wounded man interrupt him. He poured in oil and wine. He bound up the wounds. He stayed.

That is what prayer asks of you. To stop. To let God interrupt you. To let Him pour oil and wine into your wounds — because you are more half-dead than you realize when you have not prayed in a week.

Listen to what a great spiritual master, Dom Chautard, says — and I am paraphrasing him for you:

"Hands uplifted in prayer rout more battalions than hands that strike. Those who pray do more for the world than those who fight. And if the world is going from bad to worse, it is because there are more battles than prayers."

Think of that. More battles than prayers. Is that not the story of our homes? Of our parish meetings? Of our marriages? Of our own restless hearts? We fight. We strategize. We argue. We problem-solve. We exhaust ourselves. And we wonder why nothing changes.

Saint Teresa of Ávila, in one burning prayer, converted ten thousand souls.  Ten thousand. She never left her cloister. She never preached a sermon. She never ran a program. She prayed. And the Holy Spirit did in one hour what an army of busy people could not do in a year.

So here is what I am asking you this week. One thing.

Before you do the many things — do the one thing.

Before you answer the email, sit five minutes with the Lord.

Before you run out the door, kneel by the bed.

Before the noise of the day swallows you, open the Gospel for two minutes.

Because the apostles were busy. Busier than you. Busier than me. And the busier they got, the more they prayed — not less. They knew the secret. They knew that the soul that prays is the soul that bears fruit. And the soul that only runs… eventually collapses on the side of the road, half-dead, hoping somebody will stop.

Be the Samaritan to your own soul this week. Let prayer interrupt you.

Because Mary has chosen the better part. And it will not be taken away from her. Amen.