Tired

“If I were not tired at this hour of the day, it would be a sign that I hadn't fulfilled my duty.” (Pope Saint John Paul II).

Cardinal McCarrick and Pope Saint John Paul II

Have you ever stopped to wonder how tired Christ must have been when He was living on this earth and especially during His public ministry?

I recently had some surgery.  Because the procedure required me to have a significant time to heal, I found that I was very very tired.  Apparently, as the body heals all of the energy generated by the food and rest that we have is spent internally by the body in healing the organs that were interfered with during surgery.  And there is really nothing to be done when a person is healing, other than rest and give your body time to heal itself.  And that means that sometimes other things take a back-foot.  For example, long walks, strenuous exercise, excessive socialising, stressful work, all of these things become things that have to be negotiated and fitted into other parts of my life while I am recovering.

And while I experienced this terrible tiredness, I also experienced a sort of slowness of wit.  I found it more difficult to concentrate, I could not understand new concepts as easily, and my memory – which has always been quite good – became slower and foggier.  And this was perhaps more confronting than the physical tiredness that I was experiencing…

Now I consider Christ.  Christ is Perfect Man and Perfect God.  And that means that He acted in His capacity as Perfect God in healing the sick while using His Perfect Manhood.  So, if I reason this through, when Christ as healing others, He was using His own power to heal them, just as my energy is being used to heal my own body as I recover from surgery.  And that means that even the very act of healing would have been exhausting – not to the Perfect God (God cannot be exhausted as He is infinite and Perfect) – but to the Perfect Man, who was using His humanity to interact with His creations…

And I know that Christ was tired, because often we are told in the Gospels that Christ retreated to a lonely place to rest and pray – especially after having spent time with the crowds…

“Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. As he went ashore he saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ Jesus said, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ They said to him, ‘We have only five loaves here and two fish.’ And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’” (Matthew 14:13-21).

And I have been thinking about that.  You see, even in His tiredness and exhaustion, Christ was able to think only of others and come out – with compassion and pity – to continue in His ministry.

Pope Saint John Paul II was very similar.  Once, when Blessed Alvaro visited him late a night, he noticed that the Pope was so tired that he was dragging his feet as he walked towards him.  Blessed Alvaro said, “Holy Father, how tired you are!”  The Saint looked at him and replied, “If I were not tired at this hour of the day, it would be a sign that I hadn't fulfilled my duty.”

And today I pray for that Grace, to be able to fulfil my duty – even when I am tired…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.