“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 people coming in search of our Lord today were probably not primarily interested in learning. Most likely, they are sick and hungry. They have heard about the miracles worked by this incredible man and the twelve others He sent out with authority over unclean spirits. They are not looking to be taught – they are looking to be healed, to have their physical needs met.

          Christ sees their great needs, and He is moved with pity at the sight of this vast crowd – the original Greek for “pity” meaning a deeply felt, gut reaction. Yet St. Mark tells us that our Lord is moved by that deeply felt, gut reaction “to teach them many things.” Shortly, He will also multiply loaves and fishes to feed the five thousand men plus women and children, and in St. Matthew’s version of the same events, He begins by healing the infirmities of the crowd. But here, St. Mark emphasizes that Christ begins by teaching the crowd.

          The Apostles too, when sent out with authority over unclean spirits – authority to heal and to cast out demons – come back telling the Lord about “all they had done and taught.” While St. Matthew’s Gospel will conclude at our Lord’s Ascension with the great commission to teach all nations what Christ has taught them, there was nothing in the first sending of the twelve that we heard in the Gospel last Sunday about teaching. But yet, either by an instruction not recorded in the Gospels, or because they intuit the need based on our Lord’s own example, or because it was so obvious that it did not need to be said, the Apostles not only work miracles, but they teach. They recognize that people have a deeper, unknown need to learn about the saving work of God.

          Why would the Apostles and the Lord proceed in this way? Is it not cruel to ignore the obvious physical needs of the crowd, the reason they have come seeking Him, and to teach them a lesson instead? Christ and His Apostles place such an important emphasis on teaching because knowledge of the most important things, the things they desire to teach, is liberating. Christ and His Apostles see that what truly afflicts the crowds who come to seek Him is not just physical hunger, illness and disease, or even demonic possession. Their real affliction, is sin. It is sin that holds their hearts bound, it is sin that is the illness from which they truly cannot recover.

          To free the crowds from the powers of sin, it is necessary to teach them. They need to learn about the source of their true malady so that they can combat it. Maybe you have had the experience of learning that something that you did not know was a sin, actually is. At first, that’s tough, and you probably resist that knowledge, seeking to justify yourself – “They don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ve been Catholic my whole life, and I’ve never heard that before.” But then, as it sinks in, and you realize that you need to do the hard work of repenting and correcting the bad habits that have set in, you have the chance to grow in real freedom – the ability to do not whatever you choose, but the ability to do the good, in which real freedom consists. This kind of teaching, then, liberates people from their captivity to evil, helping them to recognize the ways that they are stuck in sin and need to escape.

          After the Apostles’ exhausting work, the Lord invites them to, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” When we hear those words, we usually think primarily of prayer, of coming to Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, going on a retreat, or just finding a quiet moment in a busy day to recognize the Lord’s presence and rest with Him. But this time away with the Lord is a lot bigger than that, and using our minds to grow in knowledge of Him is an important part of responding to that invitation. After all, you cannot love that which, or He whom, you do not know. Before being nourished physically by the multiplying of the loaves and fishes, He gives them a banquet of wisdom.

          Likewise, Christ invites you to come away to be with Him in the experience of prayer, and also by growing in knowledge of Him. Both are inseparable, because prayer motivates us to seek not only intellectual satisfaction, but an encounter with a Person through sacred study. Growing in knowledge of God and the things of God deepens our encounter with the Lord in prayer by making us more aware of all that God is doing, and purifies our tendency to see prayer as a primarily emotive experience – a search for good feelings or emotional highs.

          This is why, in imitation of the ministry of our Lord and His Apostles, one of my most important responsibilities as your pastor is to teach you, the sheep of this portion of the Lord’s flock. I am not here to entertain you or make you feel better about yourself. My job is to teach, in imitation of the Lord’s own teaching, opening up the deeper mysteries of God and the teachings of Christ’s Church, unfolding the demands of the Gospel for authentic Christian living – exposing the manifestations of the vices that keep us trapped in sin, and the virtues in which we can grow to have that authentic freedom – the ability to do the truly good.

          If teaching is an essential part of Christ’s ministry, then an essential virtue for His disciples is docility. Being truly docile is not about being a pushover and letting others boss you around. It is not even primarily about letting others take the lead or call the shots. True docility is “teachability,” coming from the Latin “docere” – to teach.

          With any virtue, there are always two ways to grow in that virtue. First, there is the infused virtue, which comes directly from God. To gain an infused virtue, we simply need to ask: “God, make me more docile.” We can offer specific prayers or works of penance as a part of this supplication.

          However, because grace builds on nature, and because God usually wants us to do the hard work of building up natural virtue, we also need to grow in the acquired virtues, which comes about by performing acts of the virtue. In this case, you are not likely to allow the Lord to teach you if you do not have a general habit of being a teachable person. You are not likely to have an attitude of docility towards God if you do not have an attitude of docility towards anyone else.

          Virtue consists in a moderation of the appetites. Virtuous docility moderates our desire to know things, as well as the pride that resists being taught. Each virtue is balanced between vices of defect (not enough of the virtue) and vices of excess (too much of the virtue). Too much docility is laziness. It is the person who is too easily swayed by the first argument he or she hears, or who has a false conception of an open mind. “The mind that is forever open, forever fearful of losing its freedom, forever indocile to truth, is entirely useless. Such a mind is really indistinguishable from no mind at all.” Or, as G.K. Chesterton responded to the famous atheist H.G. Wells’s conception of the open mind: “[Wells] thought that the object of opening the mind is simply opening the mind. Whereas I am incurably convinced that the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”

          This excess of docility is typically the vice of the young, who often are easily led astray by bad arguments and emotional appeals. The old tend to fall more into the vice of defect of docility (not being teachable enough): the vice of pride. And while being too docile is a problem, being proud is even worse.

          If you are a proud person like me, young or old you will have to work particularly hard at becoming more docile. You can do so by allowing other people to show you how to do mundane tasks, even though you already know a better way to do them. You can ask for help when you would prefer to figure it out on your own. And while you can grow in humility by being willing to watch a video on YouTube about how to do whatever task you are trying to accomplish, you will grow much more in true teachability by learning from a real person, by having to admit to a flesh and blood human being that you do not know what you are doing, and that you need help.

          Becoming truly docile – truly teachable – both by begging God in prayer for the infused virtue of docility, and by practicing the acquired virtue of docility by seeking out opportunities to learn is essential to being willing to learn from the Lord. Like the crowds in the Gospel, we also come to the Lord with our own ideas of what we need. But He knows what truly ails us, and before anything else, moved with pity, He wants to teach.

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

XVI Sunday through the Year, A.D. MMXXIV

More on the Christian virtue of docility: https://catholicexchange.com/the-virtue-of-docility/