All Souls Saturday; Our Venerable Father and Confessor Basil, ascetical companion of Procopius.
Day 13 of the Great Fast.
Hebrews 3:12-16; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17; Mark 1:35-44; John 5:24-30.
Read Mark 1:35-44
Notice that the Lord before daybreak withdraws from the usual routine and demands of life to pray. Jesus withdraws into solitude to pray, not because He lacks communion with the Father and the Spirit, but to reveal the primacy of prayer: “in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed.” (Mark 1:35). Jesus’ communion with the Father takes priority and is that which orders and directs His mission; in other words, prayer and contemplation order action.
St. Bede says, “he prays alone, because He who came to teach us to pray needed not the help of another; but He wished to show us that we must seek a time and place for prayer” (St. Bede, Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, on 1:35). Jesus as the Teacher of prayer shows us that if he spends time in solitude with the Father, we certainly cannot go without.
St. Gregory the Great also stresses that, “the Lord, by praying in solitude, teaches us what we ought to do; for He who could not be increased by prayer, prayed that He might instruct us how to pray.” (Homilies on the Gospels, Homily 16). Jesus had continual communion with the Father and the Spirit, and yet he takes the time to remove himself from the busyness of life. The lonely place is that which cuts out distractions and reorients us toward our utter dependence on our Creator.
As we continue walking the road of the Lenten Season, we are reminded to not only make this tithe of the year, 40 days, an intentional time of solitude, but to bring this principle into our daily habit. On a daily basis, we ought to try to find ways to retreat from the distractions of the world and run to the arms of our Heavenly Father. Withdrawal to the lonely place forms the heart and makes it capable of returning to the world, which can sometimes seem unclean, not for the sake of judgment, but to order our actions and to bring the love and healing of God where it is desperately needed.