A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Lord Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, spending the entire night alone in communion with God. At daybreak, he called his disciples and selected 12 of them to be his apostles. Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, and Andrew, his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James, son of Alpheus, and Simon, called the zealot, Judas, son of James, and finally Judas Iscariot, who turned traitor. One out of 12.
Coming down the mountain with them, Jesus stopped at a level stretch where there were many of his disciples. A large crowd of people was with them from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. Notice the geography there. People who came to hear Jesus and to be healed of their diseases. Those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.
Indeed, the whole crowd was trying to touch Jesus because power went out from him which cured them all. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. There's a noteworthy sentence in today's reading.
That's the very first sentence. That Jesus alone went up into the mountain and spent the entire night in communion with God. Then the next morning at daybreak, he took off. He went into action. Action.
He chose his special 12, the apostles, and then he continued early in the morning to meet the crowd, to put himself at their disposal. The single point I want to make is this. But to go back a bit, our blessed Lord before he initiated his public life spent forty days in the desert alone, alone. And in every instance in the New Testament where Christ was on the eve of a very important decision of his life, he drew apart to be alone in communion with his father, God almighty. My point is this, that we stand alone before God.
When you hunger and thirst after justice, they are appetites which you feel personally. Personally. We hear so much today about community, about doing things together, about society, and all of this, that we forget some very basic truths. That such words as community, society, group, collectivity, these are all abstractions. And the only reality you're dealing with is the reality of the individual human beings.
We can do many things, if not most things, better when we do them with our fellow human beings. But in the last analysis, nobody can pray for me. I have to do my own praying. And let me tell you, when I come to suffer, I do the suffering. When Jesus Christ was in the Garden Of Gethsemane, when he saw what was with perfect vividness what was going to happen to him, He begged his father to be spirit of it.
There wasn't another soul around him. He was alone, bent to the ground sweating blood. Keep in mind when in the mass, when we say he chose it freely, it doesn't say without difficulty. Keep that in mind. Christ sweated blood when he said, thy will be done.
And that is an utterance I have to make for myself. I can't make that for any of you. You can't make it for me. Whether we stand in a collectivity all in a little circle circle holding hands or arms or whatever, nobody can make that for me. Being there with other people may help me to make it, but they can't make it for me.
And in plenty of instances of life, I stand alone, believe me. I stand alone, and so do each of you in many instances of life. It isn't that you're actually alone. No. Christ communed with his father.
He wasn't alone. He was with his with his father, God almighty. I'm not alone. That priest who gave his life on a spontaneous spur of the moment, and took the place of a man who was to be executed in the concentration camp, took his place and died of starvation. You think he wasn't alone down in that cell?
There was nobody there to help him hold up his arms, nobody except God. And that's worth thinking about. It doesn't say that Christ was alone on the mountain in the sense in which he was absolutely alone. It says he was alone on the mountain communing with his father, with God almighty. How can you be truly alone if you're with God?
How can you be most truly in the best of company when you're with God? But the point I want to make is, and I think it's a terribly serious point, that we do feel alone. It's a horrible feeling in many instances. And we know that there's so many instances in life that nobody can touch me, no human being, no other human being. They may express themselves as best they can to show that they're with me, they're supporting me, and all that.
And then don't minimize this. This is frightfully important. We're social beings. But in the last analyses, I stand alone. I make the decision, because if I don't it's not mine.
And I'm an autonomous, as our holy father often says, irreplaceable human being. That is the essential worth of a human being. Our blessed Lord our blessed Lord gave us the prime example, a a most stimulating example of how we should worship God. He went into the synagogue. He went up into Jerusalem.
Most faithfully, he went to Jerusalem even at the cost of his life. Remember that. His disciples begged him not to go, but it was the feast. Christ went to Jerusalem. You cannot accuse Christ of downplaying what we call social worship, community worship, being together with one another worshiping God.
Christ did it in every way, in every way. His last night on earth was spent with his associates, with his companions. But remember, when the last supper was over, he went alone to Gethsemane. He was alone in Gethsemane, and his disciples were asleep. He alone was before his god, begging his father to be spared of what he saw he had to face.
But the last word was not my will, but thine be done. Muggeridge says they are the most difficult words in any language that we face up and we're alone before God to say, Thy will be done. It is fantastic. But the point is this, while I insist that we have to face up to this reality of making our own decision, of being in our own Gethsemane, there was no his disciples had let he had left his disciples behind or his apostles. And Christ went alone to pray, and his sweat became as blood.
We all have it. We face that more or less sooner or later in one way or another. We can't escape it. No matter how close and loving ties we have with other human beings. They are wonderful.
We need them, and we thank God for them. We should encourage it. But in the last analysis, before God, I'm in my own Gethsemane. I make the decision to pick up the cross. I make the decision to follow Jesus Christ.
And in the last analysis, I have to say, not my will, but thine be done. In the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.