A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. On one occasion, in a certain town, a man full of leprosy came to Jesus. Seeing Jesus, the man bowed down to the ground and said to Jesus, Lord, if you will to do so, you can cure me. Jesus stretched out his hand to touch the man and then said, I do will it be cured. Immediately, the leprosy left him, and then Jesus instructed the man, tell no man, but go and show yourself to the priest.
Offer for your healing what Moses prescribed. That should be a proof for them. His reputation spread more and more, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be cured of their maladies. Jesus often retired to deserted places and prayed. And this is the gospel of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Notice that last sentence there, that Jesus often retired by himself to a desert place to pray. Now today, and rightly so, we hear a great deal about community effort in in many regards, whether it be welfare, or community uplift, or whatever you have. We we're in a peculiar kind of a situation where on the one hand, is great emphasis upon the social nature of man, and yet, at the same time, we're splintering him, breaking him up.
Well, of course, this is a built in problem. As I've said many times, a human being is a single individual thing, but it's also a social being. And therefore, we have this conflict built right in. And the problem is to give both of these aspects of man's human nature its due regard and responsibility. It's due consideration.
Now you can go through the New Testament and and pick out, without any trouble, how our blessed lord was very faithful to what we call social worship. He went to the synagogues faithfully. He took his he took his part in reading the old testament in the synagogue. He went to Jerusalem for the feasts. He was very careful to abide by the law, to to to at great inconvenience, very likely, to have himself in the midst of the people who are worshiping god in the totality of society.
Now whether that be the society of the family, or all the way up to the society of a nation, or the society of the world, we owe God that kind of worship in our totality. But, there's always a but, you can in all of this, you can overlook the most important factor in it all, and that is that man is an individual being. And our holy father doesn't get tired of saying he is unique and nonrepeatable. None repeatable. There are no two alike.
We are individuals. Now today, there is well, let us say, not of set intent perhaps. I hope so. But there is the emphasis is upon this community business, and we are forgetting that virtue and prayer is are an individual activity. You can talk about the worship of the family.
You can talk about the worship of a community. You can talk about the worship of a nation. But the the at the bottom of it all are individuals, unique individuals, unrepeatable individual men and women. And there is no escaping that. There's no superego.
Our and our blessed lord has given us plenty examples of this. Every time that he faced a serious decision, our blessed lord drew apart to be alone to pray. Every time. Read look it up. It's easy.
Here, we're told that he often often withdrew to be alone in a desert place to pray. Now the one word there I would like to underscore this morning is desert place. Because the the paradox of this problem of prayer is that when we need it most, we feel least like praying. I'm talking from experience. I don't know.
Maybe you you had a very different one. I hope it has been different. When I need it most, it's when I feel bothers from God. I cry out, and all I get is the empty echo of my own voice. I knock on the door.
I batter the door down. I get no reply. I'm in a desert place. This is the hardest thing to get through our heads, that this is normal. Normal.
It's par for the course. How do I know it? Jesus was there first. But you just people overlook this, and we and it's it's so familiar that we just pass over it. It doesn't impress us as it should.
But just think of the Garden Of Gethsemane. That was no desert place, but it was a desert place in the sense that Jesus was alone. He had left his chose three chosen disciples behind. He's all by himself. He's prostrate in prayer before his heavenly father.
And he begs his father to be free to this, and he gets no reply. Now on the cross, here he is giving the ultimate sacrifice, and he quotes from the old testament, my god, my god, why have you abandoned me? They are terrific words that that the son of god himself felt abandoned on the cross. That surely was a desert place. Surely was a desert place.
And all Christ could say is, why have you abandoned me? Now this is this happens to us many many times. When we when we need God most, when we feel that we are at the end of the rope, when we can't go any farther, when there surely isn't any light at the end of the tunnel, and you use any metaphor you want, I pray, and all I do is find myself in a desert place alone. Alone? There's the point.
There is the point. What right have you to assume that? Has God ever told me or assured me that I'm going to get everything I want just as I want it? Of course not. Because the end of the line is not my will, but thine be done.
That's got to be the end of every prayer we ever say. Not my will, but thine be done. And and in these times, we are in a desert place whether we like it or not, for the most part, for the most part. So many of these very hard pressures of life, we do have to face alone. Alone, don't make that mistake.
Our lord cried out, my god, my god, why have you abandoned me? He wasn't abandoned. He knew that, of course. And so it it is with us. Remember, everybody likes the transfiguration.
That it's after our lord was transfigured, the disciples said, oh, let's stay here. Let's build houses here. Let's make this a permanent place. Nobody said that about Calvary. Oh, no.
Nobody said, let's let's build three tents here. Oh, no. It was a place of abandonment. And so this is what we have got to get into our into our thinking about life, that we have to be prepared to be in a desert place alone. But what do we mean by that word alone?
There's the word. Don't get hung up on it. You are not alone. Behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world. You are incorporated by baptism into the very body of Christ.
The son of God became man that man might become God. That's a theme that goes through the whole post Christmas liturgy. Now you'll say, yes, but I I can't even think about that at these moments. And you are right. You can't.
That's the that's the misery of it because you are in misery. You are miserable. And God seems so far away, and you knock, and all you get is the empty echo of your knock. This is part of being a Christian. This is part of being a follower of Christ.
It's so easy to say it in words, but every Christian life lived for Christ will bear its mark. We have got to have been there because to follow Christ means to carry his cross. That's all there is to it. And we may get a lift in carrying that cross once in a while, but for the most part, we do feel alone. That's fine, but don't make the mistake of really thinking you're alone.
Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. The only question is, am I with God? In the name of the father, son, holy spirit. Amen.