"Rising early the next morning, Jesus went off to a lonely place in the desert; there He was absorbed in prayer." And he needed it. Mark, who spends most of the first chapter of his gospel describing a typical "day in the life" of Christ, is quick to note that Jesus followed intense bouts of pastoral work with silence, solitude and prayer.

One modern sage has observed, "In our age, the Devil wears five faces: Noise, Crowds, Hurry, Anxiety and Sensuality." All too frequently, these are the false "gods" that populate and dominate our days, attempting to eclipse the one God above us and to smother our awareness of the Indwelling Presence of the Trinity within us. Our lives are punctuated by a series of furious commutes. Like rodents on wildly spinning wheels we react to our surroundings by injecting speed into the equation of our daily duties. Computers, pagers, telephone, televisions and radios — misbegotten instruments effectively manipulated by orchestrators of the Symphony of Distraction — clamor for our immediate attention. All too often we find ourselves reduced to ciphers or catalysts at the center of "important" and "necessary" whirlpools of deals, mergers and events. We lose sight of who and what we are—creatures formed in the image and likeness of God, whose Light, Love and Life we are called to share, not only in Heaven, but now.

Jesus knew how to find peace in the midst of extraordinary activity. Enjoying communion with His Father, in Their Spirit, the Son of God recognized the absolute necessity of solitude and prayer. The gospels frequently refer to Christ’s efforts to escape from the "maddening crowd." With recourse to desert and mountain, brook and garden, Jesus insisted on "quiet time" with his Father. It was certainly no coincidence that He chose fishermen as His followers, remaining for so much of His public life within ready reach of one of their boats and an easy retreat to the Sea of Galilee.

If Jesus Christ, God and Man, needed time of quiet and prayer to complete His mission, how much more do we? We may not have quick access to the deserts of Judea or the hills of Galilee, but in quiet pockets of time and space God can be found, if we bother to look for Him. A short stop in at the local Catholic Church to pray before the Blessed Sacrament, a 15 minute walk in the brisk winter air, reading a few verses of the Bible in a quiet corner of our room with the door closed behind us — these "retreats: to pause and catch our breath, to consider God above and within, can help us to keep our bearings in a world which seeks to inundate us with triviality. Instead of bowing in worship before the Five-Faced Demon, we should seek refreshment it the brief isles of silence and solitude, peace and prayer that we pass by each day.

Cemeteries are filled with "indispensable people." We need to admit that the world can survive without constantly claiming our undivided attention, and that we, like Jesus, must attempt the "great escape," seeking our Father in the "lonely places" away from the affairs of men. Perhaps, humbled by our own need for quiet and space, we mighty come to realize that God speaks to us constantly in the silence of our souls, and that those who would hear Him must first learn to listen.